A Black Armband Or A Blindfold?

Friday night, I attended the Reconciliation dinner at the University of Queensland commemorating the 40th anniversary of the referendum that first allowed Indigenous Australians to be counted in the census.  There were four hundred and fifty other people gathered in what I think was usually an indoor sporting field (based on the presence of a large scoreboard off to one side.  Shrewd, I know).

And on Saturday, I went to a Sorry Day event at the State Library’s new kuril dhagun Indigenous knowledge centre.  I’d just come from a Democrats’ State Council meeting, so I missed the first half of the proceedings, but the smaller crowd filled the talking pit, and it was more like a gathering of a small group of friends than a rally.  I took some photos of which I hope to be able to post sometime soon.

Pauline’s United Australia Party – bringing irony back into the mainstream

 Pauline Hanson has announced she’s running for Parliament again, and she’s slapped together a new party to support her – Pauline’s United Australia Party (no, not kidding).

I wanted to take a moment to do some in-depth analysis of Pauline’s meteoric rise from racist obscurity to racist celebrity, but there’s really not much in the way of depth there, no matter how hard you look.

It’s hard to say whether she’s actually trying to get elected, or if she just wants a few more hundreds of thousands of dollars of electoral funding, like she received last time she ran for the Senate. But her habitual bigotry niche has been absorbed into Howard’s platform of implict and explicit xenophobia (temporary protection for refugees; claims that migrants will be swamping Australia with disease; attacks on Indigenous Australians; Australian values test – probably just coincidences) leaving her to either up the ante even further, or fall back on her other great strength – making an idiot of herself.

And I think the name of the new party is a pretty good indication of which way she’s headed. Her Unity party will be campaigning hard on their “Up is Down” and “Black is White” policies. Under Pauline’s vision of unity, Australians all will hold hands going into the future: Christians walking side by side with Christian Muslims.

Melbourne for the Friends of the ABC – Yungaba for those of you left behind

I’ve come down to Melbourne for the Friends of the ABC National Conference this weekend.

This being an election year, and with the ABC still reeling from a decade of abuse by the Howard Government, I chose to expose my dodgy back to the perils of air travel, and come down. And it’s my Melbourne-based sister’s birthday next week, and I knew she’d be thrilled at putting me up to the point where no further birthday present would be necessary.

I’m Not Dead.

Neither is Peter Andre, apparently, but you can’t have everything.

My excuses are many and bountiful for not posting, the highlights are

1) Stinking computer.  Fixed at a cost of 2/3 of the price of a new one.

2) Stinking back.  Not really fixed at all.  If anyone knows of a new one going cheap, please contact me.

Will be posting again soon.