It's mind porn, that's what it is.
It's not like Russell Brand is saying anything that millions of people around the world haven't been saying, many of us for years. It's not even like he's saying anything new and enlightening. Everything he says tons of us have already been thinking ourselves.
It's that what he is saying is about a future that comparatively speaking is fresh and wonderful, and even talking about it on the BBC feels so radical because they pretend for so long that nothing needs to change, and what he says about the paradigm-change is absolutely necessary, and he's fucking funny along with it so that it doesn't matter how many times you hear it, it always renews your inner vigour even if you're in the midst of outer fatigue.
It inspires you anew, keeps you going on in this fucked-up paradigm we're still stuck in, where a very small minority of unbelievably powerful people are prepared to fuck the entire world for their own insane benefit. It's like the freedom that whallops in on a kid who has been living in the house of a madman all his life, and who for the first time really trusts his own sanity, and a chink of light floods in. Every time anyone else talks about this stuff, that chink of light comes in all over again, heartens and enheartens.
Hell, it's not even like we're envisioning a world where there wouldn't still be bloody horrible things happening sometimes, and people won't still be suffering and dying. We're not talking about living in a utopia of no suffering. We're talking about living in balance, where suffering is not perpetuated by the few onto the many for the benefits only of the few.
Those running this ship have spent and will go on spending millions trying to convince the majority of the world that what is vision and freedom and sanity is utopian.
But it's not. It's just vision and freedom and sanity for everybody, instead of a paradigm of smoke and mirrors serving the few.
Happy weekend, everybody.
Showing posts with label corporatisation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporatisation. Show all posts
Perhaps when we start to see the effects of the deals that are regularly done above the heads of our own governments, we will start doing something about the fact that billions of us are being ruled by a very small and powerful group of people
who have their best interests at heart, but definitely not ours - and
nor, seemingly, the earth's.
Perhaps when we see the Global Government of Goldman Sachs Et Al (TM) really really really repress our freedoms we will stand up. The Trans Pacific Partnership, which is in the process of being finalised right now, is one such example of this. In this version of events, the sovereignty of the Australian government will be regularly overridden - they will even be sued if they step out of line - by the real powers in the world, the multinational corporations.
Perhaps we need that to come to hand so that we can all see in front of us - feel its oppression on our own skin - what has been the hidden reality for many years now.
Perhaps if it comes into effect and Glaxo Smith Kline get to override the laws of our own country (however stupid and dodgy they may be - they need changing as well) in the name of profiteering, then we will start to understand the extent of this proposed agreement and why we need to do something about it.
How strange it is that the majority allow such a small band of people to control them. But that has been the history of the world. Perhaps it is going to come to an end soon.
But then there are people who will stand up, like Mulala Yousafzai, fearlessly. My admiration for that girl is just boundless. She is so fearless!! Her courage inspires me. Just as fear is contagious, so is courage. And luckily you don't need to be entirely free of the grip of fear to act in courage. You act despite it.
Is a point going to come when the people in the street start refusing any longer to live under this system we live under? Will we inflate our stymied imaginations and our deflated critical thinking skills to start imagining a world where things can be way different to how they are now? More suitable for us? A win/win world?
Of course, creating that world involves turning aside from what is and dreaming and putting into action what could be. Ghandi's being the change you wish to see in the world. There are many exciting and inspiring people in the world doing just that. But that is not enough. The problem is with the level of domination by these corporations - if we don't do something to stop them, we won't have the opportunity to continue imagining and envisaging and birthing a better world, in the way that so many inspirational people are.
Are we going to one day take back our own sovereignty - or perhaps, to start off with, to even care that it's being taken away from us in the first place? Or are we waiting for Jesus to come back and make it all right so we don't have to lift ourselves out of our own apathy, or our own lovely little shiny New Age world where facing the darkness is a no-no because it's too "negative"?
This isn't about whether you are into politics or not. That whole thing seems to be a mass of mazes and mirrors. It's about taking back what is rightfully ours FROM those who operate within the political spectrum.
If Jesus does come back, I imagine one of the first things he would ask us is why the hell are we so willing to be slaves when there is so much beauty and awesomeness within us bursting to come out, if it has the opportunity? I imagine he would ask where has our imagination gone? And if we claim to care so much about the future of our kids, why are we so unwilling to examine what their future might be if our apathy continues? And he might ask why have we been willing to allow others to destroy the earth and put us in the position where we have to bury our own talents in order to serve the machine.
