Dale, a writer over at Write Anything, an excellent group blog about writing, has made the call out for writers to share their oddities. This stems from a comment from one of his non-writer friends that writers, generally, are just an odd bunch. I must confess that I probably think this is true, at least in my case. Remember my claims feeling odd a few weeks ago as I was in the thrusts of a ‘creative binge’?

So Dale has asked for us to list three oddities as like a meme type thing…

1. I have been known to internally narrate my own movements as if it were a novel itself when in the throes of creation
2. I’ve had tendencies in the past to write stories with writers as the main characters
3. I like writing beginnings more than endings…

Feel free to answer these yourself either in the comments section or on your own blog, and then post a link.

Technorati Tags: writing, writer, odd, memes

Paper company fined $230,000 over worker Brett Carroll’s death, The Age

How much is a life worth? It’s not an easy question, but surely the life of this worker, killed by a paper making company, is worth more than a measly $230,000. I’m sure the top executives get paid more than that in a freaking year. I think it’s a little bit insulting to his family, including his daughter who was only 6 weeks old at the time, and workers in general.

You’ve often heard me denounce CEO salaries as way too high, and compared them to the meagre wages of the average worker, but it’s even more enraging when their salaries still surpass what they have to pay when a worker dies because of unsafe working conditions because safety for workers cuts into profits.

I don’t have exact number, but easily over one hundred workers are killed each year in Australia at work, usually due to unsafe working conditions. We’ve all heard the stories about bosses discouraging workers from putting on harnesses because it takes too long, and therefore costs too much money. We all know the insulting low fines given to James Hardy for murdering workers by making them work with asbestos.

Another example that comes to mind is from the research I did on abattoirs in America for a short story. The abattoir bosses have pushed production up so high that cattle go through the slaughtering process conscious because stunners aren’t given enough time to be accurate. This results in cattle feeling every bit of pain as they’re slaughtered and often results in them kicking workers as the hang from hooks, injuring them and sometimes killing them.

My conclusion? Capitalism kills workers in order to make profit.

Technorati Tags: capitalism, workplace deaths, murder, working class

What could be a better way of denying that the weekend is over than reliving it in blog post? I’ve been at work for an hour and haven’t started working yet, but instead reading blogs, forums and now blogging myself.

I spent a few hours yesterday at Federation Square in Melbourne for the Melbourne Writer’s Festival. I’ve been wanting to go to the Sydney one for a few years now, and this time in Melbourne, brought my housemate (who is also a writer) along with me. Even the notion of going to such an event kind of marks yourself out as a writer. I’m doing something writing related instead of wasting time that could be spent typing on other wasteful forms of procrastination. But as I’ll note later, there’s a problem with simply ‘acting like a writer.’

Another thing that made it all the more exciting is that the Writer’s Festival is glowing in the fact that Melbourne has just been named the second City of Literature by UNESCO. It means that we have a confidence about our craft being accepted in a world that seems to not give a shit about personal creative endeavours because our time is better spent at work making money for a boss.

The first session we attended was An Ear to the Ground with the BBC’s Kate Rowland, Harvard Review’s Nam Le and Meanjin’s Sophie Cunningham. These three people in the publishing industry commented and gave advice on the workings of new writer’s getting their foot in the door. It was quite uplifting although there was a sense (that they tried to reject) of nepotism in the industry as a lot of new writers were found through networking with their friends and people already around other people in the industry.

One point that grabbed me toward the end was a comment by Sophie that some writer’s submit with the impression that they’re more into being a writer, than being into the story they’re submitting. One writer submits seven stories a week to Meanjin, an Australian literary journal, and it’s more about ‘I’m a writer, read my words’ rather than ‘here’s an interesting story.’ I must confess to doing it a bit myself. Somehow relieving my guilt at lacking of writing by talking about writing, reading about writing, writing about writing even writing for the sake of writing, but the story, the thing I’m meant to tell is sometimes forgotten.

At the end of the day I ended up buying Nam Le’s short story collection, The Boat because he mentioned the title of one of his story’s that grabbed me, ‘Hiroshima.’

