Grey is the colour...

When everyone who is in any way connected with your imprisonment - from the supervising procurator through to the censor and the doctor - persists in lying day in, day out , you begin to feel as though you are in some huge lunatic asylum. The only difference is that here it is the overseers who are the psychopaths. Who try to incorporate you into a hideous, contrived reality. Shalin's insistence that we do not exist is a case in point: "There are no political prisoners in this camp!" he would aver. Yet at the same time he and all his colleagues invariably referred to us as the "politicals". The pots in which our skilly was delivered from the kitchen had the words 'Polit. Zone' marked on them with brown paint. And Shalin himself, in an attempt to make us see reason would say: "Everyone in the men's political zone wears identity tags, so why can't you?"...

Is this any less bizarre, than, say, proclaiming 'I am a teapot', or 'There's a Martian in disguise among us'?

...They all lie, but in different ways. Some of them derive a perverted sense of pleasure from the process: the more cynical and barefaced the lie, the more they enjoy it. These will watch your face as they mouth their falsehoods, and their greatest achievement is to make you lose your temper. Their trick is to present an innocent front while provoking you into a state of stress.

Irina Ratushinskaya, Soviet physicist and poet sentenced to seven years of camps and five years exile for "the manufacture and dissemination" of poetry.

It's the same story. The same tools in any system, twisted in ever familiar contortions. You can tell, when a system is decaying, because craven practice is the last thing left of it - as if not even ants find those parts edible.

Even here, on the web. Supposedly "free" of regime. Still subject to the distortions and manipulative powertripping that warped broken minds can't contain themselves from playing out. And it is a play, a macabre theatre, it's wretched enactments, it's drooping props and embezzled scenery snuck through, crunched up sedatives in a spoonfull of gritty jam. And the weak, seeking sustenance, gulp it all down. Starved of any real kindness, unable to distinguish another suffering from the charade. Unable to tell light or levity from gravity and shadow from deceit. Unable to tell, let alone discern. Why post it? Why write out fate - a warning? Or witness. To humanity in all it's falibility. Even in words, one preying on another.

Solemnity mistaken for spite

and pastries, for sincerity.

Is this heartwarming? Or palatable? No these are the indigestable stones and bones lodged in my throat while I choke and you read, both of us secure in the knowledge that our countries and half a dozen ideologies are at war over half five thousand million minds. You see, there is very little else for me to eat. Truth, how nourishing it was. Before war opened it's maw.

A grim and entirely unwholesome way, imaginary or not.

Postmodern on the shelf, for half hour or so

Nice, don't usually recreate other people's writings here, being content to lavish myself with my own mind unraveling, but was just taking a look about and:

It made me a little sad to be surrounded by it all, the secret desperation of people trying stand out and fit in both at once, when there are so many other worthwhile concerns in the world. And I imagined myself leaping up on one of the folding chairs and waxing theatrical with some "Woe!! Woe unto you who are the cutting edge of the Scene! The vanguard of postmodern irony! There is no new thing under the sun and your haircut will no longer be cool in 18 months!"

Because there is nothing enduring about cutting-edge. It is transient and illusory, and postmodern irony is just cleverness without heart.

The shelf-life of fashionable revolutions is short. I think we should just be cool to each other instead of for each other.

(Vanessa in imaginary soliloquy at a "thinking for ourselves" event).

No mate of mine

What a lot of rot. All of Australians parliamentarians are hanging on to the vestages of any popular appeal they once may have had by clinging onto one little word. Pitiful.

These guys are not my mates, they are overpaid boys with no sense of comaraderie amoung their own (perpetually trying to trump and oust each other) let alone displaying any fidelity to wider Australia. Pretending to be "mates" is fraudulant. The word should be banned from use in parliament unless they can step down off their pedestools and work in the streets like the rest of us.

Asked if he minded being called mate in Parliament House, Mr Beazley replied "I insist on it". read about Beazley wanting to be mates

And I refuse, to call Kim Beazley "mate".

So there.

Update: even Bob Brown wants to mates! Cripes, never have I seen such unity. If only they could display this kind solidarity on other issues, like "no to war" for example.

