December 30, 2003
On yer bike
Did Santa get you the scooter you asked for? No? Well, how about this - my site now has a couple of sponsors and guess what? They are flogging scooters! How's that for a coincidence! Just what you wanted, right? Anyway, you'll find the links under the new Sponsors heading over in the right-hand column of my blog (just above my Paypal button). It'd be great if you'd check them out so they keep showing me the money. Me, I could definitely use a scooter--I'm picturing Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday--but I don't think they make any big enough to carry the two of me. Maybe when I regain my svelte (cough cough) figure next year.
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December 29, 2003
Orange crush
Argh. It looks like I can get Prime, NBN and some other as-yet-unidentified commercial channel, but buggered if I can tune the teev to SBS or ABC. Does this mean it's all over between me and Kerry? OK, so I'll admit it was always a little one-sided. But rarely a day went by when I didn't gaze into those baby blues as he made our politicians squirm and sweat. Ah, well. Better to have loved and lost....
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December 28, 2003
Acts of God
I can't get my head around a figure of 40,000 people killed in the Iranian earthquake. And as an atheist it just raises that age-old question: when things like this happen, how do people maintain their faith in God/Allah? He moves in mysterious ways? The work of Satan?
. . .
Acts of stupidity
With the news today that two women were killed in a bushfire which the TV news reported as being deliberately lit, I find my blood boiling again over the concept of firebugs. Now that I'm living in the bush, albeit near the water and thankfully just down the road from the local bushfire brigade, it feels even scarier that some stupid vandal can cause so much terror with just a box of matches. If caught, such people need to be made examples of, and charged with murder and/or attempted murder for the many lives they put at risk. Anyway, found the following on my computer which I had blogged last year (shame about the link decay) in response to last summer's bushfires.
ARSONISTS ARE TERRORISTS
A teenage volunteer firefighter who has admitted lighting bushfires because he was "bored" and in order to get a "buzz" from helping put them out, has been granted bail. This is outrageous. Every summer, Australians who live in the bush or have relatives who do, and lately even those who live inside city limits, have to endure the angst of the constant bushfire threat.
Arsonists are incredibly hard to catch, so when we do catch one, who admits his liability, can we please make an example of him? These sociopaths don't deserve to be treated lightly--not when people die and when hundreds lose their homes every year. The guy needs a jail term; at the very least, take his Nintendo away for a while, get him to visit burns victims. Arson should be regarded as attempted mass murder. I can't get over this quote:
"Nevertheless, members of the Clonbinane [Country Fire Authority] unit, where his parents were also members, had offered him the chance of part-time work if he was freed, the court heard."
Jesus wept.
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December 26, 2003
Unboxing Day
Oh yeah, and I'm blogging again. I moved into my new house on Christmas Eve and have been unpacking and settling in over the past few days. The computer seems to be working fine again now, so I'm happy.
I've really lucked in with the place--it is pretty much exactly what I was looking for and perfect for a writer-in-residence, as well as for the bub. The house itself is a simple brick bungalow, but my favourite part is the big wooden deck out the back, overlooking a small yard complete with cubby house, and then behind that the most magnificent, unobstructed tranquil rainforesty backdrop as far as the eye can see. Exactly the slice of nature I was dreaming of in Sydney!
Half a kilometre down the road there's a lake where we used to play as kids, and if you follow the lake around you get to a surf beach, though unfortunately it's one with strong rips where many a tourist has drowned. There are better beaches a short drive away, but I'll be happy just dip my toes in the water for now anyway.
Thanks to my parents for putting me up for three weeks and to my father for moving my stuff in, in particularly hot and muggy weather too. Never again!
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Just a shot of whiskey away?
Luckily Tim's holidaying somewhere near Bourbon Street because he'll probably want a stiff drink after hearing the news today that President Pervez Musharraf, leader of Pakistan, the world's only Muslim country with nuclear weapons (or, as Tim put it, "al-Qaeda-R-us"), has survived yet another assassination attempt, this time even closer.
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December 20, 2003
Silent night and day
Due to a technical problem in our Brussels office, She Sells Sanctuary is unable to blog at present, but we hope to get back to regular programming very soon. Emails seem to be working again though, and oddly enough nobody seems to have told the spammers. Where I used to get about 30 spams a day, lately things have been desperately quiet. Go figure. Maybe they don't love me no more. Maybe they never did. 'Course, this frees up the old inbox for friendly messages from fellow bloggers, hint hint.
Anyway, from me, have a lovely festive break with your families, whatever religion you are or aren't. Eat, drink and be merry (I guess two out of three ain't bad...I've never in my life wanted a drink more than I have lately...).
PS. I was washing my hair in a bucket outside yesterday (we do have running water but old habits die hard up here and besides, sometimes it's just nice sitting in the sunshine doing it) and didn't notice the redbelly black snake about ten metres away til my dad pointed it out. I was like, is that all it is? I was very disappointed, because I'd been imagining something boa-constrictor sized and this was kind of hose-sized. Call that a snake?
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December 15, 2003
Finally
This is great news to wake up to, though obviously I can't help feeling sorry for the 3,000 Iraqi civilians who were sacrificed on the road to regime change. But still, well done.
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There's no place like home
Today marks the start of my serious search for my own place. It only just occurs to me now that being pregnant doesn't exactly make me the most attractive potential tenant, though I can of course state that I am still employed, just not gainfully. I will have to play it by ear. Maybe I'll have to offer to pay six months' rent in advance.
I hope to find a small place somewhere near(ish) one of the beaches. I've scaled down my expectations of the size of dwelling--though rents are very cheap in comparison with Sydney, I think it'd be more prudent to take a small place for now and live dirt-cheaply for the summer, and maybe relocate to a more comfy house further down the track. We'll see how I go.
Then tomorrow I am off to be booked into the local regional hospital. Well, when I say "local", I mean it's still an hour and a half's drive away--I never thought I'd be hoping for a long labour! At first I was fearful of leaving the brand-spanking new maternity wards of Sydney's RPA. Hey, I'm no Naomi Wolf - I was happy to submit myself to the possibly overmedicalised, high-tech shiny machine environment of a major hospital. My brother, who was a doctor once, also put the fear of regional hospitals into me by telling me that when he was a young new grad, doing part of his internship at this particular regional hospital where I am transferring to, sometimes he was the only doctor on at night--and did I really want some green young doc delivering my baby? However, he also mentioned that in 85% of cases labour is utterly routine and unproblematic. Further, I recall when he used to proudly tell us of the many babies he successfully delivered (including one in the back seat of a Beetle by the side of the road), so how hard can it be? Therefore I'll remain stoic and trust that Mother Nature will take care of me and the kid, no matter who is there to assist things at the pointy-end.
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December 13, 2003
Worshipping Abbott
The Australian's editor-at-large Paul Kelly has a glossy puff piece on Tony Abbott in today's Magazine in addition to a shorter piece on Mark Latham in the Inquirer section of the paper. I've just finished reading the Abbott story (no link) and have to ask, are we talking about same Abbott here? For example: "He presents as a politician of convcition yet a man of humility". Cough, splutter! Humility? This is not a word I would ever have associated with the smarmy, cocksure Abbott.
The first, say, 1000 words of Kelly's piece are nothing but flattery and leave no doubt as to who is Kelly's preferred Howard replacement. Here's a slab:
"[Abbott is] a guileless optimist endlessly enjoying himself...the most likeable hate figure in politics...Raw-boned, stubborn and engaging, Abbott is a lot smarter than he looks. When meeting people, he listens as well as talks...Abbott is a natural meeter and greeter with an easy disposition, open countenance, an educated but traditional Australian voice...Abbott likes nothing more than writing his own speeches and being his own press secretary. He believes in the personal touch, thrIves on the adversarial nature of politics, finds economics a bore, is drawn compulsively to the big questions of life, enjoys scoring off his opponents [well, who doesn't? - Ed] and deconstructs issues to the values and principles that he knows....Spend a day with him and you find the man is a grassroots politician with a naivety and brashness that means he will have a go...Abbott gets things done...He is not afraid to fail...He seems undaunted by setbacks yet is modest about his success...This is a young man (he's 46) who constantly wins the favour of older men."
Like Kelly, I guess. But there's more:
"He has always been smart enough to seek advice, offers respect to his elders, but simultaneously draws attention to himself by being a rough diamond...He is no goody-two-shoes. Abbott makes a virtue of being himself - he likes to be straight, tries to answer the question and doesn't bother with focus groups. It's a trifecta that should be disastrous, but works. He's a values politician with a strong ideology, who presents as a good bloke who just wants to shake hands, slap your back, have a chat about the football and help you out in life."
Sorry, Kelly, I think you've been played like a violin. And how's Abbott's description of Howard's 'two great characteristics' of 'consistency and decency'. Consistency? Two words, Tony: "Never, ever!" Decency? Two more words: "Children overboard!" But here's my favorite line of Kelly's:
"Howard is his model, not just for politics but for life. Tony strives to emulate John. It is part of his Jesus complex."