The second session was titled The moral of the Story and from the program, I gathered it was going to be about a debate on whether the best novels are moral, immoral or amoral, but it was more about the Crime Fiction writer in the session, Barry Maitland. There were some interesting points, but nothing astounding.

But Sophie’s point about it being about the story and not about being a writer was the main thing I got out of the day, as well as ironically feeling better because I felt like a writer. I just need to get my head around a story now, whether it be my current novel, this other short story idea I have, or sparked recently, my old novel Hadeon.

Technorati Tags: Melbourne Writers Festival, writing, Melbourne, literature

This was a spur of the moment piece and you can guess where it comes from by the end of it. At the moment it seems, I can get the power of my writing out in short sharp bursts, which works well for flash fiction more than anything longer like a short story or a novel.

You would think this man was imprisoned, and in a sense, he is. But he’s not there for years, though he could end up being. He is allowed to leave his cubicle at five o’clock, but he must return at nine o’clock the next morning where he will be trapped again for another eight hours.

Technorati Tags: flash fiction, horror, work, prison

Forgive me for the extremely naïve play on words in the headline, but I read an interesting article in The Age this morning about Melbourne being appointed by UNESCO as it’s second City of Literature, behind Edinburgh. It seems Melbourne is a city for writers, hosting the Melbourne Writers Festival this weekend, as well as the impressive state library that will now establish the Centre for Books and Ideas.

I’ve only just moved here a little over a month ago, and I suppose the buzz that’s affected my creativity could still be attributed to the buzz I’d get to moving to any city, but I must admit to thinking of Melbourne as a more creative and literary friendly city. I only just read another article in The Age yesterday about all the cool bookshops around, mainly ones in the eclectic suburb of Brunswick. Though buying more books right now is not a smart idea considering how many I still have to read.

Subconsciously, you can even look back as far as when I was writing in my old blog at blogger.com to see my dreams of Melbourne. My first attempt at a novel, Hadeon, about a slave who revolted in Medieval Ukraine and ended up being cryogenically frozen in some cave between Melbourne and Adelaide, was mostly going to be featured in Melbourne. Though the idea was totally farfetched looking at it now, I kind of had romantic ideas about a slave from medieval times chasing people around the docks of modern day Melbourne, and I had never even travelled to this city before.

There is still a place in my heart for a killer chasing people around the docks of Melbourne (and maybe a revolting slave, but that’s for a totally different story), and maybe as I explore the city more, I’ll find more locations and pockets of inspiration for stories of the horrific and the uplifting. Even the political history of Melbourne offers a lot of food for thought such as the seedy, chauvinistic history of the rich fucks at the Melbourne club that was the seeds of the now horribly right-wing Liberal party.

I definitely feel more inspiration around at the moment and it’s quite exciting. I’m also excited about going to two sessions of the Melbourne Writers Festival this Sunday with my housemate. I do expect us the leave Federation Square with extra inspiration to let more words flow.

Funnily enough, thinking of and mentioning Hadeon has left me missing that novel. I think I’ve lost it for good after my old laptop was stolen a few months ago. The idea is probably totally unworkable and mainly came from my desire to work on two ideas (a horror set in medieval times as well as one set in modern day Melbourne) but there’s still some sentimentality to it, especially the first few chapters. If for some reason, I’ve sent you a copy a while ago and you still have it, sending me a copy would make my day

Technorati Tags: Melbourne, City of Literature, UNESCO, Melbourne Writers Festival, writing, inspiration

I’m pleased to point out, as some of you might have noticed, that over the last couple of weeks, my blogging has covered a fair few different topics, including the realms of various political issues, even a book review and to my surprise, a rare writing update. It seems the political and literary minds have allied once again in my head and it’s sure to strengthen both sides.

But the trend as of late in the political sides of things is to blog about all of the shit going on in the economy. I mean, it seems the most central political issue at the moment and we haven’t even seen the worst of it. Now, I’m sure a lot of my readers skip the political stuff in general, or don’t find it that interesting, but I think it’s fair to say the political posts that have been dealing with the economy have received more of this treatment.