Reflections

It's odd really, all that angst people put themselves through. "Delving into themselves". I suppose, growing up with it made me more practical. Ho hum I say to me, another zealot restructuring himself with missionary zest. Another poet, strapping on his explosive undergarments and investing his every fibre in a bid to... I'm not even sure he really knows what he is doing. I sure hope he doesn't harm himself. Or anyone else.

I mean, it all sounds very eloquent and everything, and what stamina. But it doesn't sound entirely ethical. And I'm sure that's what's making him miserable, if he could just cut to the chase. If he could just cut to the chase - but of course he never will. Being all multi-layered, like an onion.

Howard says "mate" ban impractical

Howard says he might use "mate" all the time and can't function, politically, without leaning on it.

"People will ring me up and I might start off saying 'yes sir' as a matter of courtesy, which I normally do, and then we lapse into it, we might say 'mate'."

Because he is such a happening with it in touch man of the people type dude. I suppose he guessed that some youths only use the word when no other profanity will do. Or when they are taking the p*ss. I guess he must of known that, and he must love it when he gets laughed at behind his back we laugh with him for making a mockery of Canberra. Keep going Howard, it is such fun to see a parliamentarian devaluing democracy so that other people don't need to. Imagine what a lot of money the ordinary bloke/ess could make by saying "mate" on talkback radio after getting elected. How insprieing, perhaps I could stand for election next time too. Maybe I will stand as "the conservative alternative" and help to split his vote some more. I mean help to support his cause. Gee I wonder if anyone else can tell what I'm on about today.

Word banned, censorship shoe on other foot

"Mate" has been banned in parliament (Oz). Good. Next they can ban "mate-ship" and "larrikin". Maybe now politicians will become a bit more creative. I often wonder if the whole "dumbing it down" approach is not so much that politicians really think that we are dumb, as that they aren't really smart enough to speak as well as bloggers write.

Or maybe I am asking for a bit much;

Labor MPs labelled the ban un-Australian, while the Prime Minister, John Howard, who has used the term to describe the US President, said it was unworkable. read it all

Like there aren't enough other problems in the world already.

David Lange Dead post

Waited a few days to post this. Seeing as this is just a personal spot, am just basically posting it, in case I ever look back on this, and then I can go - oh yes, that was the week David Lange passed on. Anyone can find out about him anywhere else, so I won't go into a long thing about who he was. It's what he did, that makes him memorable, and what he stood for. Because he really did take a stand, and one that really I can't say I've seen any politician in the world take since. Not an actual elected one I mean, one that gets elected into government. Pointing out that he was elected after running a no nukes election campaign. Basically, he just said no way to war, no nuke war ships in the NZ harbour - and that was that. It was right in the middle of the whole 80's nuclear (very real threat) paranoia episode. And he put his foot down, and stood by it. And lead the way, as it were, or more to the point, followed his people. Because nobody wanted war, or nukes, unless they saw money in it, which nobody in NZ really did. Except for Muldoon and whoever potted the rainbow warrior. It was really a formative moment for NZ, of course there have been many other formative moments, but that was a really crucial political time and Lange just trumped it, he smelt change in the air - or perhaps greenery, and made a decision that although it doesn't get a lot of pacific press coverage, actually has had a huge unspoken subtle effect on the southern hemisphere.

Anyway, out of all the obituaries floating around, this is the one that I liked, the actual passing moment. He passed away missing half a leg, and in middlemore hospital, which is also a maternity hospital, so that's kind of a nice cyclic wind-up.

Here's what his brother said;

"His breathing became quite peaceful and slightly different and he just stopped breathing and just stopped being conscious basically."

Mr Lange (brother) said his brother (Mr Lange) said nothing of real importance during his last conversation.

And you know, he didn't need to. He said it all already and we will always remember it.

A most unfortunate war

And most misfortunate of all - the clever way war manages to blind even those who once may have been able to avert it.

Witness - another example of most regrettable scapegoating. Does this pattern have a term? It must do, I have seen it so many times in my ever so drawn out dull 35 years of life among artists, "educators", paragons of self empowerment, leaders in indigenous renaissance and god knows just about every damn radical liberal endeavor you can think of - I was there somewhere lurking in the background as a child thinking "great, I think I'll be a hermit when I grow up" while my extended family communally tore each other verbally to pieces or drunk each other under the table to liltingly slurred heroic prose.