Barf. Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading Kelly's piece on Latham. More later.
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December 12, 2003
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Hell, is this what the internet is really like for rural and regional Australians? Excruciatingly slow loading times; having to log on five times each time to establish a connection; constant line dropouts...and we're with Optus, not Telstra (gee, those poor suckers must have it even worse). Last night a thunderstorm caused a power surge that nearly fried my computer, and I'm having stacks of problems accessing my emails. Is this the shape of things to come? Lucky I've decided to take a small break from blogging or I could really start getting depressed. Meanwhile Tim's covering everything of interest over at Surfdom, so: "what he said", "ditto", "hear hear", "ditto" and "my sentiments precisely".
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December 11, 2003
Have a read
I'm reading a novel Jozef Imrich lent me some time ago called Haverleigh (Cresscourt Publishing, 1995), by James Williams, who I gather is a buddy of Jozef's. I started it yesterday and as the cover promises, I couldn't put it down. I've been moved to tears a few times already. It kind of reminds me a little of Neville Shute's On the Beach, or even an Australian Gone with the Wind. Great for lazing around under the beach umbrella! Anyway, here's part of the blurb:
Haverleigh is a romantic saga of a community of young people in a south-east Queensland township during and after the Second World War. The story begins in 1940 as Peter, teenage son of saintly Michael Brent, loses his virginity to pretty Ruth Murray and gets to know Jonny Lavers who, dirt poor at his birth, "cried with powerful purpose and charmed those who came to give him ease". It ends with a grand Lavers party to usher in 1973. Between is what artist David Strang calls "the obscenity of war...and the effluent of the affluent society."
Nothing like a cracking sex scene to open a story, either....Anyway, as usual, when I read a book with wonderfully drawn characters I start to feel the urge to write fiction myself, so I think I'll take a short break from blogging (I think I'm going through a blogging-for-the-sake-of-blogging phase anyway; and I'm getting a bit sick of talking about myself and my new bucolic lifestyle) to try to work on some creative writing for a change. So, later, then.
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December 10, 2003
Manolo overboard?
Having surgery to give you toe cleavage? (via Pen-Elayne). About as daft a trend as people spray-painting themselves brown at A$80 a pop (it lasts about a week). Is it just me?
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Boxing Latham
Watching the 7:30 Report segment last night about imagemaking Mark Latham I started wishing I'd gone into advertising and got paid hundreds of thousand dollars a year to push little colored boxes around a boardroom table and discuss what my friends think about various products and come up with witty slogans. And I also thought Kerry O'Brien looked a lot less cross when discussing Latham than he did last week when he was very hot under the collar.
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So far, so good
I've been coming to this neck of the woods since I was five, but rocking up only at the weekends and during school holidays meant we never felt like real local yokels, though we did feel a lot more smugly local than the rich families who would come up from Sydney in summer and stay in their posh holiday houses right on the beachfront and hoon around destroying the sand dunes with their 4WDs (uh, do I detect a bit of class envy here?-Ed).
While we maintained close friendships with our neighbors over the decades, like Jen and her family (and it's a strange feeling that her little brother Tim, who I first met when he was two, now lives a kilometre down the road with his own two toddlers), I always felt like a big city interloper, to be honest. Jen and I used to refer to ourselves as Country Mouse and City Mouse; but she bolted to bohemian Kings Cross as soon as she could, fearing the only possible life up here was as a pregnant checkout chick; I on the other hand always fantasised about 'the simple life' but until now, never had a good enough reason to leave the city behind.
Well, I guess I'll find out how well reality meshes with my fantasies, but so far the signs are positive. For example, having spent only a few days here officially as a local, I have to say the cliche does seem to hold true: smalltown folk are friendlier than city folk. Practically every single stranger I encountered during my travels around the town centre yesterday greeted me with a smile and a lengthy chat (this takes some getting used to). My folks, however, reckon this may have more to do with the fact that people are always very nice to expectant mothers.
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December 08, 2003
Cock a doodle doo
Apart from the red-belly black snake living near the house which my parents refuse to kill. (My dad reassures me that you have up to six hours to get some anti venom before you die.) Apart from the cats wailing all night wanting to be let out to play with the chickens and geese. (Until we build them a little cat-run, they are confined inside, more for the sake of the local wildlife than the geese and chicks, who can certainly look after themselves: my mum recently nearly had her ribs broken when the geese attacked her after she ventured a bit too close to a gosling.) Apart from one of the cats exploring his way up into the roof rafters in the middle of the night and getting stuck. Apart from the three roosters evidently thinking that the crack of dawn occurs at about 3am. Apart from the fact that the sun hasn't shone once since I got here. Apart from living at home again at age 32. Apart from this, I'm loving it.
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December 04, 2003
Masterless and commandless
Oh, man, this is the best feeling....Yesterday was my last day at work. It was sad farewelling my workmates, some who I've worked with for four years or more; and the girls who have been like the little sisters I never had. But, gee it's great no longer having a boss, a supervisor, an HR department. (Theoretically, anyway: I've taken maternity leave so I'm officially still employed. But nobody really expects me back.)
So here I am: Free. OK, I do have a new boss, but he hasn't been born yet...
Anyway, I might not get much blogging in over the next few days, because there's still a fair bit to do before we hit the road on Saturday. I can't wait.
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December 03, 2003
I love free speech
Writer Paul Ford, who you might know from ftrain, has recently set up the online presence for Harpers magazine, where I've just come across this feature (originally published a few months ago so you might have seen it already, but it's a good one): "A history of the Iraq war - told entirely in lies. All text is verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers." As in:
The United States approached its postwar work with a two-part resolve: a commitment to stay and a commitment to leave.
Haha.
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December 02, 2003
I *heart* Latham
I was disappointed when Kim Beazley was wheeled out again last week, because if we were going to go through all this turmoil just to end up with Beazley again, I would rather have let Simon Crean have a chance to prove himself.
So, while I've been slightly fickle about Mark Latham in the past, I'm happy that he's made it to leader of the Labor party, and I reckon he is sure to grow into the role. To me, his perceived weaknesses are his strengths: for a long time now we've needed someone to punch that arrogant John Howard in the nose (figuratively speaking, ok, Mark?), while at the same time showing Labor's heart on the issues that matter most to Australians (ie. health, education, etc). Personally, I like that Latham is a bit rough and unspun, though it looks like he'll be pre-emptively sent off to charm school by his minders--he's already sworn off "crudity", for example.
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Shadow puppetry of the...
Dick (via Drudge).
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November 30, 2003
More soon....trust me
Well, I was going to blog tonight, but unfortunately I'm quite buggered after today's baby shower (really lovely, thanks guys). Have the week from hell coming up with the big move and all, but anyway, back to regular blogging soon i hope. (I did finally get around to fixing my blogroll...does that count?)
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November 26, 2003
If only Brown wasn't Green
Wish he was heading Labor...I reckon he's the closest thing this country has to an Opposition leader--and one of the most courageous and selfless people we have in politics. Anyway, here's his letter to the Australian newspaper today:
"Selling the Styx down the river
Anyone who has seen the carnage in Tasmania's Styx Valley of the Giants, where the world's tallest hardwood forests grow, will know that Susan Brown's assertion (Opinion, 25/11) that the Liberals have become the party of the environment is fatuous.
Prime Minister John Howard signed the death warrant (called the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement) on the Styx Valley in 1997. He has never been to the valley. Now centuries-old eucalypt giants up to 84 metres high (the Opera House is 65 metres high) are being cut down for Japan's paper industry by the woodchipping company in control of the Styx, Gunns Pty Ltd. It is blitzing the rainforest understorey and the habitat of rare and endangered species such as the white goshawk and tiger quoll.
Gunns can do so because the Democrats, then advised by Susan Brown, agreed to an exclusion clause in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (2000) to permit such logging of forests.
So, yesterday, it was left to Greenpeace and the Wilder ness Society to try to do Mr Howard's job of protecting Australia's iconic forests. Their protest high up in the Styx giants marked for logging demonstrate that the Regional Forest Agreement leads to ecologically unsustainable logging and that the act turns a blind eye to Australia's endangered forest species. Mr Howard's claim that he is Greenish is, in the Styx Valley, exposed as a fraud. The protesters, instead of going to jail, deserve Order of Australia medals.
Senator Bob Brown
Australian Greens"
Good on you, Bob.
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November 25, 2003
Too much ain't enough
200 a day? I'll have what she's having.
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Styx in my mind
The Howard Government's embarrassing attempts at retrospective excision of parts of Australia from our 'migration zone' have set a bad example. Now Tasmanian Police are using the retrospective method: Faced with tree-bound activists protesting the logging of old-growth forest in the Styx Valley, the Police have "declared an exclusion zone covering the protest site" to enable them to make arrests. Is it just me, or is it pretty unfair to change the rules once the game is in play?