It’s true, economics can be fucking boring. One only has to watch the nightly news to want to fall asleep at the sound of some boring middle-aged economist talking about falls in markets that seem so far from reality, and some how we’re meant to care or understand. But I think, part of it is that so much economic news is full of jargon and high-flying concepts that it leaves us all feeling like dip shits. We could never possibly understand economics so just leave it to the boring experts, who coincidently, think the system is fine and dandy because it works for them.

But of course, this shit does matter and these boring economists aren’t going to tell you that part. The media only scratch at the surface because one little drop in their little game of Monopoly means a few thousand people lose their homes, a few hundred lose their jobs or have their wages slashed. To them it’s just a game where if they lose, they walk away with a few million in prize money. To us, it’s life or death, survival or poverty. It really hits home for the author of this blog, when his father loses his job after their factory shut down and he walks away with a pathetic redundancy package.

And fiction hits the reader the hardest when it affects reality. I’ve always said that. I try to relate the monsters in my stories to the real monsters in the world. The Presidents, CEOs, Generals and right-wing nuts. This whole shit with the economy whilst seemingly boring with numbers and jargon, really does have some gripping and emotionally engaging stuff under the surface. So I might just pump some angry metal music through my iPod and with my creative and political minds, dig under the surface and find myself a story.

Technorati Tags: economy, capitalism, recession, writing, inspiration, creativity

Contrary to the bullshit our politicians and wanker economists are telling us, most of the Australian economy has been experiencing negative growth. The thing that has been giving us the impression that we’re booming is the fact that mining industry is booming and compensating for the rest of the economy. This on the back of much needed resources in the booming Chinese economy.

But as state in a previous post, our economy is not immune from America’s economic crisis because we’re tied to China and China is tied to America. This is the grim reality of world capitalism. And it seems economists are now willing to admit that given some recent drops in the prices of commodities, we could be looking at a collapse of the only thing keeping our economy strong.

Now I am not making grave apocalyptic predictions as some Marxist economists have fallen into the trap of doing but there is striking parallel in this period of impeding recession and our mining boom. Australia pre-depression was a booming economy on the back of natural resources such as mining and yet when the depression hit, we lost all of our markets and was left one of the hardest hit by the depression.

This also highlights that these kinds of crises are embedded in the system of capitalism. Even one economist admitted in the article that “This downswing is more consistent with the global economic fundamentals.” Essentially, economists have now admitted that crises happen, but are now saying that it’s part of the system so deal with it. Well, the high-flying CEOs are still living in luxury whilst we “deal with it” so we’ll need a fight back, especially in the unions, to stem the tide of attacks that are making us pay for their system’s problems.

Technorati Tags: economy, recession, depression, mining, Australia, capitalism

Firstly, I’d like to extend a welcome to my Facebook friends. If you’ve suddenly seen all these ‘notes’ from me pop in your news feeds, it’s because I’ve connected my blog to my Facebook profile. Feel free to read my posts from within Facebook, and if you find anything interesting, click on the link to the actual blog page and leave a comment.

I suppose the theme of a lot of my recent posts has been this impending writing binge. I’ve been feeling more like a writer, even reading again, getting ideas and generally in the right head space. Well, last Monday night and again last night, I actually did some writing! I sat in bed beside my partner, Margo as she read. And with my laptop charged, I just typed away. No distractions. No stress. I was able to relax and concentrate in a way I haven’t been able to in a long time.

I’ve returned to the novel I started working on as part of National Novel Writing Month last year. I still like the idea, but more so, I love the character. It’s written in first person with a little bit of commentary added in. The main guy is a bit insane and obsessed with his own philosophical theory of how to fix the world. I guess there’s opportunities to rant through the character as I tell his story. Whether or not that will make for good reading will be seen later in the edit. The point is to get the whole thing out.

I wrote 700 words both nights and feel quite accomplished considering my writing total hasn’t surpassed zero lately. Let’s hope I can maintain the habit.

Technorati Tags: writing, fiction, novel writing, Facebook

BBC NEWS | Africa | S Africa unions stage mass strike

There is often a false image in the media of the reality of the disgusting poverty in Africa. The poverty is portrayed in the form of helpless victims such as bloated babies and deserted townships.