Here it is, what shall it be called - the saliva effect? You know, that thing that happens when people are passionately proclaiming their cause and accidentally sputum all over the audience and it lands on the nearest, while the rest of world remains none the wiser. It is fashionable these days, to spray speech residue all over a nearby "comrade" because the real antagonist is too far away to spit at. Why aim a gob arc at the whitehouse, for example, when you could land one on that journalist who was here last week.

And how brave! Thunderous! Like shaking fists at Aunt Daisy in the front row of the nativity pageant. Oh what a powerful feeling that must be.

Wafaa' Al-Natheema tells it to another journalist! Breaking down barriers! Educating! Changing Prejudices! Tearing down walls! Releasing us all from our shackles!

Dear Robin:

I can not tell you how expected your article's content was and how much of a cliche coverage it had!

By the way, I had boycotted the NY Times years back; that is boycotting buying, writing in and reading it. Now you have given me another reason for making my boycott comprehensive, never to give permission to a journalist from the NY Times to interview me again, as your interview with me last week was the third disappointing in a row. Here is why: read the rest there is more

Wafaa' Al-Natheema

The journalist's crime? She actually interviewed the actual artist and QUOTED THE ACTUAL ARTIST instead of Wafaa' Al-Natheema, the knowledgeable educator. The knowledgeable founder of an organisation that educates and re-corrects and sets people straight day in day out, week after month after year after year... who founded an organisation that has at least one man who can facilitate an email exchange for a whole week and by the ninth message - is still doing things like calling a women who has as yet unspecified her gender "Sir" (shortly after announcing I was actually a woman, he informed me that would be his last reply. Is there a correlation I ask myself? Or was I just another figment of his imagination).

Oh what an evil wicked willful journo, basing her article about a musician on what the actual musician had to say - rather then on what a glowing notary like Wafaa' Al-Natheema might ! Unlearned media pawn, fancy consulting two sources and going with the vulnerable musician instead of academia.

How, can anyone in the wider world ever be expected to change their perceptions when few people in certain circles seem willing to take a very hard look at the insular "burn slash and hack the outsiders" approach that lecturers, diarists and their prodigy so often employ. Of course, it does not one bit of good ignoring them, they only become more insular, but then how CAN it be dealt with? Telling an academic (or mercy on us, blogger) they are being all shouty only makes them shoutier, shouting back only makes them more vindictive, and ironically, subtly repeating their style and reflecting it to them through strategically placed mirrors just goes over most of their heads - being narcissists, unless they are especially astute or you do it rather bluntly by only changing every third word. For the most part though - it's all "deny deny deny".

So, what was the central issue? The central issue it seems, that sparked the whole "lynch a journo today wake up feeling productive tomorrow" episode was unfortunately diluted by the focus on the journalist. Winding up looking, like little more then another mission to belittle another author. Which means, once again, that war won. War won, because it took the focus of the central issue - which was that frequent media references to Sunni and Shiite might give people the idea there is some kind of Islamic polarity ticking away. But why should these references give this impression? Why could not a comparison be made? A gentle simile, a bridge if you will, a reminder that Islam has various branches just as christianity does (local reference; "Sydney Anglican" - defined by sect and also by location. No I'm not one. Yes they do antagonise other Anglicans. From what I can make out. To some small extent. Not that I want to cause major schism or anything.)

Why is it, that people working in institutions "defending a cause" so often seem so, so, so... so very blind to the glaring obvious. Or perhaps, it is just another one of my hallucinations, and that spotlight that shines around an issue is there only for me to see. And this is where I get that faraway misty look in my eyes like, as if I were seeing marsh fairies on the horizon, before I am pelted by stones or fall into the trench while the firing squad drill the air with more hail. Just to make the point.

And then I wake up again and it was all a dream and Wafaa' Al-Natheema was just all a nasty CIA or communist plot. Thank god (non sect) for my imagination.

Restock; Eff has a point, which I might understand if I were to unravel it. I suppose, the one reliable thing about mainstream media is that at least some of it is easy enough for me to read. Oh god, I deserve a kick for that - but you wouldn't kick a strawlady, would you?

