Suitable Transport

Aurora and I travelled today to the city to support some friends who are taking part in a project called Suitable Transport. On the way while waiting for suitable transport (a tram, which unfortunately was running late), we were stationed at a tram stop with a fellow traveller (pictured below). She kept her jacket over her head and kept muttering things to herself. I could only make out what she was saying when she raised her voice to swear which she started to do quite frequently as the time stretched. I wanted to share a bit of her frustration as we too wanted the tram so that we could hear all the speeches and be there in time to throw confetti over all the bike riders. Anyway it is another photo I could not resist. I'm glad though that Aurora seemed oblivious to the mutterings and was a little surprised I took the photo.


Frustrated commuter.



The bikes line up.

Stephen Gale (pictured 2nd on right), who incidently has helped us a lot (Pelican Expeditions) over the years of building the boat Pelican1, recently started riding a battery powered bike and was so impressed with them that he thought up the project so that lots of people would learn about their transport potential. He has gathered 20 people to ride with him from Melbourne to Sydney to press the point. He also gathered this impressive dome (pictured below) to help launch the project. It is none other than Peter Garrett (ex Midnight Oil singer, present Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage and the Arts -catch breath) Or at least the back of him!
So...Go Bike Power!!!

Theory of Painting 1

"Lookout"

This is one of a series of paintings I did quite a while ago. All the pictures played around with letters in a landscape, mainly the letter P. This letter appears everywhere in an urban setting as you are roaming around looking for a parking space.

The old "Where do I belong? " chestnut became aligned with the simple process of composing, seemingly arbitarily, these urban pointers in an incongruous setting .

Anyone reading this will probably be thinking "This girl should stop right there!" I don't paint at the moment but similar questions still haunt me in different ways. It is why whenever I am taking photographs, I am still drawn to photos of signs which seem abstracted in the landscape. I respond with my old painter eye which delights in a flat shape in space that resonates with my old way of feeling myself into the world (with a level of distance,disbelief and irony). All those elements have changed in me today which is why the photo below seems a little warmer. Anyway I couldn't resist taking it.


Sign.

Pandora

Artist - Tom Shirley

I've just recently discovered this music listening site which looks great. I can't check it out properly until I get home onto broadband. Something to look forward to in the Big Smoke at least.

Pandora

Here is their rave...

"Ever since we started the Music Genome Project, our friends would ask:

Can you help me discover more music that I'll like?

Those questions often evolved into great conversations. Each friend told us their favorite artists and songs, explored the music we suggested, gave us feedback, and we in turn made new suggestions. Everybody started joking that we were now their personal DJs.

We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you."

meanwhile back at the farm ...

Aurora enjoying the farm.


Native cotton.


Dam with lilies.

It has been a busy few years. Before my blogging days and before my daughter turned 2 (she is now 5) I used to visit my mum's farm in SE Queeensland at least once a year. Unfortunately life has been too busy to slow down and get down onto the farm!! We have finally been able to get here as a family and I am absorbing every quiet moment as deeply as I can!



The farm grows macadamia nuts but it really grows trees and my mum has slowly been returning most of the land to original health.


Mum's farm is close to the sea and my husband Paul has borrowed a long board and enjoying the amazing surf.

Do you believe in magic?

At the end of March, my daughter had a 5th Birthday party. It is a milestone birthday in so many ways. As she is very interested in magic I found a magician who came and entertained Aurora and a group of her friends. This year she handled all the invites and it was the first time that she lots of playmates from her kinder. The topic of magic comes up all the time and I love hearing the way her lively imagination concocts theories about everything! Though she has a good lashing of healthy skepticism, seen here as she contemplates the magician's hat!

Our offshore processing nightmare....

The Christmas Island Detention centre - due to be opened mid 2007. Another out of sight - out of mind stroke of genius by the Liberal Government.

The 82 Sri Lankan asylum seekers (see earlier post) are now to be removed from Christmas Island to Nauru. They have not had any access to legal support or advice. The process of identifying and sorting out their claims will take a much longer period on Nauru. People have been left on Nauru for up to 5 years before their claims have then been recognised. Kevin Andrews, our Immigration Minister, has stated that even if they are assessed as bona fide refugees they will be sent to any other country except Australia.

The history of recent events points out that the majority of asylum seekers who have been placed in these offshore centres have been judged legitimate and have ended up in Australia or New Zealand. Our government takes the view that if we processed these applications humanely and in decent time, it would encourage and reward the people smugglers who manage to bring these desperate people all the way to our shores. And that the people who make it here by such means are queue jumpers, illegal etc etc. I doubt that one of these government boffins has attempted for one minute to put themselves in the shoes of these so called "illegals". They seem to forget that we are not such a desirable or easy to get to target for people who are fleeing. We are a long way away and are surrounded by sea. It seems to me that the process of criminalizing people who have already often suffered is an arse about way of dealing with people in dire need.

Offshore processing began with the Tampa , which conveniently dovetailed into Howard's strategy of creating an atmosphere of fear ("the illegals probably harbour terrorists among them") during an election(2004) campaign. And this year is an election year in Oz!

Just adding that as worrying as the conditions on Christmas Island are, the Asylum Seekers are desperate to stay there and not be shipped to Nauru.

Image below by an asylum seeker at Nauru.


Ali Raza at the fence 2005 Nauru detention Centre - Artist Syed M Ali

Cockroach post

Well, to be precise, a Madagascan Hissing Cockroach, which just happened to remind me of our Prime Minister.
We may be confronting problems on the scale of global warming (which, incidentally, has already hit Melbourne if the increase in the cockroach population is any guage), the horror of the continuing debacle of Iraq, Afgahnistan's plight and many issues close to home , like the lack of good Aged Care services but all our PM can do is hiss at the ascendant Opposition with all sorts of dirty smear tactics and generally avoid any policy development or discussion thereof. I am so sick to death with politics at the moment and the current game playing seems mildly insane and very inane!

Another event to raise my ire has been the predictable weasly responses of this government to the Sri Lanka refugees who managed to get close to our shores in a leaky vessel. Initially the intercepting Navy were trying to shoo them away but when it was obvious they were sinking, they took the 83 Tamil refugees and two Indonesian crew to Christmas Island (where our Government is spending millions to build an off shore asylum processing complex (far away from pesky lawyers that talk about Human Rights etc). But this was also too close as the refugees had been in international waters so we don't want to deal with them so what do we do - we ask the Indonesians to take them because they haven't signed the UN charter on refugees and have much less ability and infrastructure to deal with them. As there has been an outcry from the good public that Jakarta would just send them back to Sri Lanka we are now looking at putting them on Nauru (which has been used to dump our unwanted before and has led to huge delays in the processing of asylum claims.

If I hear one more Minister banging on about the fact that "We will choose who comes here." I will - What can you do, besides write, protest and pull my hair out!!