The NGOs use these images to say Africans cannot help themselves and it’s up to Westerners to solve their poverty. That’s right ask the struggling workers of Australia, to contribute part of their measly average salary of like $40,000 instead of asking fat cats like Murdoch or Packer to contribute, or even Africa’s own fat cats who are far from affected by the poverty in Africa for the majority of the population.

You would be forgiven for thinking that Africa, unlike Australia or other Western countries, has no working class to fight for itself. Well this rare glimpse in South Africa is just such an example proving otherwise. The South African trade union movement staged a one day general strike that affected most of South Africa, including the lucrative mining industry and this was in protest against the rising living costs across the world, which particularly seems to hit the Third World first.

The African working class itself is the key to ending poverty in Africa because they are the ones producing the wealth that they should be getting more of a piece of.

Technorati Tags: Africa, poverty, capitalism, unions, strikes, protest, humanitarianism

The blogging, both political and literary related has gone up another notch recently. There have been two days, including yesterday, that had two posts. And I could’ve written more. And you’ll be glad to know that this does correspond with an increase in real writing, like I wrote 700 or so words the other night towards that NaNo novel I begun and forgot about last November. But that is for another post.

I thought I’d delve into the question posed to lefty bloggers for the upcoming edition of the Carnival of Socialism, that being a broad range of questions relating to the left and blogging: How we use the net to campaign, why leftie bloggers blog and the relation between blogging and real-life Far Left organisations.

I am a member of a Marxist-Trotskyist group from a Cliffite perspective in Australia. Those on the Left could probably pick the group, but I do not speak for and choose not to identify myself as a member online for reasons of security and to avoid the media using my words to defame the organisation.

This neither a loss to me or the organisation really as the Internet is pretty ineffective tool for building a revolutionary organisation. This does not mean the Internet is useless as a political tool but it’s hard to be convincing for purposes of the real world when the Blogosphere is awash with so much shit.

But I suppose like most media, exposure is useful to building movements and organisations. I am not opposed to building demonstrations or other events within the realms of the Blogosphere, Facebook etc., but it needs to be as a side to real building work of postering, leafleting and talking to people. The Net simply can’t give us the same exposure unless it spreads some way via Facebook in ways that is difficult to predict or control.

My own purposes for blogging are not to build organisations or movements, although if someone reads my political rants and find them convincing enough to get involved in revolutionary politics, all power to me, but in part, my political blogging is for my own personal development as a revolutionary.

Revolutionaries use various techniques to develop politically from the time they buy their first Newspaper or Magazine, whether it be through personal reading, reading groups, debates within the Left etc., but for me, blogging has provided a forum to practice formulating political arguments and analysis, test ideas and debate ideas.

I have found it useful over the years, made mistakes and learnt from them. Sometimes I lean too far in the realms of obscure Marxist theory that might go over the heads of most readers, and other times, I seem to sell myself out and be far too simplistic and popularist. But slowly, I am finding a balance.

Just wish more bloggers would actually read and comment because it seems my recent surge in blogging has come a bit late and I’ve lost a nice portion of my old readers, even though I thank those few that have stayed.

Technorati Tags: Left, liberal, progressive, Marxist, socialist, politics

I remember posting about starting to read this gem from Stephen King’s son in May 2007! I was actually ploughing through it and could barely put it down. So why have I only finished it fifteen months later on a cold afternoon in Melbourne, home sick?

I suppose my own personal habits have a lot to do with this. My reading has fallen off the radar, along with writing but surely this is not all to blame. I probably picked up another book around that point and this is partly due to the few climactic chapters toward the end that were all action but didn’t seem to grab me as much as the rest of the story.

I mean, Hill creates some brilliant characters in the reader’s mind and really sets up a nice story with lots of tension and the characters have a lot to lose in what happens, but it hits the scenes were there is much blood and violence etc., you know the bit that you’re dying to get to, and my enthusiasm seemed to go off the radar.

