Friday, July 26, 2013

Rising up

Arrived back in Melbourne again last Friday...

Plenty of family time. I managed to get the bike back on the road and have been taking it on the trains. It's awesome down here, you can ride the trains both suburban and rural with your bike. The Geelong train even has a bike rack... Sorry no photos.

On Friday night I received an email to say there would be a rally against Ruds oppressive Asylum Seeker Policy to send all boat arrivals to PNG. I don't bother too much with political stuff on this blog since I am sure most of my old friends and those I grew up with are racist, bigoted pricks... Sorry guys it's just the shit you say and do... If you're wondering why we aren't friends on facebook it's because I've had a gut full of that shit and I really don't want to offend your insular sensibilities or rock your boats... and I certainly don't want to be constantly reminded of the good old days...

Anyway I rode the train into Melbourne on Saturday morning and hoofed it off to the State Library where I joined a small group of people who were setting up for the rally. It's always a bit daunting attending these things, you never know if anyone else will turn up or what kind of opposition you might meet. I was glad to see there were about 30 people with banners and placards. I noticed one of the banners was sagging so I thought I'd hold it up for them... Within 15 minutes a crowd had gathered larger than any I've seen for a very long time. By the time we marched there was a crowd of over 500 people marching on Melbourne's coldest day in 6 years... in the rain! What a buz!



Now apparently poles have been taken and despite the benefit of the doubt afforded to the Australian Public by some speakers I've heard there is an over riding sense of malice held toward asylum seekers in Australia. Back home in Darwin people have openly asserted that boats should be sunk and people shot in the water! I am not surprised. Actually I was more surprised when I heard a local public figure stating that he was sure it is only a small minority in Western Sydney who are generating most of the ill will towards Asylum Seekers. What planet has he been living on?
So friends... Here we are. At a cross roads, a turning point for our national conscience. We are not naive children or innocent unaware folk. We can't go on claiming to be the poor little country of battlers who believe in a fair go and continue to support policies that condemn people we have a moral and legal obligation to help... We will have to choose. We are not being The Good Guys!

I've just now listened to a political Rap song, not my usual style of music... but it took me back to my teenage years and reminded me of how I managed to hold to my political beliefs despite the attitudes of my friends and acquaintances... I was lucky that my parents weren't like that but what got me through feeling totally isolated was Music. I listened to heaps of music that backed up my gut feelings. Red Gum, Lou Reed, Midnight Oil, Warumpi Band, Bob Dylan.... and heaps more! Even if you grow up surrounded by ignorance maybe music will provide safe harbor.


Tuesday, July 16, 2013

I don't read your blog... any more



Keepings up…
Since the bicycle accident my life has undergone a significant downscale… Besides not being allowed to drive or ride a bike, my concentration and energy levels have dropped too. 
Even though my enthusiasm for the cyber existence had been waning prior to the accident, a couple of fractured fingers has made it very difficult to type and my back doesn't like the idea of sitting at a computer for hours so I've pretty much given up reading blogs… The fact that flickr has drastically changed it's format hasn't helped either!
It's old news that Google reader would cease to exist after July 1st but by the time July came I’d completely forgotten that it was scheduled to be shut down! How ironic that I should look for it today July 16th and discover that I could have migrated my subscribed blogs to another RSS feeder up until 12pm yesterday!




I guess that’s one way to cure me of my voyeuristic romanticizing of the world through the eyes of others…  Maybe now I can just get on with my own life instead of coveting the fascinating lives I’d subscribed to over the years!
I must have been subscribed to a couple of hundred individual blogs, Possibly a quarter of them had ceased publishing since I started reading but there were some that were exceptional and which I would have liked to have continued to read. Of those I can only recall the titles of a handful…

To all the skilled, gifted, green fingered, mechanically minded, artistically driven or just plain cooky  bloggers, writers, artists I’ve followed over the past several years thanks for the inspiration… Maybe I’ll stumble across your blogs by accident again someday but chances are… I won’t.

Since I do remember some of the titles of blogs I used to subscribe to via my old reader, I thought I'd post them here so I can find them again... You might like to check some of these out there's some serious artistic talent and happy cycling/sailing tales to read here.





The Smallest Forest





 
The Homeless Guy



 
Up in Alaska (Oops now it’s called Jill Outside)





Free Advice on How to Fix Bikes




What I did on Friday




 Outrigger Sailing Canoes
 http://outriggersailingcanoes.blogspot.com.au/



Green Commotion





Art of Kris Larsen (He says he’s through with this blog but… you never know)



 After several years of skipping around the internet I think the luster has finally worn off. I don't get online social networking at all, I don't like having the free stuff I use fiddled and tampered with... (OK I'm seriously resistant to change... Big F---ing Deal) 
I'm ready now not to be aware of every nuance of change affecting the socially aware universe of hipsters and cool Steele... So much phony baloney! I've had a gut full of the coolest happenings, flashmobs, community inclusion, ukelele playing, moustachioed fishermen's pant wearers, nude cyclist, AK47 machete wielding survivalists, gender neutral, Organic Perma-anticultural-subcultural super networks, bean eating jet-setters chasing celebrity love harmony and Government grants for feeding the downtrodden and underprivileged children... (so long as it looks good) 
Name droppers... Oxygen thieves... But wait... 

"You think that's air you're breathing now?"
(Morpeus (Laurence Fishburne) The Matrix 1999)