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November 23, 2003
Open mike: Nothing in particular
This is just a filler post to get the one below off the front page because it's too long and probably too personal. Please talk amongst yourselves. (I'm glued to Michael Jackson's home movies.) Here's a few things that caught my eye lately:
- fredfrese.com (the website of a schizophrenic psychologist);
- What's Costello got to hide? (the Australian);
- guardian.co.uk story on Dr Martin Seligman's positive psychology (mentioned below).
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Fat lady sings the blues
I've been going through a blue streak lately and haven't much felt like writing of any kind. I'm on the threshold of some fairly major changes in my life and although I have engineered it all myself, and am happy with the decisions I've reached, the whole thing has been pretty full-on. So many loose ends to tie up. Doing last things with friends. Training my replacement at work. Packing my house up.
On the other hand I've had that feeling you get when you're getting ready for your first overseas backpacking trip. You've got your new travel gear and guidebooks and your passport and all the money you've saved, more than you've ever had at once before. It's all happening. And you know there's going to be plenty of excitement ahead, along with the inevitable periods of boredom--waiting around in foreign train stations and Bureaus de Change, lying around on beaches when you've run out of good books and there's nothing in the local hostel library except Dean Koontz.
Anyway, it's a similar feeling, only I'm just heading about three and a half hours north to a small seaside town that reminds me of Porpoise Spit (from Muriels' Wedding), and I'm going there to live permanently. Well, for the next little bit anyway.
There's only a week and a half left of work and two weeks left in Sydney. Half my stuff has already made its way up to the bush, where my dad will store it in his new shed. He'll pick up the rest in a few weeks, along with the cats and me. The plan is that we'll stay with the folks for December and as much of January as it takes til I find my own house in the area, so really it will feel like one of those extended summer holidays we had as kids. I'm simultaneously looking forward to it and dreading it, given how long it has been since I lived with my parents for such a long period of time (even on a 'holiday' basis), and given my almost pathological need for independence and headspace. I guess if I start feeling claustrophobic I'll just have to find some somewhere on the 53 acres to be alone...
There's a lot to do in the next few weeks, some of it fun which will take the edge off some of the angst. Farewell lunches and dinners. A baby shower that my sister has insisted on organising. (At first I cringed at the idea, since it feels a bit like you're sticking your hand out and asking for presents, but it seems to be the done thing.) There's still so much to do in preparation for the baby's arrival. Being pregnant is like being back at school; you have homework, you have to take classes, you have regular tests. I'll be glad when it's all over and it's just me and the kid.
And as I contemplate the logistics of my new life, I have to laugh at my critics--the Professor Bunyips of this world who once suggested that I was having a baby in order to fleece the Government. I challenge the Professor to try living off a few hundred bucks a week himself. No, make that, to raise a baby on it. It is near impossible. I seriously doubt anyone with mercenary motives would deliberately become a single mother. The only reason I am able to do this is because I have the support of a great family and am able to save some money by crashing with the folks for a while. There's no way I could afford to stay and do this in Sydney where the rent and cost of living is so ridiculous. It also helps that I'm not a materialist and that I'm a low maintenance chick (I'm much happier barefoot than in heels, for example).
I'll miss this crazy old house, with its colorful rooms (a lolly-pink hallway, lilac kitchen, buttercup bedroom, spearmint bathroom and moss green living room). I've taken some photos in case the little fella ever wants to see where I lived when he was conceived. But maybe I'll get to paint the new place.
Meanwhile, I need to stop organising things and just put on some good music and feel good for a while. Maybe even have a dance--I haven't danced in so long. It seems somehow incongruous for pregnant women to dance, just as it feels incongruous to look and feel sexy. It's just so easy to feel frumpy and as a consequence your self-confidence and libido can completely disintegrate. But the other week I got this sleeveless, figure hugging denim minidress at Vinnies, which makes me feel sexy in a trashy Erin Brockovich, Dixie Chicks kind of way, even with the bump. It's a little bit country, a little bit blues. Now I just need someone to flirt with....
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November 22, 2003
What's the story?
Gulp. I can't believe I'm watching the game.
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November 21, 2003
Emotionally yours
Those of you who like doing psychological tests can do a whole bunch of them online at Dr Martin Seligman's website, authentic happiness. Dr Seligman is renowned for his work on learned helplessness, depression and positive psychology, which is the focus of his site. Find out what your relationship attachment style is, what your signature strengths are, measure your work-life satisfaction and more.
The only quibble with self-report questionnaires is that they sometimes measure your ideal self rather than your actual self--I came away with a list of "signature strengths" that I would probably like to have, or think I have, more than actually have, because it's so hard to be objective about yourself. But still, have a go, and help validate some of the newer measures (the more people use them, the more useful they become). At the very least the tests give you the warm and fuzzies about yourself, even if you might just be delusional...
. . .
Biliousness as usual
Here's our John complaining about protesters again:
The prime minister also said he was struck by the events in Turkey and the massive protests in London against United States President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"They have a right to do so, but I have a right to question why they don't pour their bile and energy of demonstration into an attack on those people who are responsible,'' he told Melbourne radio 3AW.
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Access for all
Apparently London has had these for years, but now it's New York's turn (via Online Journalism Review):
New Yorkers can now access the Internet from select pay phones across Manhattan. Some 25 Internet phones with color touch screens and free access to city government Web sites were activated yesterday, making the Big Apple the first American city with the high-tech devices.
These things are a great idea in terms of democratising access to the internet, I reckon. Anyone ever used one?
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The Crying Gameshow
This showed up in yesterday's newspapers here in Oz, but the story aired earlier this month overseas and alas, a blog has a pretty good thread up on it.
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November 19, 2003
Fear of frying
This is scary:
Nunn said war in Iraq had distracted the United States and diverted resources away from the need to secure WMD materials in regions such as the former Soviet Union.
"We've spent more now (on the war) than it would take to lock up all the nuclear materials around the globe," he said.
According to the study, there are some 100 poorly protected research reactors, spread across 40 countries, containing weapons-usable uranium.
"The global community remains alarmingly vulnerable to catastrophic terrorism. Around the world, and particularly in the former Soviet Union, materials and weapons of mass destruction are insecure, often protected only by a padlock or an unpaid guard," it said.
So much for the rhetoric about the world being a safer place since Saddam and his WMD were destroyed went into hiding.
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November 18, 2003
This old world keeps spinning round*
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer explains the Government couldn't have arrested the crew of the boat which delivered the 14 Kurdish asylum seekers here because "if we had kept everybody in Australia, we would have sent a message to people smugglers in Indonesia that Australia was open for business". I dunno. If they had arrested the crew and imposed people-smuggling penalties on them, surely that would have had some deterrent value?
The whole thing is laughable, most particularly the 'nyah, nyah, they didn't claim asylum in Australia because hey, right after they landed, we excised Melville Island from Australia's migration zone--are we clever or are we clever?' coming from Howard and Vanstone. Between the Howard policies of pre-emption and retrospection, I don't really know what's going on anymore. But maybe we could take a leaf out of his book and retrospectively excise him from the leadership.
And another thing. If I hear George Bush going on one more time about how lucky we are in the West to be allowed to protest, I will box his ears. There is not much value in freedom of speech if those who have the power just ignore what you say.
*update: I mentioned in the comments box last night that Kerry O'Brien was about to interview Neil Young who's apparently touring Oz right now. Here's the transcript.
So it seems like, you know, when you have a Madison Avenue type of marketing team behind a war program, working to give a good slogan to the war so the American people and people around the world will get behind the shock and awe of something or they give it a title. They market it like it was a new product, and I just -- to me, that's -- the line is blurred.
Neil Young
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November 15, 2003
Almost summer
It's at least 30 degrees today and I can hear cicadas for the first time and suddenly it really does feel like Christmas is on the way. I just scoffed a mango in about ten seconds flat and I'm about to lie down in the shade in the backyard and read. Ahhh....it's the calm before the storm though, as I'll be packing up and leaving town soon.
. . .
Honey, I shrunk Howard's head
Funny letter to the editor in the Australian today:
Our harsh and increasingly irrational treatment of refugees will not surprise students of psychoanalysis. Essentially, the failure to acknowledge a past guilt causes the unresolved emotion to attach itself onto a symbol resembling the guilty self (but which is not consciously identified as the self). A layman's example could be: John Howard refuses to acknowledge or apologise for the fact that his people stole another people's land. As a consequence, the guilt of his unacknowledged crime attaches itself to the refugees, who are symbolic of Howard's people in that they also arrived, uninvited by sea. Conversely then, punishing the refugees is John Howard's way of saying "sorry".
Martin Cobb,
Toorak, Vic
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If you have a PayPal account
I got an email yesterday saying my PayPal account was going to expire in 5 days unless I ran an attachment to update my personal details, presumably including the financial details. Obviously most of us would baulk at doing that but the email was well written and seemed to come from the PayPal.com domain. Anyway, I contacted PayPal and they confirmed it was a hoax, so be warned.