Again, it could be partly due to me but part of it too is those scenes aren’t the same quality as the build up scenes. The action is quite clinical and not as gripping. He’s merely telling the reader what’s going on and not showing us, or letting us feel it.

Once I got over that crutch this week after deciding to embark on a journey of finishing many unfinished novels, the ending was engaging and in parts emotional. Pity I got bored for fifteen months and had to wait this long to finish it.

Technorati Tags: Joe Hill, Heart-shaped box, fiction, review, Stephen King, horror

It’s amazing how I’ve gone months without much blogging at all, but at the moment my muse’s eyes and ears seem to be open and catching a lot of ideas. There could very well be three posts today. There’s the risk of them all being looked over but two have a kind of connection to some circles within the Blogosphere.

Firstly, I read an interesting post this morning on the blog, Write Anything, Does Blogging Make You a Better Writer? I think this question has been covered before on this blog, perhaps several times from various angles but I thought it was worth tackling again in the context of my recent feeling that a creative binge is coming.

Firstly, writing blog posts and writing a novel are two very different mediums. Grammatically, structurally, content-wise and audience wise, they can almost be polar opposites. So if you’re looking to develop your writing style to the point where you can write the next Grapes of Wrath, I think you’re going about it the wrong way.

But I do think blogging does something for the routine of a writer. Regular blogging can often transform to regular writing. You get in the habit. Habits are a great thing for writers. I mean, King writes 2000 words a day, every day. He’s harnessed that over decades. Just the feeling of typing every day kind of exercises the muse, coming up with words and feeling like a writer though blogging.

Another way is the way bloggers like Karen Lee Field have used their blogs, setting public goals and making yourself accountable. You say to those readers that you plan to write 1,000 words today and if you don’t, you look like an idiot to those readers. It works for some. I think I’ve used it in the past to some degree of success.

Technorati Tags: writing, blogging, routine, Blogosphere, Writers

Tale of two fortunes: John Stewart and Phil Smith | Herald Sun

It seems the delusional economists predicting Australia was immune from the current economic turmoil in the U.S. don’t have much left to stand on after this week. Of course, socialists have been saying that capitalism is a world system and because America’s working class are stone broke at the moment; they can’t afford the manufactured goods fuelling the boom in China, and so China can’t afford the raw materials fuelling the mining boom here in Australia.

And this week, we’ve seen both Starbucks and Don Smallgoods forced to cut jobs, whilst the NAB has seen its share price plummet. But whilst Starbucks’ and Don Smallgoods’ employees are thrown on the scrap heap and given nothing but crumbs, the CEO of NAB, who lost his job this week, is going to walk away with a payout of over $10 million.

This is yet another example about how rich fucks like NAB boss, John Stewart fuck up their companies and then make workers pay for it. Given that one the primary excuses for massive CEO salaries is the risk they take, getting paid $10 million dollars for fucking up is nothing short of absurd.

Even worse is, in the U.S., where people are losing their houses and there’s no relief coming from the government, Bush is bailing out the failures of mortgage brokers to the tune of trillions of dollars. Ah, the priorities of capitalism.

Technorati Tags: economy, recession, CEO, workers, NAB, Don, Starbucks, capitalism

End to mandatory detention | theage.com.au

For those veteran readers of my blog, they will know that my political convictions all began with campaigning to get rid of mandatory detention of asylum seekers. It was Merlin Luck’s protest on Big Brother of all things that made me decide that I’d protest. And from there, I was inspired and won to activism and eventually socialist politics.

The horror stories of asylum seekers, particularly children will always remain with me. Hunger strikes, sewn lips, depression, hopelessness, torture and brutality all justified by racism and xenophobia. For me, it was one of the “hallmarks” of Howard’s reign as Prime Minister.

And the fact that is now gone, is not a testament to how left-wing Rudd is. The campaign to end Mandatory Detention was an inspiring example of how people’s attitudes can change. At the beginning of the whole ideal, the “Tampa Affair” could be attributed to winning Howard the 2001 election and then years down the track, the mention of Mandatory Detention was such a bad thing for Howard. It became so unpopular as with a lot of Howard’s policies.