In sum: to be perfectly clear. The point. The point, is that too often self-declared "educators" create prejudices by making presumptions. Oh irony. In this case, an "educator" presumes that the journalist's audience are stupid, and looking for any reason at all to lynch a muslim.

The educator complains about references to Sunni and Shiite in an article:

"Why did you need to introduce Amir's father as an Iraqi Shiite Muslim? ...enough of this cheap secterianism!! ...I will save myself future disappointment and frustration and never deal with anyone from the NY Times again."

Expecting to read a gutter propaganda attempt to pit people against one another based on religion, I went on to read the journalist's actual article. And found, the references, in context, are actually inclusive ones, implying harmony and diversity; "both Sunnis and Shiites" writes the journalist, at one point, pointedly, in an expression of togetherness.

The educator assumes, that the journalist's reader is looking for sectarian conflict and is not smart enough to go "oh Islam has a few variants, wow, how like christianity. Gee wizz, they have half a dozen different branches too". The educator assumes that the audience cannot think at all. And at the end of the day, it seems the educationalist is the one looking for conflict, not the audience, or the journalist, and least of all the musician, who was probably just trying to give a human picture of himself to the world, to build a few bridges. Way to go academia, way to go for burning yours.

National and the farmers - a Green ally?

John (Howard) has been freaking about the Nats. And considering he's been freaking about the greens as well, this may mean "interesting political sideshows ahead". Which is in keeping really, with Australia's global sideshow status.

This month, as mainstream press have dutifully been reminding us all for the last ten months but seem to have overlooked now that it's here, is a "turning point" in Australia (another one, Howard might be a straight but the road he's mapped is all twists and hair-pin back flips). This month, Howard's co-alition takes control of the senate. It has all been sworn in. For the first time since anyone can remember (apparently the political memory of the voting populace is only about two weeks long, this is why all John Howard's election campaigns are relatively mundane till the last two weeks before tarring and feathering whichever scape-goat is going to keep him on the throne begins) where was I, oh yes, for the first time ever since anyone can remember, "the govunmint" has a majority in both the senate and that other place they do power things in (excuse limited knowledge, am just a voter) and now Howard's even eviler wicked reign has begun. Essentially, he has a majority of seats in both the upper and lower houses and theoretically this means that he can pass whatever he damn well likes and do whatever he damn well wants and screw whoever he damn well - anyway that's what he thinks.

That's what he thinks, but that may not be what he gets. Because the co-alition making up his government majority is just that - a co-alition. And the "smaller" co-alition member, the Nationals, who represent basically farmers and rural districts, have been soaked up by the shadow of it's larger co-alition member for pretty much a decade now. And they have people of their own to represent, and an identity, and "roots" that not all of them seem real thrilled about loosing to Howardian neosimilation. And they might just kick in their heels you know, seeing as Howard has started all throwing around his weight now, they might just kick in their heels and stick to their own principals.

The Prime Minister has fired a warning shot at National Party rebels, telling a Coalition party meeting that nothing is more vital to the Government's success than unity.

With relations between the Coalition partners at their lowest ebb since 1996, John Howard pointedly reminded the Nationals yesterday that the Liberal Party was the senior partner read the rest

And this is where the greens come in. What, you may ask, common ground could the Nats and the greens possibly find - aren't they at "loggerheads"? Well no. The greens and the Nats aren't especially at loggerheads. It's a common misconception to think the two have fundamental shortfellings were trees are concerned, but actually most agricultural land clearing was at a peak a century or two ago and the bulk of land clearing that's gone on since is less in aid of farm landclearing and more in aid of exotic timber furnishings (Tasmanian).

It's the logging industry that the greens have been at loggerheads with, not the farmers. And the logging industry's employees, by extension, are the laboring woodsmen, which Labor represents. And which the logging industry always tries to scare away from the greens by singing "you would rather have an axe then a plow". Which is why the greens and Labor have not teed up together with a co-alition of their own (if they had, they would have won several elections off John Howard). And which is why, when friction is teasing the edges of Johno's co-alition, the greens and the Nats make plausible allies. Think about it - green policy is compatible with farm management. Farmers have a shocking time of it out here, it's dry as - the place is a desert. It's tough, and those guys know the landscape, they know the weather, they've been watching and living in it for decades, generations in some cases. They know the climate is causing them strife, and some of them are beginning to look at "other" land management practices. They are tired of squeezing water out of stones, and are willing to try anything to "get some green". The greens on the other handshake, are an environmentally conscious party, their concerns also revolve around water conservation, and power generation that is compatible with the landscape and maintaining peoples lives within it, and of course, planting and growing stuff. Just like farmers !

