....

It's cup day and I'm stuck here until 3 o'clock, meaning I may miss the race that I've already spent a fair bit of money on. To hell with that. I think I'll just slip quietly out the back door at five to and head down the rubba dub dub. It's un-Australian to keep people in on this day of all days. It's also pretty un-Australian to introduce sedition laws that prosecute people for just speaking their mind or having a rant, but that's what we've come to, thanks to an opposition that refuses to do it's job and oppose properly. It's un-Australian to set up a police state in the name of "national security" that does away with all due process but that seems to be what's on the cards. I don't know whether to laugh, cry, kill myself or just flee this place. I figure it's my country and I should have the right to live here in comfort but I don't see how, in the current political climate, I'm going to be able to do that and be myself and say what I think about, you know, stuff. How dare Howard and Ruddock think they have the right to impose their will on the entire population. I didn't vote for them, even if the moronic two thirds of the country did. Anyway, that's enough for now......

ah what the

Monday already and it appears I've let another weekend slide by without contributing much to my own improvement or that of society. Yesterday I just let slip by. Watched a movie, came home, made a few phone calls, watched some TV, went to bed. Wasn't I supposed to spend the whole afternoon typing up more material? It'll have to be next weekend I guess. Got some advice from a friend on Friday night in the pub that my writing needs to be redrafted more, that I shouldn't be touting my rough drafts around town. However, I need to tout them around town if I'm ever going to get the advice and input I need, including his. He gave me the example of Peter Carey who redrafts every chapter exactly eighteen times. Somehow I don't think I'll ever get that far. I couldn't do it any more on my own, of course it's only the beginning but at least I've made a start. I may never end up with anything particularly brilliant, but at least I've done something, left my mark somehow. Not that it means much but it's better than nothing at all.

bfff

It's raining outside, a plane flies lazily overhead. That sound tells me it's six in the morning. Often I'm awake already at that time, in fact it's unusual if I'm not. Right now it's seven in the morning, and for a change I've had a good night's sleep. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone could sleep well every night? We would probably have world peace then if that were the case. People get some crazy ideas at night as they lie there tossing and turning. Now let's just see if I can publish this one......

da crew

Rhea and me, taking off to ski

25/10/05

Greetings all and welcome to the first ever posting of this, my foray into the wonderful world of blogging. I'll start cutting and pasting a few pics onto it, as well as copies of my other writings as soon as I can figure out how in heck. Every day things come go and fly into the ether. Inspiration is one of those things that comes and goes like a fleeting dream in an afternoon nap. I'm figuring that this medium might motivate me to get the old finger out and actually start doing something, writing down a few of those lost dream fragments that mean so much at the time but disappear with the morning light. Well, that's the honorable intention anyway.

Those of you who know me, know that I'm a bit of a political animal, but I'm just about ready to give up on politics for once and for all. I feel just defeated by what John Howard has achieved. He really is Mr. Lowest Common Denominator. Every single thing that guy represents is ugly and the Australian electorate, it seems, is just too pig ignorant to see it. I'm convinced now that the man is determined to set up a dictatorship. People often fail to realise that all dictatorships only get to operate with the complicity of a large number of people. That was true of the Third Reich and it was true of Stalin and Mao and the rest. It's been an all out assault on workers' rights, refugee rights, student rights and now, of course, civil rights. This latest attack is rubbing the courts up the wrong way it seems. Why? Because they are muttering that the proposed counter-terrorism is illegal. How about that? John Howard, former lawyer and sitting prime minister should damn well know the law better than most. He should have figured out that the war in Iraq was illegal too, but somehow it wasn't in his view. He knows he's breaching the law, knows better than most, but he's arrogant enough to do this. Will this shit finally stick? Will the teflon bandit finally lose his sheen? I hope so, but I'm not optimistic. Mr. Howard, I accuse you of leading the nation right the way down the s-bend. I don't think there's much hope of ever bringing it back. So I give up. You're just as popular as ever. It seems there's no low too miserable for you to sink to. You won't be satisfied until we become another Argentina, another South Africa. Nobody else is allowed to have any power under your system. Not the courts, not the States, certainly not minority interests.

That's enough spleen venting for the moment. I'll be right back with more in a while.