Rudd had to end this disgusting policy whether he wanted to or not.

Update: Former Immigration Minister under Howard, Phillip Ruddock who became infamous for his stance on refugees, has claimed credit for Rudd’s loosening of immigration legislation. That’s a bit of joke to say that because he was an asshole, Rudd can be nicer.

This is my second post today. This is very rare and I didn’t expect to be doing it. But as this was an important issue for me back in the days of my start in blogging, I had to mention it. Please don’t forget today’s first post, my first writing post in a while. And leave comment, if you can

Technorati Tags: mandatory detention, refugees, asylum seekers, immigration, racism, Australia, Rudd

I’ve written on and off for the last little while about feeling inspired, on the verge of something big etc. I haven’t been making excuses for not writing, as was a trend of mine in the past, but claiming that I was on the verge of writing again. I still feel that creative buzz on and off at the moment, the same buzz that used to precede an eccentric, crazy binge of creative writing and odd behaviour that was so much easier to manage when I was unemployed.

The buzz got stronger by a long shot last night, like I was about to explode, but no pen came to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and I still feel close to exploding yet blogging is the only outlet it’s taking. This is a state of mind, that hasn’t as of yet, transformed into action, into writing. It’s a nice state of mind. It makes me feel like a writer again. And I hope it transforms into something soon.

Some things that indicate to me I could be on the verge of a creative binge. I’m dreaming again. I have this urge to read, though yet to find the time. I was hearing things and my imagination went down the horror story path which is a bit overgrown at the moment. I returned to an old writer’s forum yesterday after many months. Hell, I’m blogging about writing after months of mostly politics.

I have written stuff. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a flash fiction piece as a draft email in my gmail account that I touch here and there. But still waiting for that binge of creativeness where there is a whole page or more, rather than a paragraph here and there.

Technorati Tags: writing, creativity, flash fiction, dreaming, reading, imagination

We’re in Iraq for long haul: Labor | theage.com.au

Sometimes, I really fucking hate being proven right. Especially when I make predictions that some politician isn’t going to do what we all think he’ll do, and then of course, he doesn’t do that. Politicians make promises and often they’re bullshit. Complete shit. They tell lies to get elected because the truth is far from inspiring enough to have people put a ‘1’ beside their name.

And when Rudd finally listened to the mass antiwar opinion in Australia, he said he’d pull the troops out. But they were only ‘combat troops’, as if the other guys with guns were the nice ones being left there under the same proviso that Rudd was rhetorically rejecting by pulling the first lot out. And we looked at all of this with suspicion whilst relating to people’s hope in at least Rudd was pulling some out instead of none at all.

But once again, Labor has proved us right. It comes as no surprise that the Labor Foreign minister has come out saying they’re committed to the War in Iraq with their ‘non-combat’ troops. They’ve got some big ship sitting off the course guarding offshore oil exports and the minister said something about the region being ‘instable’ and ‘economically important’ which kind of actually tells the truth of why they’re there.

It’s not about democracy or any of that bullshit. It’s about the coalition’s economic interests in the region. Australia is still part of that because Labor still has to run the same system Howard was.

Technorati Tags: Rudd, Labor, War, Iraq, troops

This will be my second post in less than a week, which isn’t that impressive except if you look at my recent form, which is far worse. The news isn’t that exciting, except for the World Youth Day shit which I’ve already covered and don’t think it deserves anything more than the one post. But it is Monday morning, which is the most depressing time of the week. I’m tired, it’s cold outside and I’m bored at work.

I may sound like a whinger, but I feel I need to rant against work. It’s a waste of fucking time. The reason I am bored at work is that I could complete this week’s tasks in probably two days, but because I get paid for working a week, I need to string it out and look like I’m working the whole time. It’s lame and gives me the shits. I get two days a week to relax and it seems to go by so fucking quickly and yet the five days I am working go by so fucking slowly.

It’s also fucked that I will spend the majority of my lifetime sitting at a desk, wasting my time to earn a living to enjoy the other small fraction of my lifetime trying to enjoy myself. All of this so some fucking company can make money defrauding people that they are doing good within a system in which it is impossible to fix the problems of homelessness, poverty and unemployment among others.

