Cnr St Geo's Tce and Mount Street looking East @ 7am Tuesday

I am trying to balance this page out. When I posted the photo's of the low-lying rainbow yesterday, I noticed that the whole page had an angry tone and anyone reading this would think I was constantly unhappy. I decided to post the things that give me joy; Yes, even on my way to work! My phone camera does no justice to the light here, but my favourite saying has always been "It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness".
As cold as it is on my way to work in the mornings; at least it is light. I really like the look and feel of the city at around 7:00 am, before everyone arrives and starts rushing and there's still enough space for everyone.

Bob Brown

Senator Bob Brown says a lot of things that get him in to trouble. He also makes a lot of sense.


"Four years ago Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club," Senator Brown said.

"Four years ago John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war.

"I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm," Senator Brown told reporters in Melbourne.

River View

Stood up to speak to Smee at around 11 o'clock this morning, peering over the cubicle wall that separates us and looked out the window to the right to see a spectacular rainbow spread across the river to the west of here. I actually stopped mid-sentence and exclaimed "Wow, look at that" (I must have been too shocked for profanity :-). I snapped a couple of photo's with my phone that come nowhere near to doing it justice, but I'll share them anyway

Blood on their hands

The Australian Federal Police today came one step closer to being directly responsible for the death of at least one more Australian citizen. I've already made my feeling clear here, but the disgust and shame has reared its ugly head again with the news of the dismissal of the appeals of three of the nine.

Growing up, I was fiercely (maybe foolishly) patriotic, believing in the ideals of a "fair go" and "look after your own". Shit, when I was a kid, I thought it was a national custom never to "dob in your own". Over the last decade or so (coincidence?), I have gone from proud to disillusioned to embarrassed to downright ashamed to be an Australian. I know that it is usual to lose SOME of your ideals as you grow older, but to have them ripped from you and torn up in front of your face and danced on is surely more than we should have to bear? This is no longer the place I grew up in, nor the place I hoped my children would grow and prosper in. I can only hope that those that come after us will look back on this era as something to fight against, as a good "bad example".

I just pray that the deaths of these foolish young Australians is not part of that example.


Oh, how do you sleep?
Oh, how do you sleep at night?
-John Lennon 1971

Dispirited

I was originally tempted to title this piece "People are cunts", but thought better of it.
I receive a newsletter from news.com.au each day. Sometimes I click on a link and have a read of some of the reader comments. This is a bitter-sweet experience for me, because as well as reminding me that I am somewhere near the top of the pile of humanity in this city, it also reminds me that that is not really that difficult.

Two stories have really stirred the vitriol of the yahoos. The death of a 16 year old girl in a car accident last week and the road rage attack on a young mother and her two children this week. I really can't bring myself to comment further, other than to say that some of the comments sicken me.

I try hard every day to have faith that humanity is ostensibly good, filled with love and the universal spirit. The days I don't read the comments section, it is easier.

Footy bash dad 'banned for life'

This bloke or someone very like him is most likely at just about every junior sporting fixture around the country. Granted, most of them have enough restraint not to belt a child, but it is simmering there all the same. I will readily admit to a visceral desire to snot any little bastard I feel has dealt unfairly with one of my boys (Fatness, how did you live through your "sporting" years), but, what raises us above the lower animals is our ability to reason, not to immediately react as our instincts bid us.

But is it all one way traffic? A number of times this season I have been appalled to hear some foul-mouthed little turd has given a referee or a linesman a spray that even someone with my scatalogical vocabulary would be proud of, with no repercussions from coach or parent. I'm not going to start banging on about how "in my day" we respected adults (i.e. were too afraid of) too much to even dare answer back, let alone suggest they were in fact sight impaired female pudenda performing a primary procreational function, but todays parents do have a lot to answer for. Not only for the way they raise their own children, but for how they interact with other people's.

Jason Akermanis looks like a dick....

....or at least he does now that Channel 7 decided to name Michael Braun as the player Akermanis says he suspected had taken performance enhancing drugs in this piece at the Herald Sun. With Braun's manager threatening to sue the pants of anyone within arms reach, Akermanis must be wishing that Seven had kept their mouth shut, at least until the AFL and/or ASADA had investigated the matter. Now he has no option but to either stand by his allegations and risk being sued, or back down from his story. If he does run the legal gauntlet, and it costs him money, he will look like a dick. If he backs down, he will look like a dick.

If it looks like a dick and quacks like a dick............

Read this book

My 14 year old son has to do a book report for school. It can be on any book of his choice and he has chosen "Scar Tissue" by Anthony Kiedis with Larry Sloman. It is Kiedis' life story with apparently nothing held back. I was between books when it came home so I swooped on it Wednesday evening to flick through, maybe read on the toilet. It's now Friday morning and I am on page 350 of this 450 page book. I simply cannot put it down.

Kiedis frankly details his early life and friendships and is harrowingly frank about his drug use and abuse. It is one of the most honest portrayals of a drug addict that I have read, openly detailing the euphoria of the hunt and score (or 'cop') as well as the blackness and despair of being lost in the need. Amongst it all is his love of his music and drive to be different. It is a fascinating read.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Fred reading it though. The message I get from the book about drugs is not "don't do drugs, they're evil" but more like "drugs are great fun, but they fucked me up". That message translates well as a warning to someone with a little life experience, but to an invincible 14 year old boy who processes everything through his "it couldn't happen to me" filter, I'm not so sure. I guess I can only give him the benefit of my experience and trust in him. Raising a teenaged boy is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Raising is the wrong word, I guess, I think guiding is probably a better word.

But that's another thought and another post