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Caricatures of Sydney
Often in the mornings it takes my bus a quarter of an hour to get the short distance from Town Hall to Wynyard, because there's so many buses stuck in traffic. Sometimes there's just a column of buses stretching as far as the eye can see down George Street. If they're nice, the busdrivers will let you off so you can walk the rest, but often they refuse to open their doors if you're not within a bus zone. When that happens I start to feel a bit claustrophobic and wonder if they can seriously keep you a prisoner on the bus, but mostly I'm happy to just sit and look out the window. Watch the office girls in sandals with fake tan that stops around their ankles, the elderly lady fishing in her tiny purse for coins to give a homeless guy. Shake my head at all the smokers with their little clouds of smoke trailing them. (It's a truth universally acknowledged that when you give up smoking, you become completely intolerant of it.)
When I used to walk home through the city along George Street I felt like I passed through all the city's demographics. Office workers in Martin Place, tourists at Town Hall and teenagers down the cinema strip. At Haymarket, three generation Asian families gather on footpaths. Then it's backpackers and homeless people up to Central, where it morphs into students, and muscle men going to the gym. Past Sydney Uni, Camperdown turns into Newtown with its two hundred Thai restaurants, crystal shops and secondhand book stores, and from here, it's all girls with pink mullets wearing skirts over pants.
That's just this side of the city, anyway.
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November 13, 2003
Australia's real queue jumpers
Some of my best friends went to private schools...but what the hell. Paul Watson has an interesting take on the public v private education debate.
[Marking Time's] bleeding-heart dad did at least manage to get one good line in – calling private school kids, with their artificially-enhanced employment prospects, Australia’s real queue jumpers.
His post is continued here.
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November 12, 2003
Caught with your virtual pants down
What happens when your mum bursts in on your blog (link thanks to Jay).
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November 10, 2003
Marking time
Did anyone else catch the first part of the new John Doyle miniseries "Marking Time" on ABC-TV last night? I loved it. It's the classic story of forbidden love, set in Howard's Australia, circa 2000-2001. Hal (Abe Forsythe) is your typical young Aussie bloke, just out of high school and taking a year off before uni, kicking around his hometown with his no-hoper mates. During the Sydney Olympics, he meets and falls in love with Randa, a hijab-wearing Afghani refugee (played by Bojana Novakovic).
Forsythe is great--a credible Aussie actor in the Ben Mendelsohn/Noah Taylor mould (and one who looks spookily like a young Bob Geldof). His character spends a lot of time directly addressing the audience, a device that, while successful, sometimes makes you feel you are watching an episode of Secret Life of Us. In fact, there are other parallels to SLOU, in the sense that it feels quite authentic and not glossy and airbrushed.
So far, there hasn't been a great deal of focus on the secret lives of the refugees, save a brief glimpse into Randa's world when Hal's father approaches her father to ask for permission for Hal to date Randa. There has been more focus on the lives of the mates that Hal reckons society has chosen for him. These are friendships based around the loyalty of a shared youth, rather than common values. We know from Hal's voiceovers that he is far more sensitive and intelligent than his peers, but we also see him regularly succumb to peer pressure, going along with things against his better judgment, or refusing to speak out against his buddies. That's where the story feels especially truthful--if this were scripted by Hollywood and Hal were to courageously take a stand on absolutely everything, he probably wouldn't survive for long in the real world.
What I always find interesting in Australian drama is the depiction of small town Aussie life, where men are called Bullet and spend their days getting pissed and stoned and talking about cars and rooting, and the girls are bleach blondes called Belinda and Tracey, who work at chemists and are serially mistreated by the loser menfolk they seem to love. To the outsider, it may seem that these are stereotypes exaggerated to the point of caricature, but for anyone who has spent time in a town like the mythical Brackley, they ring perfectly true.
So can there be a happy ending for Hal and Randa? I really want it to work out, but with so much working against them...I dunno. But you never know, eh?
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November 07, 2003
Clear as a Bell
As I mentioned the other day, Angela Bell has a new blog and has taken a different direction with her writing, focusing less on straight social commentary and more on quirky observations of reality. Her tagline is: "thinking less, watching more". Some bits I like:
Despite his full beard, the man behind the desk was wearing a spicy aftershave....On Channel 9 this morning a woman named Dr Cockburn was talking about a new contraceptive for men....A shaggy dog happily towed a sad-faced man along....Her tight pants made her bum look like two soccer balls.
Worth checking out, I reckon.
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November 06, 2003
A list to make me listless
The official Bush barbie guest list is up on Webdiary today. According to the Mark Riley story that Margo also runs:
"A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said the people invited were a cross-section of the Australian community who had each made a contribution to Australia in different ways."
Riiiiight. Under Media, there were three invitees: Malcolm Farr (President Parliamentary Press Gallery) and two rightwing radio shockjocks, Alan Jones and Neil Mitchell. Yup, these guys sure represent a cross-section of the Australian community.
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November 05, 2003
Down with pop-ups
Man, is there anything more irritating than pop-up ads? Pop-ups should be banned from the internet and treated as spam. The computer screen is just too damn small for advertising. And why do they pop up when I'm reading ABC News Online, anyway? I thought the ABC didn't carry advertising.
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Alive and clicking
Both Stew of stewsblog and Puss in boots of manhunting are back from hiatus, which is good to see.
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To die for
"Their sons and daughters died for a cause greater than themselves and a noble cause, which is the security of the United States," Mr Bush said.
So are we back to the argument that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States? I thought it was about the liberation of the Iraqi people. I'm confused.
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Random snippets
me: Thanks for leaving those funny comments on my blog. I had a good laugh. 'Dried rooster scrotum', haha.
sis: No probs.
me: I was feeling bad because of that doctor being a bitch so it made me laugh...Hey, there's a blogger dinner on tonight.
sis: Are you going?
me: No
sis: Aren't you curious to meet other bloggers?
me: Yeah, but i'm knackered.
sis: What's wrong?
me: Doc says i'm anaemic
sis: Taking iron?
me: Yeah, and it makes me feel sick....There's another blogger do on Saturday, so maybe i'll go to that one.
sis: You're ok?
me: Yeah, just knackered. And, you know, thinking about everything.
sis: Have you thought about talking to a professional about it all?
me: It's too complicated, I'd have to explain everything...I'm sick of talking about it; I talk about it with you, with Giulia, with the folks, Jen, Liss, Neil, Jana....Man, I just want to get this show on the road.
sis: How's the name coming along?
me: It's harder than I thought. I'm going to have to take a shortlist to the hospital and see what suits him, I think.
*
The girls at work have nicknamed him Leaf, River, sometimes Felix. They're kind of experiencing the pregnancy vicariously. They've been very sweet, listening to me whine and moan for months, letting me eat more than my share of choccie bikkies, telling me I glow when I know that's not true, showing an interest in all the gory details (possibly with a tiny bit of schadenfreude, like when they speculate on just how painful the birth is likely to be). I'm one of the older girls there--they're mostly in their 20s. They're still out at nightclubs and bars four nights a week, living in share houses, spending their paychecks on clothes and makeup and boys. Ah, the roaring twenties. The thirties are turning out pretty good, too, though. Weird, but good.
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November 04, 2003
Polyester girl
"Amuse your conservative friends and annoy your liberal neighbors with the brand new Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure. This incredibly lifelike action figure looks just like the beautiful Ann Coulter, and best of all...it sounds like Ann, too! Ann recorded these classic Coulter sayings especially for this action figure."
Not Recommended for Children.
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November 03, 2003
Open mike: all yours
Before I got myself booked into the hospital system, I went and had various tests and checkups with a doctor at the local medical centre. After confirming that I was pregnant, the doctor, a middleaged Italian or Greek woman, began filling in my yellow antenatal card, then stopped to ask for my husband's name. "I'm not married," I said, and was rewarded with a cold, disapproving look. The next question was about religion. "None," I stated. An even colder, more disapproving look. "Well, I have to write something," she said after a pause. "So write atheist," I said, getting cranky too. Every time I saw her after that, she needled me about marrying the baby's father. I was very relieved to switch to the hospital's midwives clinic, I can tell you.
Today I had to call the surgery to ask for a medical certificate confirming for my employer that I am pregnant, because I couldn't even get through to someone at the hospital (underfunded public hospital, of course). The surgery receptionist said she'd be happy to fax me the certificate, but that she would have to check with the doctor first. Naturally, the doctor refused. Not only did she refuse, she was downright rude to me when she came on the phone. "Oh, sure! You expect us to run around and do all your work for you," she spat, before hanging up on me. Geez, how hard is it to fax someone a piece of paper? Perhaps if I'd been a married Catholic she might have treated me differently.
Anyway, I've had better days. A complete contrast to the weekend which I spent floating around in a kind of euphoria for some reason. Today I came back to reality with a bump.
Meanwhile, sorry for not posting much right now. You're welcome to leave a random comment though. So long as it's not about rugby or horses.
update: OK, let's talk about horses. Did anyone have a big win in the Cup today? My boss bought me a ticket in the ten dollar sweeps and I drew Zagalia. Which looked as if it was going to win up right until the last few seconds. Just my luck...