And this is not unique to my situation. The majority of people, spend their time working to benefit some lazy boss to earn a living to just get by. It’s a systematic thing that stares me right in the face, most of all on Monday mornings. So much so that I feel that I need to spend the rest of my time organising to overthrow the whole system and replace it with something that is worth living for.

Technorati Tags: work, Monday, alienation, exploitation, life

My apologies for my lacking of blogging as of late, though not sure how many people will receive this because it seems my once respectable readership has diminished or are so bored by my posts that consist of nothing much more than rants against various aspects of capitalism, that they cannot be bothered to comment. I still have random urges to write, but any decent length of fiction is still eluding me.

Though, this post is being written 900km away from where my posts used to be written from. I have moved to Melbourne to live with my partner and enjoying it immensely. This will be a nice excuse for not blogging. I still have the same job I had in Sydney, though am doing it from the company’s Victoria State office. The sweet deal is that my boss is still in Sydney. Hence an excuse for blogging.

My current position at work is that those around me have no clue what my role is so I can effectively do what I like, which includes novel writing, blogging and msn. There’s one manager watching me for my boss in Sydney but he does his own thing and can’t see my screen from where he sits. I will use this all to my advantage because aside from this, the new office is shit. Everyone is much older than me and sit too far away from me to have casual chat during the day.

Hence I’m bored out of my fucking mind. I will post pictures of me standing near a tram or something to prove to you all I live in Melbourne and I’m not just making it up to have something to write about. Do post comments if you’re still reading.

Volunteers refuse to use new nuisance laws - National - smh.com.au

Iemma has really created his own opposition this time. Amid crisis with his own cabinet shooting themselves in the feet with various antics and his own party revolting against his plan for privatisation of electricity, he’s basically invited people to protest against World Youth Day by creating these extraordinary laws against “annoying” WYD participants. Anything, like tshirts, that go against Catholic values can result in a $5500 fine.

This has obviously created an uproar amongst the public and civil libertarians. These laws are unprecedented. How the fuck do you find annoying anyway? It’s a subjective thing. The protests were likely to be small because whilst the Pope is a homophobic asshole, this does not mean all Catholics are. Also, protests run the risk of alienating progressive Catholics who may be going to some of the socially progressive sessions that WYD is providing.

But in a total paranoid attempt not to tarnish Sydney’s “image”, Iemma has pissed people off by trying to control every aspect of their behaviour. The protests are likely now to attract people on the basis of defending their freedoms, like the right to protest, in much the same way APEC attracted people last year. This would be a valid reason to protest World Youth Day, but I think it’s a fine balancing act between standing up for your rights and not alienating Catholics that are really on our side.

Iemma is really the main target in this. And he’s making himself such an easy one.

Technorati Tags: Iemma, Pope, World Youth Day, Sydney, protest, Catholicism

Billion dollars pledged for food crisis - CNN.com

The economy is really in the shit at the moment. Sorry to be crude and blunt. But if you look at the situation around the world, capitalism is acting pretty crude and blunt itself. We already know that the lives of billions of people below the poverty line is a constant struggle to even survive, but now it’s getting even worse. Prices on staple goods such as rice and wheat are skyrocketing. Suddenly that $1 a day or less that barely got you by is not even getting you that far.

And this is running in parallel to those few slimey scumbags living the highlife with too much money to even know what to do with it. There is a divide in the world between the rich and poor and no one can deny this.

So CNN.com runs a report today saying that the world powers have been so generous as to pledge over $1 Billion to help the food crisis. That’s fucking nothing. The UN Chief says we need $20 Billion to solve it. And then the we look at the price of the war in Iraq, which has been estimated by the New York Times to cost $1.2 Trillion. The numbers are so high it’s surreal.

So $1 Billion spent on try to feed people compared to $1.2 Trillion to kill people. Draw your own fucking conclusions on what the priorities are.

Technorati Tags: Capitalism, poverty, food crisis, UN, War in Iraq, economy