All very good questions that we should be asking ourselves.
Oh, and I don't much care if this post is "inappropriate" or if I appear angry or self-righteous, if these things make people uncomfortable by their "negativity", because people's apathy about the things happening in the world at the hands of corporations makes me WAY more uncomfortable. I'm tired of watching the spectacle. I can't not speak about these things. They are disgusting injustice. They kill me. They burn in my guts. I simply don't understand how so many people can stay silent or turn away when there is such a sinister elephant in the room.
We have to turn and face this stuff down. It's part of our challenge of being humans on the earth at this point in time. It is not "negative" to turn and face the dark. It is just simply fucking terrifying.
And there are gifts to be reclaimed from that space, things which are rightfully ours, which expand our humanity. Because the vast majority of us seem to be people who wish to and who are capable of living in peace on the earth. This is what we want.
Email or Facebook message or tweet Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia
Tweet Minister for Trade, Andrew Robb
Email Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Perhaps when we see the Global Government of Goldman Sachs Et Al (TM) really really really repress our freedoms we will stand up. The Trans Pacific Partnership, which is in the process of being finalised right now, is one such example of this. In this version of events, the sovereignty of the Australian government will be regularly overridden - they will even be sued if they step out of line - by the real powers in the world, the multinational corporations.
Perhaps we need that to come to hand so that we can all see in front of us - feel its oppression on our own skin - what has been the hidden reality for many years now.
Perhaps if it comes into effect and Glaxo Smith Kline get to override the laws of our own country (however stupid and dodgy they may be - they need changing as well) in the name of profiteering, then we will start to understand the extent of this proposed agreement and why we need to do something about it.
How strange it is that the majority allow such a small band of people to control them. But that has been the history of the world. Perhaps it is going to come to an end soon.
 |
| Golden Nebula by Fennius (CC noncommercial, share-alike) |
Is a point going to come when the people in the street start refusing any longer to live under this system we live under? Will we inflate our stymied imaginations and our deflated critical thinking skills to start imagining a world where things can be way different to how they are now? More suitable for us? A win/win world?
Of course, creating that world involves turning aside from what is and dreaming and putting into action what could be. Ghandi's being the change you wish to see in the world. There are many exciting and inspiring people in the world doing just that. But that is not enough. The problem is with the level of domination by these corporations - if we don't do something to stop them, we won't have the opportunity to continue imagining and envisaging and birthing a better world, in the way that so many inspirational people are.
Are we going to one day take back our own sovereignty - or perhaps, to start off with, to even care that it's being taken away from us in the first place? Or are we waiting for Jesus to come back and make it all right so we don't have to lift ourselves out of our own apathy, or our own lovely little shiny New Age world where facing the darkness is a no-no because it's too "negative"?
This isn't about whether you are into politics or not. That whole thing seems to be a mass of mazes and mirrors. It's about taking back what is rightfully ours FROM those who operate within the political spectrum.
If Jesus does come back, I imagine one of the first things he would ask us is why the hell are we so willing to be slaves when there is so much beauty and awesomeness within us bursting to come out, if it has the opportunity? I imagine he would ask where has our imagination gone? And if we claim to care so much about the future of our kids, why are we so unwilling to examine what their future might be if our apathy continues? And he might ask why have we been willing to allow others to destroy the earth and put us in the position where we have to bury our own talents in order to serve the machine.
All very good questions that we should be asking ourselves.
Oh, and I don't much care if this post is "inappropriate" or if I appear angry or self-righteous, if these things make people uncomfortable by their "negativity", because people's apathy about the things happening in the world at the hands of corporations makes me WAY more uncomfortable. I'm tired of watching the spectacle. I can't not speak about these things. They are disgusting injustice. They kill me. They burn in my guts. I simply don't understand how so many people can stay silent or turn away when there is such a sinister elephant in the room.
 |
| Golden Sea by Tonyelieh (CC noncommercial, share-alike) |
And there are gifts to be reclaimed from that space, things which are rightfully ours, which expand our humanity. Because the vast majority of us seem to be people who wish to and who are capable of living in peace on the earth. This is what we want.
Email or Facebook message or tweet Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia
Tweet Minister for Trade, Andrew Robb
Email Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
How insulting, upon not getting a ticket in the AFL Grand Final ticket ballot, to get a promotional email this afternoon from the AFL informing me that if I want I can come along to their Premiership Party, an after-game event being held at the conclusion of this year's AFL Grand Final.