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October 31, 2003
Rolling, rolling, rolling
I've been meaning to update my blogroll for a while, as several people have changed their addresses (eg. Scott Wickstein and Angela Bell) and there's a few newcomers I like, but I can't for the life of me remember my Blogrolling password. Anyway, have you met whimsicality? Jas is very spanky. Trust me.
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October 30, 2003
Tin Man gets a heart
Hmmm...this tastes like an early election sweetener to me...
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Chick lit
There was a piece of paper wedged in the front door yesterday, so from a distance it looked like someone had left me a note. But when I got to the door I found it was just a stray receipt from Ariel Booksellers where someone had spent $25 on a book called Extraordinary Chickens.
It made me think of my mum’s extraordinary chickens. When my dad was in town the other day, he kindly brought another dozen eggs for me. They’re enormous, like goose eggs, and the yolk is a brilliant yellow-orange. They taste different, too. Better. Because my mum’s chickens are treated like pets, they enjoy the kind of life that battery chooks can only dream of, running free around the forest, eating a whole ecosystem’s worth of bugs.
My mother never went to university because she was busy with four kids and working as a typist, but she has a very scientific mind, and she’ll theorise and hypothesise as she observes all her chickens. She would have made an excellent researcher in the field of animal psychology. There’s a definite chicken society, which often has quite complex dynamics. Sometimes my parents have up to three roosters ruling the joint at once, which can get interesting. (This is accidental--a result of mistakes made when buying baby chooks.)
I start to get paranoid that maybe this latest dozen is actually goose eggs. See, my parents know that I have this thing about goose eggs and will always decline to eat them. They say I have an irrational vorurteil (prejudice) about them. I don’t know what it is—perhaps just their alien size and color—but the idea of eating goose eggs makes me shudder. So it wouldn’t surprise me if my father was enjoying watching me happily tuck into these eggs in the belief they are chicken eggs.
But perhaps I'm being unfair. I’m just remembering times from childhood when I refused to eat liver or tongue or tripe, or all these other weird European fetish foods. And I would sit at the table until late at night with my father, not allowed to leave the table until I had at least tried a mouthful. We would play game after game of chess until one of us would give in. Which is probably why chess is one of my favorite games. I was always impressed that the queen is more powerful than even the king. Talk about a female action-hero. She's always rushing around saving the entire kingdom while the king stands helpless, pathetically limited to making one step at a time. I remember playing a hundred game tournament with my brother when we were backpacking together years ago. We were neck and neck all the way, and I even think that in the end, we tied. Fifty games all. I haven’t played in years, but occasionally at lunchtime I’ll go and watch the migrants playing with those lifesize pieces in Hyde Park. Anyway, I’m looking forward to playing chess with my dad again when I move up north. And looking forward to teaching the little fella one day. Although he might just want to play Nintendo....(noooo!).
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October 29, 2003
Let it grow
What a great idea. Wonder what they'll think of planting next?
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October 28, 2003
The year of blogging dangerously
Boynton's just celebrated her blog's first birthday, which got me thinking about the fact that I've been blogging for nearly a year myself. Yes, this humble blog will be coming up to a year in January. What a year it has been....
I think I actually started blogging a bit earlier, in August or September, when I messed around with a crude prototype called homespun. (Note: I've only put part of it up again, because my account name has since changed and I can't be buggered changing all the links--the navigation was a bit too clever by half. Also, the hit counter has been reset.)
I grandiosely dreamed of a Salon-style magazine site, with long essays and short commentary structured around my various interest areas rather than being purely chronological. The similarity to blogging, I guess, was that I started adding links to news stories on almost a daily basis...and soon realised it was going to be much too time-consuming to update manually. Then one day I happened to notice Tim Dunlop's and Jozef Imrich's blogs while reading Webdiary and that was it. I was sold.
Anyway, a year feels like forever, doesn't it, Miss Boynton?
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Not fade away
Wonder when Christopher Sheil's going to burst on the scene with his new blog--he's been very quiet since leaving Troppo Armadillo recently. The suspense is killing me...
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Our heartless Tin Man
You are a disgrace, John Howard:
"I don't know if I wasn't invited because I have been a thorn in Mr Howard's side, but if so, I hope he can live with himself after denying me and my daughter an opportunity to be part of something we would have remembered forever. No apology will bring that back."--Kylie Russell, widow of Sergeant Andrew Russell (killed in Afghanistan) after the PM "neglected to invite her to a wreath-laying by US President George Bush in her husband's honour."
I guess our Man of Steel Tin Man was too busy resting on his laurels and shielding Bush from potential dissent to worry about a war widow's feelings.
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October 27, 2003
Set me free, why doncha babe?
American Idol for Russian prisoners. Prize: freedom.
In a grotesque, totally po-mo spin on reality talent shows like "American Idol," Russian prison officials organized a contest in which prisoners sing their way out of jail. Six convicts pleased judges enough to win pardons.
Well, the truth is that the winners happened to be due for parole anyway, but anyway, you gotta laugh.
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October 26, 2003
Roll the double feature
The American authorities are being accused of racism because of their differential treatment of Iraq war veterans Specialist Shoshana Johnston and Private Jessica Lynch. Apparently Johnston has now turned to Rev. Jesse Jackson to help publicise her case. The difference in compensation does seem weird, given both women came from the same ambushed unit and went through similar trauma. If anything, I reckon Johnston's experience was probably worse--remember seeing her terrified face on that footage released by the Iraqis? She was clearly conscious through the ordeal, whereas Private Lynch was apparently mostly knocked out in a hospital bed. Johnston also endured another 11 days in captivity before being rescued after Lynch.
Anyway, when Hollywood gets around to making the film of Private Lynch's rescue from Iraq, I wonder if an equal amount of storytime will be spent on Specialist Johnston's story.
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October 24, 2003
Play it again, Uncle Sam
I love the reframe on the leaked comment about 'a long, hard slog':
Mr. Rumsfeld, primarily addressing the memo, made an effort today to defuse the criticism with humor. He cited a definition of "slog" that emphasized hitting an enemy hard. Asked about a more traditional definition that emphasized slow and messy going, he smiled and said, "I read the one I liked."
I think maybe Rummy's thinking of slug. as in 'to slug someone'.
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Cover story
Too funny to be left in the comment boxes: Following on from my posts below, readers have nominated as alternative contenders for 'Worst Album Cover of All Time' the following:
- the Swedes (thanks Anthony, that is hilarious. I like the blue velvet suits on Musikantera, and hey, isn't that Rolf Harris on the right of the Kjell Brooz Orkester?);
- Emerson Lake & Palmer's Love Beach (thanks James).
Anyone got any more? If so, keep 'em coming...
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October 23, 2003
Circus leaves town
Well, so that was the John & George Show. It was all over pretty quickly. The American president wouldn't even face the Australian people. Maybe we make him nervous. After all, a lot of us haven't forgotten being misled into going to war. Anyway, onya, Bob and Kerry.
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October 22, 2003
Computer love
I’ve been listening to a Kraftwerk special that I taped off Triple J a few years ago. It’s got all their classics plus a lot of bootlegs and some great interviews with completely fanatical collectors, including one guy with a gorgeous Scottish accent who I never tire of listening to, even though I’ve heard the interview about a thousand times.
I liked Kraftwerk a lot when I was a kid. My siblings and I used to hang out with a girl who had very particular tastes in music--Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, Mi-Sex, the Sunnyboys, the Models, Bowie. She was a few years older than me and dressed like a Goth, and I remember her as being quite gloomy and depressive. I liked going over there though, because she had stacks of Lego and also a trampoline, and her mother, a youthful blonde sporty type, always left scones and lime cordial out for us. My brother was dating the mother at the time. Of course, the official story was that he was giving her windsurfing lessons...
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Walking by myself
Someone got mugged right outside my front door a few weeks ago, at about six thirty in the evening. I'd only just got home myself when I heard all this squealing. I ran to the front door, thinking, shit, someone's pitbull is attacking my cat. A man in a tracksuit sprinted past; I assumed he was chasing his dog. But then I noticed a woman standing on the road, looking confused. She yelped, "I've been mugged, I've been mugged!". A passerby took off after the mugger, who had headed straight up to King Street. Someone else took the woman down to the police station. Me, I was relieved my cats were OK.
In the paper a little while ago I read about another young woman who was mugged walking through Victoria Park, the same park I always used to cut through. This girl was pushing a pram, and it was only about five in the afternoon, when there's so many university students around. A mum with a baby. How low can you go?
So I guess it's good I'm too lazy to walk home through the city these days. Man, I don't get how some women go to the gym or even jog (!) through their pregnancy, when even walking feels like hard work. I mean, even just putting shoes on is getting hard.
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October 21, 2003
Worst album covers of all time
I think we all need some cheap laughs. In the spirit of the ARIAs, how about these that someone emailed me today:
  
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No muse is bad news
By the way, just because I'm not blogging about my love life doesn't mean I actually have one. It's a bit sad, really, because I think I am one of those people who is much more creative when they are in love. Love is so inspiring. Provided it's reciprocated, that is. Unrequited love does nothing for me, creatively speaking.
