Dawn Of The Damned

COULDN’T sleep, not at all, just a few blanked-out moments when the sense of nameless dread that often comes to me in the night  faded temporarily away. It was just before dawn, only an hour so ago, when I finally slipped over the border into blank oblivion, but it was not to last. Turns out the possums had nominated just that moment to conduct an orgy on the tin roof of the garage, which is just beside my bedroom. I am quite used to the possums, who are much less annoying than the bogan sports buffs who live next door with their drunken father, and I probably would not have registered the commotion if it had not stirred my little cat. Sparkles was on the prowl, jumping around the bedroom, trying to figure out where the possum racket was coming from.

Deluge!!!!

An inept jump from bed to table not only knocked over the half carafe of water I keep beside the pillow, it woke me with a soggy start. You can’t sleep in wet sheets, especially when you can barely get to sleep at all, so I was up in time to hear the magpies welcome the full light of day.

It was a beautiful sound, a warbling symphony, but the mood of cheerful resignation after an uncomfortable night did not last longer than it took me to log onto the internet and start reading the day’s news.

Now I’m angry, seething is a better word, and it is the same old sexism and veiled obscenity of the conservative string pullers that that has me steaming with fury.

I’m going to make a cup of tea and toast some bread, feed Sparkles and then I’ll be back to dissect the filthy, sexism of the NSW conservatives as they gloat over the imminent Murdoch-assisted demise of a good woman, Kristina Keneally.

Read this and prepare to be outraged.

Sear-ing Insight

MY training is in psychology and counselling, but when I read Jeremy Sear's posts I really wish I also had studied the law. The Melbourne barrister has been a fixture of the online progress-o-sphere for many years and has the distinction of having got the better of Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt on many issues. He runs the Pure Poison blog at Crikey and is tireless in his efforts to counteract the oppressive and instinctive gagging of dissent that is the staple of Australia's conservative media establishment. (At a risk of being sexist, he must turn quite a few heads at parties, demos, and other social functions. Smart and a spunk too! Some people have it all. Don't worry, Jeremy, I'm far too old for you!).

 
Anyway, his latest post at An Onymous Lefty is just brilliant. Here's a little excerpt:

The Opposition is banking on Australian voters being unwilling to consider a small drop in their standard of living to reduce the risk of a massive drop in their standard of living later; it’s banking on us being short-sighted and hypocritical. (Hypocritical in the sense of, let the much poorer people in China and India live on even less before we consider tempering our unsustainable consumption.

Jeremy's proactivity in taking on the powers that be was one of my inspirations to finally take the plunge into the world of blogging. What could I, a homebound retiree, contribute? Jeremy provided the answer by example: truth, passion and conviction. I don't kid myself that this little blog will achieve the influence and profile that Jeremy has established and which he builds upon, day by day. But every little helps, and I am proud to count myself on the same side.

His legal training has equipped him to cut straight to the issues, to bare the core of any argument. It is why his blog is on my daily list of sites to check.

It should be on yours too.

Published in the Age

I HAVE just had the following comment published in a comment thread underneath a Peter Hartcher commentary on the vicious, vile, ongoing, Abbott-orchestrated assault on our PM.

When our PM made the decision ten days ago I thought to myself, "How low will the reactionaries go, the deniers and the corporatist lapdogs, and how soon will they start."
I didn't have long to wait.

These assaults on our PM are nothing but sexism and woman-hatred. The outpouring of Tea Party-style hate could easily lead to violence, sooner or later. If our PM introduces the licensing of commentators and a peer-review panel of media professionals (Laura Tingle, Phillip Adams, Virginia Trioli, Mike Carlton, Hartcher, for example) to determine what constitutes "fair free speech" and to stamp out the noxious, inappropriate variety, I would support her 100%.
Alene Composta | Seddon - March 03, 2011, 9:35AM

I was a bit surprised that the moderator cut out my reference to a Saturday afternoon shock jock on 3AW who urged his listeners to imagine our PM "gambolling in her scanties on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin with horny cabinet colleagues" while First Bloke Tim sits at home and puts the roast on steam. The motor mouth's slur was that, because Julia had "lied" to the Australian public -- she didn't, that criticism is purely semantic, as we know --  she would also lie to her partner.