Of course, multinationals pushing genetically modified seed will go into smear campaign overdrive if they get even a whiff of this, they rely on desperate climate squeezed farmers handing over bucks for grain with no questions asked. Well, that could all change too. That could all change, because the Nationals are pretty strong on locally grown produce, whether it be telecommunications or linseed, and this is compatible with green policy - grow local, think diversity.

Oh you may laugh now.

(Read all the links if you want to find out how Australia "does it").

Update: The Nats crumpled on Telstra and sold out. Hmm, so. If the Nats do some more things like this to help disenfranchise their voters, maybe their voters will start looking to the greens. If you ask me, and I know you haven't, it maybe time the greens revisited their rural roots - because that's where a good deal of them come from.

Test

And what it could look like on your blog (placement up to you);

kos

Test

DIMIA riverside resort

See Maribyrnong !!! Free visit with Google Maps !!! See aerial view of one of Australia's detention centres !!!

Tucked away in an Industrial precinct in the middle of residential Melbourne, a home away from home, Maribyrnong, you know you want to go there.

Maribyrnong Detention Centre
53 Hampstead Road
Maidstone VIC 3012

A converted warehousing complex replete with razor wire for the storage of refugees, the mentally ill and goodness knows how many political dissidents (not Australian dissidents off course, heaven forbid ! No. Only the ones who tried to escape from Iran and so forth).

Speak with your local immigration agent now, and book fares on the next Indonesian fishing vessel !!! Enjoy the relaxing slish slosh of churning ocean waves and pitter patter of rice granules upon the deck, as wraithlike and motion sick children churn up their last supper. Maribyrnong !!! The trip is worth it.

Thankfully, I was able to find directions to Maribyrnong from a locally traveling journalist;

To see the detention centre, you cross the Maribyrnong (river) and turn right after Franco Cozzo's. Franco's beds are the Cadillacs of sleeping vehicles. If they had horns, and some of them probably do, they'd play the Moonlight Sonata. Head towards Flemington racecourse, turn left at Ballarat Road. The detention centre is in Hampstead Road. It's a flat, hard western suburbs landscape. Lots of factories, some new, some closed down. It actually looks more prosperous than it did 10 years ago.

The detention centre is hidden from the road, although a sign plainly declares its presence. Opposite is a warehouse with brightly painted windows. On the right is student accommodation. The kids I see are Asian. There are a couple of beat-up cars in the car park, including one with "Courier" written on its side. It's sitting on blocks, its four wheels gone.

From the road all you see of the detention centre is a wire gate and the sign that also lists visiting hours. On your left is a large complex of fawn buildings which declare themselves bastions of private enterprise but are otherwise featureless.

Behind is a large communications tower with lots of dishes. You drive down a road with a high wall on one side and the university flats on the other. I am still in a place I recognise as Australia. Then the road bends slightly left and you meet a wall of stainless steel spikes topped with rolls of razor wire making a thin line of jagged zeroes across the sky. Drive by Maribyrnong

And with these instructions, a combination of street maps (not much help, Hampstead Road is un-numbered and Maribyrnong Detention centre somewhere among the surrounding pale yellow "unnamed" areas. Unnamed that is, apart from helpful fine print text reading "unnamed") and Google Maps, I was able to locate what I suspect must be Maribyrnong - from the air !!! Or at least, where Maribyrnong ought to be. I'm thinking it is either the tan rectangular area (size of football field?) or the sheds just below it. If you look carefully you can see the communications tower (north east corner of tan rectangle) and what I suppose is the wall, as described by Martin Flanagan, quite clearly.