Of course, I'm not exactly expecting to find true lerve when I'm almost six months pregnant (though oddly enough, it hasn't stopped the convenience store guys hitting on me. Thank god for small mercies, I guess. At least someone finds a heffalump attractive!)
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I'd like to be under the sea in an octopus's garden...
I can understand why some people were up in arms about the Piss Christ artwork from a few years back, but bomb threats to a Melbourne art gallery for displaying a rather cartoonish reproduction of an 1815 artwork of an octopus giving (ahem) oral pleasure to a fisherman's wife?
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More Mr Nice Guy
"Wars arise from a failure to understand one another's humanness. Instead of summit meetings, why not have families meet for a picnic and get to know each other while the children play together?"
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 1981 (via beliefnet)
If only.
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October 20, 2003
Cold hard reality
Speaking of alternate careers, here's an idea. (Helpful of the online sub to lop off the crucial link at the end, but nothing a bit of Googling won't solve, I hope.)
update: Good one, Rupert. The deadline was back in September. Never mind, I was trumped by Mark Burnett anyway.
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Slack and slacker
I gave notice at work on Friday, which means that trudging off to the day job this morning is just a little bit easier, knowing I've only got two months to go...and counting. Actually I'm looking at my impending motherhood as a promotion and I can't wait to get started in the new job. Despite all the horror stories I've heard about adjusting to new babies, I'm feeling really optimistic, not least about the idea that I can stay in pyjamas all day if I so choose--baby sure isn't going to give a damn. Not having a husband or partner at this point will probably be a blessing as well as a disadvantage, because I won't be spending portions of the day worrying about looking sexy and fixing dinner and 'being there' for someone who's put in a hard day at the office.
Although I've put in for the year of maternity leave that I'm entitled to, I am going to try my darnedest to come up with other ideas during that year, so that hopefully I won't have to come back to this kind of work, which I fell into to support myself while at uni and, being your typical slacker, never managed to leave again.
You can tell I love my job, right? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the company of the people I work with, but the work itself is incredibly mundane. And now that I'm paranoid about using the internet (due to the various warnings I've received in the past year), it is that much more tedious. Could be worse, I guess. Could work in a factory like a good friend of mine who recently lost her business after a split with her longtime partner.
Anyway, let's hope I can get through the next two months without getting the sack...
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October 18, 2003
I'm just a jealous guy
Meet Wendy, new blogger over at Troppo Armadillo and sometime commenter here.
She has my life. Well, the life I wish I had. Listen to her bloody bio, will you? Writer here, published there, book editing here, Masters this, PhD that. Happily married, four kids and a dog (okay, hold the dog) and all at only 36. Oh, yeah, and she resembles Juliette Binoche. Geez, I feel old and magnificently underachieving all of a sudden (at the age of thirtyseven thirtytwo, she realised she'd never...)
Anyway, Wen's already posted some fiction here, so I'm off to read and weep. And then go do my homework (ie. watch the Beatles video).
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Oh! darling
This was still a time of wonderment on both sides of the equation. The world couldn't believe this magnificent four-headed creation could continue to be so delightfully entertaining and impudent and the creature couldn't believe the world could be so nice...They couldn't help it; it was a form of real love.
That's from the blurb for The Beatles Anthology. I'm about to settle in and watch part 3, February '64 to July '64. My mother was a big fan of John Lennon so I grew up singing along to Beatles songs, but my knowledge of Beatles history is pretty sketchy. So my friend Cabbage, being something of a Beatles expert, is putting me through a crash course with this eight part documentary series.
Every time he drops off the next instalment in the series, I say hopefully, "So are we up to the psychedelic stuff yet?", because my favorite Beatles music is from the later years. But no, we're still in '64...Oh well. This time, however, I will actually sit and watch the whole video, rather than just have it playing in the background while I mosey about the house like I did with the first two parts. I'm getting a bit nervous that Cabbage, a former high school history teacher, might eventually quiz me on comprehension, and find out that I've really only been listening to the music....
And by the way, to return to the Beatles v Stones debate, one thing Lennon had over Mick Jagger was that Lennon had soul. I mean, he wanted to change the world. He was such an idealist (and I really have a soft spot for idealists).
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October 17, 2003
More, more, more!
Aah, a great way to start the morning (both via Boynton): the orgasm simulator + the anonymous 18th century German love poem. Speaking of my roots, am checking out newcomer (to me, that is) Gweed who has a very interesting blog and an Italian page. Beat that.
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October 15, 2003
Then & Now
Now that I know I'm leaving Sydney, I can allow myself to get a little sentimental about it. Check this out. It's about some of the streets of my town, with photos from the 1800s and 1900s.
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Glow shmow
Nearly 23 weeks and I don't feel like I've got that mythical 'glow' yet. I do feel enormous though. A (male) friend kindly said, "And don't worry about putting on a lot of weight, all pregnant women are beautiful." Oh.
(Have you noticed how practically everything comes in white chocolate these days? Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen white hot chocolate though. Hmm...)
But the same friend also gave me a good pep talk, reminding me of why I wanted to move north in the first place--because I'd been getting cold feet about the old seachange recently. I feel a lot better now that I've committed to a decision. I also realised that it doesn't have to be permanent. If we hate it after a year, we'll come back. The city is only ever four hours away. But I don't think we'll hate it.
Tonight my sister (the one who's single) had me round for tea, let me go through a mountain of baby and kids clothes that a friend had given her for me. I was rejecting some things I didn't much like and she'd put them back in the pile and say, "Listen, you're going to be living on the poverty line! It doesn't matter whether you like it or not."
I don't reckon it's going to be all that tragic. The cost of living is far less up north. The rent is cheaper, the air is cleaner, the beach is five minutes away, we can grow vegies, and Junior can grow up knowing his Oma and Opa. I think we'll love it.
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Objects of desire?
I have a confession to make. I've never read The Female Eunuch. I guess I'm a post-feminist who takes for granted the gains that Germaine Greer and her generation of radical feminists won for us. I am, of course, aware of her reputation as 'the high priestess of feminism'. So I've been struggling to figure out what my reaction is towards her ideas about beautiful boys, rehashed in Spectrum last weekend (smh, no direct link) as she spruiks her latest book. I've been annoyed to find that my position is uncomfortably close to Miranda Devine's.
The gist of Greer's argument is that feminism hasn't gone far enough in reclaiming the male as a sex object. Only she doesn't mean grown men, she means boys. Says Greer: "Somewhere along the line we got hooked on the female form and lost our ability to delight in the fleeting beauty of the boy." Or perhaps somewhere along the line Germaine lost the plot.
It is easy to react like Devine and dismiss Greer as an eccentric academic hidden away in the English countryside, courting controversy and playing peek-a-taboo in an effort to regain attention--or perhaps even just rationalising her new relationship with a male half (or is it a quarter?) her age. But then I think, no, this is a highly intelligent woman; sure she's teasing, but she's teasing to get us to think about and talk about this; to push the boundaries, test our limits, etc. Right? Unfortunately, however, I just find her argument irrational.
OK, I'm prepared to go along with her about male beauty and the right to appreciate and acknowledge it. I can understand aesthetics. Boys can indeed be beautiful. But Greer is not talking about beauty but sexiness. Her 'male beauty' is strictly limited to young boys and is erotic rather than aesthetic. How young, you ask? Well, "he has to be old enough to be capable of sexual response but not yet old enough to shave." So we're talking, what, 11 to 16 year olds? Younger?
She goes on, "This window of opportunity is not only narrow, it is mostly illegal. The male human is beautiful when his cheeks are still smooth, his body hairless, his head full-maned, his eyes clear, his manner shy and his belly flat."
Personally, I prefer men--rugged, bearded cavemen types especially. Not prepubescent boys. Indeed, Greer acknowledges that's my biological imperative: "Girls and grandmothers are both susceptible to the short-lived charm of boys, women who are looking for a father for their children less so."
She gives examples of art and statues through history where the erotic beauty of the boy has been celebrated, or at least acknowledged, and laments the fact that modern women don't even notice the many naked statues of boys available for their viewing pleasure. But wait a minute...hasn't she just argued that it's only girls and older women who are naturally interested in "appreciating" boys, and not adult women generally? So why foist these proclivities onto the wider female population? And I'm just not convinced that the admiring gaze at a boy has to be erotic. We don't like it when little girls are prematurely sexualised; what's different for boys?
Anyway, as Greer admits, adult women do like to look at adult men in an erotic way. She cites crowd teasers like Elvis, Tom Jones, Jimi Hendrix and John Travolta, though she claims they are 'boyish' in looks (which is surely debatable). She says, "Bands such as the Doors, Led Zeppelin and T Rex were all masters of male display, and in every case the result is not manly, but boyish." Well, they certainly come across as older than 11-16 to me.
