arundhati roy - what a gal

"On which side will we fight? This is the fundamental question. Whether we win or lose is a separate matter.' Arundhati Roy.

hello officer, i'd like to take out a restraining order please

Well, it's now the 17th of October 2004 - one week and one day after the federal election in Australia in which John Howard's Liberal party blitzed the opposition Labor party with an overwhelming majority of 46 % of the vote. Huh? Wait a minute... When you look at it like that, I am not really so over whelmed. I guess the commentators that keep referring to it as an overwhelming majority have generally dull lives and are easily overwhelmed. ... No. Okay. I was being a smartarse there. Truth to tell, I must confess I was actually overwhelmed that Labor lost so badly and in particular, as I may have already said, that the crazy Australian public has given John Howard's government power in the Senate as well. But a big factor in Liberal's return to government has been overlooked in this post mortum phase; that is, that every state in Australia now has a Labor government and a lot of voters quite simply don't want both state and federal governments run by the same party. Heavy sigh. Instead, we have the upper and lower houses in the hands of a man who believes that giving someone $3000 for having a baby is the same thing as responsible equitable sharing of wealth. Mind you, I am just jealous. I want my cut of the child bearing pie. As it is, I am owed $6000 and when the payment reaches its zenith in a couple of years, I will be owed $12000. ... But that's not why I write. I write because it is the 17th of October and I am still getting bloody letters from John Howard. Today I went to my mail box and I found a letter saying this: Mark Latham's (the 'L' written in a yellow square to denote a learner driver - how amusing! ha! ha! ha!) tax cuts would be written off in 3 months if he forced up interest rates just one percentage point. ...... It's true - John Howard is still hounding me! Last week, on or about the 7th October, I recieved in one twenty four hour period three letters and a damned phone call from him. I think I have made it pretty dang clear that his attention is unwanted. Didn't he get the hint when I sent back his Be Alert Not Alarmed fridge magnet with this message written in Nikko on the outer wrapping: Return to, and Shove up Arse of, Sender? .... That's it. I can't take it anymore - I am taking out a restraining order against him. It's called harrassment. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Political Monopoly

If you believe that Mark Latham should remain leader of the opposition: Go to the ALP website. Go directly to the ALP websire. Do not pass go. Do not stop to deface a leftover John Howard election poster. Do not collect your $600 election bribe. Just go to the ALP website and jot a quick email telling them so. Believe me, they read them. These people spend tens of thousands and thousands of dollars on market research trying to find out what the public thinks. Do you think they'll ignore what comes in for free? They may not read and note down every word of every email, but they will keep a tally of those in support of an issue and those against. So unless you want to see Kimbo Beasley or Simon 'The Pieman' Crean leading the party further into the wilderness, get writing. Or even worse, Kevin Rudd. Has there EVER been the leader of a nation called Kevin? I don't think so. It's too much like The Life of Brian. If they elected Kevin Rudd leader, the winning ad of the next election campaign would read - Kev-in! He's not the Prime Minister - he's just a Naughty Little Boy. .... The best we can hope for is Labor. The Democrats are dead in the water. The Greens are years away from being anything more than a nuisance to the major parties as has just been proved by the disastrous forestry deal. Sure, Labor leaves a lot to be desired but one day soon, after John Howard has pushed through his cross media ownership 'reforms' and Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer finally own everything, when Telstra is gone and another battallion of twenty year olds are off to Iraq, or more exciting still, IRAN, well, then many many Australians and not just the ones who voted Labor, will miss their dear little absent faces. Especially in the Senate.

Would you like fries with that, sir?

Hey, I'll tell you something funny. Well, it's not really funny but, you know, you gotta laugh. You gotta laugh or else you go psychotic and begin to hear voices telling you to kill the butcher before he kills you.

Now this funny thing is that in Iraq the Americans have taken the art of entrepreneurialism to new heights. They have privatised torture! They have contracted out the job of causing an enemy
enough distress to result in an episode of bean spilling. These privateers are called Human Exploitation Teams. I wonder is there a tender process involved here? Is there a round figure quoted? Say perhaps for $10 000 per month you get a mixed team of ex-crims and ex-SAS officers for generalised terror, bullying and democracy delivery? Or is it more specific? For example: 400 beatings @ $200 ea. + 50 threatened electrocutions@ $450 + 700 blindfoldings @ $15 as a package for $20 000. Call now and we will throw in a testicle eating pit bull terrier absolutely FREE!!!!! But wait! There's more! Order two or more of these super value offers, we will do your first 50 prisoners absolutely FREE of charge whether they are guilty or not with the option to purchase manufactured evidence in case order is ever restored and someone tries to sue. What exactly happens here? You have an Iraqi POW who doesn't respond to the normal humiliation of having a short ugly woman named Lindy pointing at his willy and laughing, so someone jumps on the blower and barks officiously 'Send us down a Human Exploitation Team. Pronto!' And half a dozen red necks appear and start stripping people? When they have finished an interrogation, is the POW asked to fill out a customer feedback form? .... Please tick the appropriate box. Were you: # not at all frightened # a little frightened # very very frightened # shitting yourself .... Did you feel like your Human Exploitation Team was going to: # kill you # maim you # kill your family # maim your family # all of the above # none of the above..... Would you recommend our service to your friends? # yes # no .... I wonder if they are required to try to Upsell? Now, sir, you've had a very successful anal rape with a blunt object, can we also interest you in a 24 hour stint of hooded sleep deprivation ? For a small extra infringement on your part, we could even set you up with a loyalty card. That is; with every 5 interrogations, you get one Free! We can't do more than that for you, now can we?