Here it is;


















And here it is as it appears nestled within the craddle of Melbournian civility (follow blue arrow);
















It's one of those statements about 21st century Australian society. Right in the middle of the working class belt in Australia's second biggest population centre, a detention centre. Not a prison, a "detention centre". Where people who have committed no crime, are detained. Once upon a time, we called them "immigration detention centres". Because we were lead to believe only wandering migrants were kept there. But now Australia's public have learned the ugly bitter truth. These places are depots for storing live bodies in, migratory and local. These places, are 21st century concentration camps and at least one of them exists, camouflaged, in an industrial pocket, within one of our 21st century Australian cities.

On an "upper" note, DIMIA have announced they are removing some of the trimmings, on a somber note - Australia is still building centers offshore. Why? Who is Howard hoping to hold there? Banned religious brethren?

More disappearings, Lucas Heights

See it while you can.

Australia's nuclear regulator has called on Google to censor high-quality satellite imagery of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor which is freely available on its website. read more

Going to search google maps for detention centers now...

The selfish blogger

It is official. All blogs are boring. As a phenomena, fascinating. Individually, mundane. There is nothing new. The same complaints, the same small pleasures, the same dull boring human morass.

There is almost nothing I can read in a blog/web diary, that has not already been written, and published, at some time, in some way, on paper.

Most bloggers are petty, smallminded, self absorbed, privileged members of the vaguely techni-literate class. They can steer a keyboard and talk about themselves and that's about it. There is nothing that separates the bloggers central concern, self interest, from any other period of "written" activity.

Sure, what a historical time to be recording thoughts, to be casting prunes into the chutney, but on no account, are bloggers, although many seem to believe they act independently, on no account, are bloggers alone of any importance. Blogs are a simple expression of virtual domesticity, however outrageous the poster's claim. It is an interior activity, and one that, is more effective when a blogger stops being such an ingratiating slave to moribund rebellious sensationalism and insincere pleasantries and admits to fallibility without raising the conductors baton and rousing the orchestra. How refreshing it would be, to read a blog bereft of ego.

And how implausible.

Iemma left carrying an empty can

Rats from a sinking ship, now Refshauge has resigned. Bummer. He really is a good politician. I hope he goes federal, the only decent ministers Labour ever had were all state MP's anyway.

"I've decided that the time is right to move on to other things"
~ Dr Refshauge. the rest about it

It is time. And the time is right. It is the right time for state MP's to shake up Canberra, in unexpected ways.

Predicting we have not heard the last of Refshauge yet.

Maybe he could join the Greens now?

UPDATE; Knowles quits. Michael Costa given finance portfolio (groan) oh well, at least he wasn't put in charge of treasury, the man is a walking cylcone, leaves a trail of destruction behind every portfolio he touches. Fine if a premier wants to shake things around briefly and then appoint someone sensible to fix it all up, but not the kind of man you want meddling with budgets.

Update; Not wanting to write this off as "what did I say". But. Costa, trail of destruction.

The NSW budget could be in deficit for the next two years, the state's new finance minister, Michael Costa, has admitted on his first day in the job... predicting a deficit this financial year even though the 2005-06 state budget in May forecast a $303 million surplus...

Mr Costa said the low level of state debt ensured that "if we run a small deficit this year and even the next year it is not going to put us in a negative position"...

he indicated there would be more asset sales and further public-private partnerships Costa in the red already

Could make tacky game of name, but no need.

Waging the war

While war rages amoung militants and militia in the equatorial regions, far to the south in a small subtropical global city the war on terror is waged by it's alert and unalarmed population; a whoopee cushion is reported in downtown Sydney.

'Whoopee cushion' deactivated
July 31, 2005

A Sydney bus driver began wondering what he'd picked up when a suspicious popping sound drifted down from the back of his vehicle.

Luckily, the driver did not panic.

...he calmly went to investigate and found the source of the "pops" was ...a "whoopee cushion-style toy".

Phew.

The driver duly completed his run - picking up and setting down passengers as usual - and alerted the police only when he arrived at Circular Quay about 25 minutes later. read whole true story

Thank goodness. I feel altogether much safer today, knowing that Sydney's public transport system has been spared one less explosion.

If only the school children would stop planting garlic capsules. It is worrying that our youth are attracted to these improviso devices at such tender ages, more so that similar devices may be readily available over the internet.

OMG !!! This site sells by mail order and this site tells you how to build one !!! In chatrooms !!! Code putrify mephitis !!! ASIO !!! Where are the web police when people really need them !!!