So I'm left thinking her chief complaint seems to be that "the erotic interests of girls and older women are seldom acknowledged by the mainstream culture." And yet, if we accept or even celebrate these erotic interests, then logic requires us to do the same if the genders were reversed: So Greer seems to be arguing that we should encourage old men to view girls aged 11 to 16 in an erotic, sexual way. What the...? On Denton recently, she explains this away, saying geez, we can't expect old men to wear blindfolds if a beautiful girl walks past. The problem, however, remains that she seems to advocate more than just looking, describing for example the young male's ability to 'recharge' quickly after orgasm as being one of the great benefits of having sex with him. Maybe she's just teasing. But I mean, doesn't feminism have more important things to worry about than this? Sorry, Germaine, I don't buy it.
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October 14, 2003
Seeing things
What I've been watching...11'09''01 September 11: "11 short films, 11 minutes, 9 seconds, one frame; 11 different directors from 11 different cultures" (a collection of mesmerising and strangely uplifting short films from directors like Ken Loach, Sean Penn and Mira Nair)...How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (romantic comedy with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey)...The Piano Teacher (bleak French film about sexual taboo [aren't they all?--Ed], starring Isabelle Huppert, directed by Michael Haneke, who directed the equally depressing but equally gripping Funny Games). And now I have square eyes. Goodnight.
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Kiss this
If Simon Crean participates in any fawning celebration of George Bush as liberating hero next week, I will be disgusted. A standing ovation, my ass.
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October 12, 2003
Unsoundbites
Here's one of former Communications Minister Richard Alston's complaints against the ABC which was upheld (as detailed in the Weekend Australian--no free link):
"Well in northern Iraq another American attack on their own (troops) has marred the Coalition's apparent progress." -Linda Mottram, AM, April 7
Alston's complaint: "Is it seriously suggested that by this time actual and major coalition progress had not been established?"
ICRP finding: Complaint upheld - serious. There is no justification to use the word 'apparent' at this late stage of the war, especially by a presenter who has been following it closely and commenting on it daily.
But what's so biased about the use of the word 'apparent' here? So far, it appears like progress. Sometimes. Seems to me like reasonable caution on the part of the journalist.
But if Alston's so keen on sniffing out bias, even now that he's retired, how about he take a look at the commercial media too? How about this, from the Murdoch press, where clearly pro-Government journalist Misha Roberts "reports" about the medical indemnity crisis (Weekend Australian, 11 October, no free link):
"Doctors are some of the most individualistic, wilful and self-interested professionals in the country, who sugarcoat their ruthless industrial demands with professed concern about the welfare of patients."
'Professed' concern, Mr Alston? 'Ruthless'? A bit emotive, don't you think?
This one, though, was just vintage CNNNNN: a commercial TV news presenter reporting the Bali bombing remembrance services today: 'On this day, tears have no nationality...'
Gawd...
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she sells sanctuary SOLD
Back by popular demand, haha, my Pay-Pal donate button (you'll find it somewhere down the right hand column of this page). Don't all rush to use it at once, eh, or it might crash.
Ah, hell, you gotta be in it to win it.
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October 10, 2003
Original spin
My mate Cabbage's album is reviewed in today's Metro section in the Herald. There's no direct link to the review but here's what the reviewer wrote (giving the disc three stars, or 'worth a listen'):
Post, Late Mail (Cabbage/Laughing Outlaw)
Three quarters of this Sydney band formed three quarters of Australian Beatles tribute band the Beatels at various times. For this record, Steve 'Paul' Shipley, Marcus 'George' Phelan and Neil 'Ringo' Rankin teamed up with Chris O'Leary, who used to front a David Bowie tribute band. The combination explains the Bowie-esque Kaleidoscopic and Bowie-meets-Roxy Music on Post's album. This tribute-band supergroup give us a full album of well-played, whimsical originals. Their love of melody and classic pop is well-informed by their time spent playing at being pop legends. - Kelsey Munro.
Cabbage, as well as playing Ringo, also spent many years playing John Densmore in the Australian Doors Show (along with me old mate Biggles, who 'was' Jim). He's a bloody great drummer, and also sings on Late Mail and wrote some of the songs. I'm obviously biased but I think it's a pretty amazing album (my favourite tune is Someday, which I can play over and over and over...). Well done, boys.
(BTW the album can be bought here.)
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October 09, 2003
True blue
Fair dinkum, Rob's latest post is ace. Deadset.
(Confused? This may help.)
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October 08, 2003
Who gives Affleck?
So it's on again. Ahhh...ain't love grand.
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The garden of e-dens
Blogging is a bit like gardening. You plant seeds, water the seedlings, do a bit of weeding, watch your blog grow. If you're lucky, people will even come along and fertilise your blog for you. But if you stop watering it for too long, it will die. Over at surfdom, Tim takes up the subject of blog neglect and gives lazy bloggers a bit of a serve. Hey, ease up, Tim...we can't all be as brilliant and prolific as you, you know! But he's right, blog neglect is a sad thing. We can probably all think of a favourite blogger who has gone very quiet for long periods of time, pleading overwhelming personal or work commitments or some other nonsense (memo to absent bloggers: having a life is no excuse! 'Course, I'm just as guilty of trying this excuse myself...).
In recent months my own blogging has been slowed down partly by the fact that my work recently imposed a ban on me blogging (and visiting blogs), virtually forcing me to blog from home in the evenings. And when you sit in front of a computer all day, sometimes you just can't be buggered turning on the 'puter again in the evening. While my work's electronic use policy is silent on blogging, the HR department decided that blogs fell into the gambit of 'chatrooms', which are banned. A dubious claim, if you ask me. Or as Prof. John Quiggin put it: "Obviously a blog isn't a chatroom, and the presence of a comments facility doesn't make it so."
Still, I suspect that many companies will be busily redrafting their electronic use policies, since a good proportion of internet users (and therefore potential bloggers) log on from work computers. According to USA Today (via Online Journalism Review) :
“An explosion in online diaries by workers is creating headaches, and opportunities, for employers. There are an estimated 1.2 million blogs, or Web logs — Web pages that function as personal publishing forums. But few companies have blog policies, and they run a risk should their employee divulge confidential company information or make statements that compromise it financially or legally.”
Luckily, in the nine or so months that I've been blogging, I have never been tempted to blog about company matters despite the fact that I work on many controversial and high profile legal matters, some of which have ocassionally been discussed in the blogosphere. On the other hand, it has been difficult at times to bite my tongue about co-workers--and the USA Today story carries the cautionary tale of an American blogger who was fired for describing a colleague as "stupid". Oh-oh...
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In the flesh
There's not one, not two, but three blogger gatherings scheduled to take place in October/November (well okay, the third is actually just a private meet-up). Should be fun and hopefully as many Sydney bloggers as possible will turn up to the first two meets. (I'll be the one sitting there in a muu-muu sipping a Virgin Mary.) Big Tim may have stood up the groupies on his recent Sydney visit, but if Scott does talk little tim into turning up to his soiree, I hope the bouncers manage to keep out the adoring hordes of Right Wing Death Beasts, or it won't be pretty...
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October 04, 2003
Intermission
My little escape this weekend was supposed to involve a break from all things technological, but I forgot that I was actually coming to stay at one of the most electronic cottages I can imagine. And, dammit, can't fight the urge to catch up on everyone's blogging. Oh well, it's raining anyway. Tomorrow I'll go to the beach.
I'm sitting in my dad's office, surrounded by huge sliding doors looking out onto the verandah and beyond to the masses of bougainvillea. In the garden I can see the geese and the fluffy yellow gosling (so damn cute), about thirty assorted chickens and one interloper, a bush turkey. On the verandah I can see our old bikes and windsurfers and a couple of old saddles. But there's only one old horse, Bobby, snoozing over at the fence--his mate Joker died a few years ago. Bobby must be over 30 years old now. And in here everywhere the evidence of my dad's career as a computer journalist, and his three thousand computers. (How can I not blog?)
My mum's cooking something that is sizzling and I'm thinking of my cats who probably haven't yet noticed that I've gone. Jen is housesitting for me and I've loaded her up with all their favourite fish dishes, so she gets in the good books.
My dad shows me his stash of 500-odd foreign and arthouse films he has hoarded over the years and I immediately start fantasising about a year-long personal film festival....
Ah, my folks are clever. This is all slick advertising for the seachange which I had recently almost decided against.
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October 02, 2003
Escapism
Ahhhh, gotta love October long weekend....I'm heading for the coast, so I'll see you soon.
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Spin out
Great piece in Webdiary today by Antony Loewenstein : 'The truth tramplers: media war spin on trial'.
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More Gore
Apparently Al Gore is trying to buy his own cable channel so he can set up a liberal news network to rival the conservative Fox News Channel. Go, Al.
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October 01, 2003
The war we had to have
On Saturday, Paul Sheehan had an article in the Herald entitled ‘Why we're all the way with the USA’, on why we declared war on Iraq and why John Howard is apparently coated in political teflon despite the ‘anarchy’ in Iraq.