And you know, I thought John Howard was crazy for privatising Telstra!

oh, hush yo' snivellin', crybaby - it's only another three years...

Once upon a time, in a hemisphere far away, New Zealanders crossed the Tasman in embarrassing numbers in search of the promised land, Oz.

There was a screamingly hilarious joke about it. Oh, god, I can barely stop myself from urinating out of mirth even now, thinking about it all these years later... It goes a little something like this...

Would the last one out of New Zealand please turn out the lights?

Okay. So it's not quite as funny once you type it out loud. But it does illustrate my point quite nicely.

ie. That once, everybody wanted to live in Australia and nobody wanted to live in New Zealand

Alas, poor NZ.

* France blew up the Rainbow Warrior.
* Australia claims all her greatest artistic talents as its own.
* Uncle Sam spat the dummy after the chaste Ms NZ refused to allow her harbours to be penetrated by his nuclear subs.

But today, the flow of immigration threatens to bleed in the opposite direction as those Australians who happen to have a social conscience struggle to come to terms with the unpleasant fact that the Wizard of Oz has pulled the wool over the eyes of general population once more.

TAKE NO NOTICE OF THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN. It is only John Howard, a small man in all ways, pretending to be all powerful as he cowers behind a facade of smoke, mirrors and spin. Unfortunately he is good at pretending. He has convinced more than half the country that it doesn't matter if we imprison children in desert detention camps so long as interest rates don't rise. It doesn't matter if we collude in the murder of thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians in an illegal war so long as we can all afford a new washing machine whether we need one or not. It doesn't matter if you take away the basic human rights of your citizens so long as you convince them that it keeps them safe from a largely illusory menace which Howard helped to create in the first place. Oh, for the day people get as worked up about the road toll as they do about the comparatively miniscule number who succumb to DBT (Death By Terrorist. )

As for the American public - they kill more of each other in a month with their Right To Bear Arms than have probably ever been killed by foreign terrorists.

And so, me and Dorothy and Bill ( who is also a friend of Dorothy) are still clicking the heels of our shiny red shoes together and repeating mindlessly "There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home." We have been doing so since about 1998. But nothing happens. As yet we havent woken up and found that it was only a bad dream and that John Howard isn't the Wizard of Oz at all but only a harmless snake oil salesman travelling by wagon through the appealing countryside of Kansas.

But don't cry for us, Red Cortina - we are striking out for the Land of the Long White Cloud. I spoke to several friends today. One said he is also moving to NZ. Maybe we can split the rent on a Long House. Another said she'd move to Scotland if she could. Another said she was going anywhere, anywhere away from here. She feels threatened by a horde of dangerous voters. She is certain she would get better treatment in most countries as a refugee than those who arrived here did.

So will the last one with a social conscience out of Oz, please turn out the light?
Might as well send the rest of you ALL the way back to the Dark Ages.

Does the name Patrick's ring a bell?

Have you seen that email going around that explains that the human brain can recognise scrambled words with ease just so long the first and the last letter are unchanged? For example;
Oh god, I'd tkae a vlaium if I culod olny uncelcnh my teteh.*

I think this may explain how the workers of Australia got the concepts of solidarity and stupidity mixed up when voting in this election. They both begin with 's', see? And they end with 'y'. I would like to think that maybe those australian workers who voted for John Howard's despicable government thought that their Act of Stupidity was actually an Act of Solidarity with the forestry workers of Tasmania.

You see, there is this crazy perception among forestry workers that they should get special treatment; that while occupation after occupation falls under the scythe of John Howard's Brave New One Stop Flexible Work Force Job Shop, they, along with farmers ought to be able hold on to their quaint old ways. Well, the days of happily singing 'I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay' whilst striding through thick virgin forest wearing a red checked blazer, axe slung with careless chic over the shoulder, are gone. Along with much of the thick virgin forest. Someone needs to get it through their impenetrable safety helmets that clearfelling forest for woodchipping on a very small island is an industry with an extremely short life expectancy; and that we are fast reaching the end of that life. If you have even the IQ of a pot plant, you'd have to see that you're going to need another job before too long. The only thing that's guaranteed here is that John Howard's government isnt going to be the one to give it to you. Unless! Well, maybe I am being unfair. It's just occurred to me that maybe they are planning to open Telstra call centres on the banks of the Franklin. If that's the case, then you'll all be fine - there'll be all the unskilled poorly paid casual work you can cope with for both you and your kids. And oh, one more thing - for those unionists who considered a vote against Labor a protest vote... You protest in a letter to your local member. You protest in a street march. You protest at a town hall meeting. You VOTE in a polling booth. You VOTE in a polling booth. You VOTE in a polling booth.

* Oh god, I'd take a valium i could only unclench my teeth.