But then I realised that The Age owns 3AW and that while the newspaper's reporters and editors are on the side of the angels mostly (apart from Costello), when it comes to progressive issues the Age is also a corporate entity and must protect its assets.

I am of two minds. I am glad we have the Age in Melbourne, and glad that it is mostly a progressive institution dedicated to stressing the points of view the Murdoch minions demean and suppress.

Should I protest the censorship? Opinions would be welcome.

UPDATE: Shouldn't The Age have inserted a notification that my post had been trimmed? That would seem to be fair and honest.

I HAVE just sent this little note to Tim Flannery:

Dear Dr Flannery,
I recently started blogging and, because I am fearful of what will happen if we don't reduce carbon pollution, I write regularly about this topic. Today an item of mine was reproduced in part on Tim Blair's blog, which is funded by Rupert Murdoch (as you might expect). When I followed the links to his site (a place I usually avoid), I found the most disrespectful and appalling picture of you. Same thing at Bolt's cesspit, too.

My question is why don't you sue? Murdoch has a lot of money and his minions hold you up constantly to ridicule and encourage people to have contempt for everything you stand for. With our country ravaged by floods and fire, your message is vital.

Personally, I think Murdoch's contempt for reason and science and the peer-review process invalidates any claim he has to engage in "free" speech. As Commissioner of the Clime Change Council, perhaps you could suggest restrictions on what Murdoch and his monkeys can say. This would leave us with the Fairfax papers and the ABC, and I do not think you can find better sources of information than them.
Sincerely,
etc etc

Quaking in our boots

I don't know if you noticed but New Zealand has had some terrible tremors that have left a lot of environmental damage and also claimed some human lives. If you are rational and objective it is hard to think too much about the human victims because, as the globe's most invasive species, humans should not there. New Zealand was a secure, isolated natural paradise until Captain Cook arrived when, like most colonisers, he announced the Europeans' arrival by killing the other-skinned peoples who were already there.

Still, it is hard to replace our instinctive empathy for our fellow pink apes with nothing but dispassionate rationality, so Verdant Hopes wishes those who survived a happy recovery from their injuries etc. When their minds are clear again they will owe it to themselves to think about cause and effect -- why did those earthquakes come, and why did they do such terrible damage.

Now the verdict is in. As the damage caused by our raping greed and lack of empathy with the planet gows and compounds, the number of earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides and volcanic eruptions increases in step.

“Observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere.”

So let us by imbued with sympathy for our Kiwi cousins. But it also needs to be made clear to them that we reap what we sow.

UPDATE: The following graphs make the connection absolute. The first is the increase in earthquakes.

And this one shows temperature increases:

Hard to deny the evidence of your own eyes, isn't it (except if you are Andrew Bolt, that is)

I'm back!

IT has been two weeks since I last put my thoughts on this blog and the explanation is that I have not been very well. What started as a case of the summer sniffles turned into a ten-tonne chest cold with full-blown fever and bowels that were so runny they could have competed in the Olympics.

The weather has not helped either. If people cannot look out theior windows and notice that Melbourne's climate has changed dramatically and suddenly there is no hope for them.

In any case, it is good to be back. As someone who lives an isolated life I really, really enjoy the comments of my supporters and readers.

What I dobn't like are people from Tim Blair's blog who come here to scoff and villify, which is their bogan style.

So don't come. You are not wanted. You are not liked. You can cover yourselves with petrol and burn, babby, burn for all I care.

Got that? Now go.

Just Lovely

A NEW reader sends the following quotation from his pastor. No name provided, but wisdom like this stands alone, regardless of who uttered it. Let me share a beautiful thought with you all:

...separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole . This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning....

Many thanks to Rudy for sharing this inspiring thought..