Reinforcing the idea that our PM had committed to war long before the ‘last minute’ decision was made in March–something most had already concluded at the time–Sheehan writes:
In January, long before the diplomatic dramas that would play out at the United Nations, the Howard Government began to deploy Australian forces to the Persian Gulf. In February, when the American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was bombarded with complaints that the US would be isolated if it invaded Iraq, he responded, "Oh, I don't think we'll be going it alone." He already knew Australian and British forces were committed and in place.
Sheehan’s rationale for Howard’s war is that “we need a great and muscular ally if the satay hits the fan.” We had to go along with Bush no questions asked, says Sheehan, in case Indonesia ever falls apart and attack us. Oh, and we did it out of the goodness of our little hearts, too.
Why would a nation so far from harm be so willing to fight? Two basic reasons. Australia is an altruistic nation. It stands for something. With allies, it is willing to fight expansive tyrannies. As for the other reason, when Howard committed Australia to the American cause in Iraq, he did so for the same reason five of his predecessors went to war: the need to be aligned with a superpower that can stop an invasion from Asia, and did stop an invasion from Asia.
Sheehan should probably qualify that to say that Australia is altruistic when and if it suits us, just like America. Which is kind of the opposite of altruism, but anyway. What's so altruistic about imposing regime change somewhere because you are paranoid a leader will attack you? But what gets to me most is this idea that Australia can never challenge the wisdom of any of America’s foreign policy decisions just because we are friends. If we fear that America won’t help us if we are ever attacked unless we blindly go along with everything without expressing doubt, then something is very wrong with the relationship.
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Disappearing act
According to Online Journalism:
From the New York Times: Visitors to the U.S. Central Command's Web site may have trouble finding once-prominent casualty reports. Press releases like "Two Soldiers Killed, One Wounded in Attack and 1AD Soldier Killed in Helicopter Accident" used to be found at the top of the Central Command home page alongside other news, like updates on public safety and water services. Now, casualty reports are accessed through a small link at the bottom of the home page. Central command's intention was not to bury the body counts, military spokesman Michel Escudie said, but to help reporters by differentiating between different types of stories.
Yeah, right. How hard can it have been for reporters to distinguish between stories on public safety, water services and body counts?
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September 30, 2003
In the bad books
Yes, but is it art? A little debate about popular fiction v. literature (via sisyphus shrugged).
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September 29, 2003
Cashing reality cheques
Lately I've been mulling over certain new realities. Such as...me and Junior are going to be pretty darn poor once I stop being gainfully employed next January. Being an entrepreneurial sort of person though, I'm tossing up ways I could possibly earn some money once I'm more or less housebound. So far I've come up with the following ideas.
1. Reinstate PayPal button. Based on past experience however, virtual sugardaddies/mummies are few and far between. Unfortunately, judging by Tim Blair's frequent references to his contributors, most philanthropists would appear to be Extreme Right Wing.
2. Sell nudes. I'm thinking of scanning in some drawings into a virtual gallery, just in case someone might be interested in buying one. Get into a bit of e-commerce (remember that?!) The problem is, this would necessitate me actually producing some decent drawings, as I've given my best ones away over the years. And if I know me, the pressure to perform would probably mean that I would end up with a bunch of stick figures.
3. Giannacam. Well, all the world's a stage, after all. Not sure whether the life of a single mother would be worth tuning in to, but you never know! Potential voyeurs would no doubt be turned off by the presence of a squalling baby. But still--it could be marketed as educational, say for other young women. You know--ever wondered what it's really like to have a baby?
Um, maybe not.
4. Print money. (via boingboing).
Currently leaning towards option 4.
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September 28, 2003
With a bang, and a whimper
My siblings are so competitive. No sooner had I announced my news than my sister announced hers. Now my brother has announced that he and his wife are expecting again too. And my best friend from high school is also pregnant. You know, notwithstanding the fact that my brother currently lives in America, I don't know if I believe this stuff about Australia having a fertility crisis...
Anyway, congratulations also to Scott for making it into the Herald's "World's best blogs" article today (in Icon) for uebersportingpundit. And to Tim for finally coming out of hiding!
As for me, I've just come back from babysitting a four year old boy, Hunter. It's a regular gig my sister normally does, but tonight she was having a dinner party so I filled in for her. "It'll give you an idea of what you're in for," she said ominously. But it was fine. Apparently all I am in for is a lot of kicking balls and pulling apart sofas and playing with plastic swords. And having "Noooo!!!" shrieked at me every couple of minutes. Hunter's mother is eight months pregnant herself, so after asking if it was true that I was having a baby too, Hunter enquired, "But how come your boobies aren't as big as Mummy's?". Hmph. Actually I'd been feeling quite pleased with their progress. Ah well, give it a few more months and then we'll see.
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September 26, 2003
Naked truth
I love the atmosphere of life drawing class, though I haven't been in a while. At all the classes I've ever been to there's been more male students than female, so you'd think for single girls it would be a great place to pick up guys. But personally I've never really socialised there at all. You go, you pay eight dollars, you draw for three hours, you catch the late bus home. Of course, it doesn't help that these guys are all spending three hours staring at a naked woman who is not you.
The models are usually female and usually very voluptuous. I've only ever had a few men. Once we had a very old man, perhaps 90 years old, which was an eye opener, I tell you. I remember I didn't know where to look. In the end the drawings of him were all missing one particular vital organ which I'd been too embarrassed to stare at.
When you get to the class, there's a certain energy in the room already. A model is peeling off her clothes in front of a heater and in a circle around her, men are setting up easels and sharpening their pencils. When she poses, the room is quiet, except for the pencils squeaking and easels being dragged across the wooden floor.
When I go with my friend Jen, we regress and end up giving each other the giggles. We start laughing about the enraptured expression on someone's face as he draws, or the embarrassing angle the model has given us with her latest pose, or just at our drawings.
During her break the model will have a cup of tea and come and look at your drawings. I often wonder if the guys get turned on. I mean, surely it's the ultimate artist's fantasy, ravishing the model, a la Anais Nin? I think of the times I've drawn men, but I'm usually too frustrated by my inability to draw the male body to really appreciate the fact that there's a naked man in front of me. Then again, maybe it's time to give it another shot....
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September 25, 2003
More denial
Watching Messrs Bush, Howard and Downer last night on the news, it strikes me that they are men in absolute denial. They are all still going on about how Iraq had been a terrible threat to the West. George Bush is still refusing to accept the folly of his ways and instead petulantly points the finger at France again. Watching him smirking at the UN, facing people whose colleagues recently became 'collateral damage', makes me cringe. This war has cost the UN dearly but Bush still won't face up to the consequences of his actions.
It was comical though watching a flustered Alexander Downer on Lateline insisting that no, Kofi Annan was not really criticising America but rather, merely expressing the need for the UN to reform. "Kofi Annan is concerned about the capability of the United Nations to deal with new threats," says Downer. Yes. And he is concerned that the war in Iraq has actually created new threats. (Downer's idea of reform includes the novelty of an Australian dignitary possibly sitting on a special council. Mmm, and who might that be? "Oh, perhaps someone like a retired diplomat or foreign minister," Downer says humbly. Dream on, Downer.)
Anyway, as Tim Dunlop has pointed out, Australia because of its foolish participation in the invasion of Iraq now has a moral obligation to assist in the reconstruction of the country and that obligation includes, if not troops, then money. Of course, you'll notice Howard has been very quiet about funding for his war, not to mention the reconstruction itself. He won't want to risk the voter backlash that Bush has had. Leaving aside opinion polls (which probably say more about the Opposition than the Government), if voters got wind of the true costs of Australian involvement in the war, Howard might well live to regret his decision to blindly follow the US no matter what. (No matter, for example, that its intelligence was at the very least ambiguous, that it had no post-war plan or exit strategy, and that the whole ill-planned exercise was likely to make terrorism more, not less, likely).
Howard defends himself against any criticism by saying he acted 'in good faith'. As though it is OK to be utterly stupid so long as you mean well.
If Simon Crean would just kindly stop flogging a dead horse, Labor might be in with a serious chance.
PS Calling France "utterly opportunistic" is surely antiFrench, isn't it? Frankly, I've never really understood why it's OK to criticise the French, but not America.
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September 24, 2003
Too much information
A lot of good news around Casa Gianna lately. My sister (no, not the manhunter--Raph's mum) is pregnant again. She announces, "and it only took three goes this time!" and I go, "I don't want to know the details". But the reason she's excited is that last time it took them two years to conceive. Then today I find out one of my dearest girlfriends is getting married. And me, I'm expecting a boy. Far out....I'd better start reading uebersportingpundit.
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September 22, 2003
Not enough cents between them
In the Sydney Opera House No War email update circulated this morning, protesters David Burgess and Will Saunders write:
”Many thanks to The Professor (pseudonym we presume) [Bunyip, I presume] or The Bulletin’s own extreme right journo and weblogger, Tim Blair, for the $0.03 cash donation. The Professor launched an internet campaign to demoralise us with many such donations on his website a few weeks ago, backed enthusiastically by Tim. Both insisted they had already sent their 3c donations. But as only one has so far been received, at least one of you must be lying.”
Tee hee.
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