It's all part of new and improved service the AFL offers people on Grand Final day.
Here's a new idea on improving your service, AFL ~ give more tickets to the fans. I have gone to almost every Melbourne game this year. Paid for a membership at the start of the year. Have done so for the past 17 years in a row. But I couldn't get a ticket to the game because there were only 15,000 made available to my club. And 15,000 to Sydney. So 30,000 tickets all up made available to the people who go to see the game, in a ground which at its capacity holds 100,000.
Don't insult me.
And go you Hawkers.
It's all part of new and improved service the AFL offers people on Grand Final day.
Here's a new idea on improving your service, AFL ~ give more tickets to the fans. I have gone to almost every Melbourne game this year. Paid for a membership at the start of the year. Have done so for the past 17 years in a row. But I couldn't get a ticket to the game because there were only 15,000 made available to my club. And 15,000 to Sydney. So 30,000 tickets all up made available to the people who go to see the game, in a ground which at its capacity holds 100,000.
Don't insult me.
And go you Hawkers.
Apparently blogging is going the way of the analogue phone, the mangle, the iron. It is not the uber coolest in school any more the way it was in 1995. Its allure is fading like bell bottom jeans, snaking the line from must-have-item back to what-the-hell-was-I-thinking? irrelevance and derision.
Well, okay, maybe things are not that bad. But it certainly does feel like there is not the warm fuzziness that there once was with blogging, where there seemed to be more of a community spirit. But maybe that's just my personal perception. Blogging has changed for me, too.
I partly blame professionalisation. With every new article about 10 Ways to Bring Traffic to Your Blog and tips on smartening it up with SEO, the lustre has gone down a notch and the self-consciousness has risen. Who am I to say these things? Is this not self-indulgent twaddle? With every company that's started up a blog, a Facebook page and a Twitter account, the blogosphere gets a new pimple on its arse and a little bit of fun goes out of everything. Blogging has gone from something that people do to express themselves, to something people do to be seen, to display their brand, to Get Ahead.
Yawn.
The word "brand" is not only dirty to me, it's boring, tedious and soul-diminishing. I'm not at all immune to the whole "your blog is your persona to the world. What if an editor somehow clicks through to your blog and the post they come upon is some hastily scrabbled-together mess, and then you lose out?" dictums for a professionalised blogspace. And I'm also not immune to thinking, "Oh, that post didn't get as much reaction as the one before. Maybe I should take it down. How is the world going to see me if I have this post up here?" But then again, even though I do grapple with those things, it's all ultimately - yawn. Are there not enough things to hang my anxiety hat on throughout the day without worrying about things like that? Do I really want to Get Ahead that much? (Yes. When it comes to writing, yes, I do. Unfortunately.) Do I want to do it in a straightjacket? (No. Or at least not one that comes from excessive worrying about my "platform", or turning my platform from something that's fun to something that's Furthering My Career.)
UPDATE
And one more thing - I feel disturbed transcribing court cases as I do which involve family breakups and divorce how much focus there is on having professionals give evidence over non-professionals, the dweebs, the losers who don't know anything because they haven't got bits of papers and accreditations under their belts. So the focus is on psychologists and family report writers, professionals who may only see these people for relatively short periods of time considering the seriousness of what is at stake, but their evidence is given uber weight simply because they are professional and understand the court system. There is something very out of balance there, to me.
Well, okay, maybe things are not that bad. But it certainly does feel like there is not the warm fuzziness that there once was with blogging, where there seemed to be more of a community spirit. But maybe that's just my personal perception. Blogging has changed for me, too.
I partly blame professionalisation. With every new article about 10 Ways to Bring Traffic to Your Blog and tips on smartening it up with SEO, the lustre has gone down a notch and the self-consciousness has risen. Who am I to say these things? Is this not self-indulgent twaddle? With every company that's started up a blog, a Facebook page and a Twitter account, the blogosphere gets a new pimple on its arse and a little bit of fun goes out of everything. Blogging has gone from something that people do to express themselves, to something people do to be seen, to display their brand, to Get Ahead.
Yawn.
The word "brand" is not only dirty to me, it's boring, tedious and soul-diminishing. I'm not at all immune to the whole "your blog is your persona to the world. What if an editor somehow clicks through to your blog and the post they come upon is some hastily scrabbled-together mess, and then you lose out?" dictums for a professionalised blogspace. And I'm also not immune to thinking, "Oh, that post didn't get as much reaction as the one before. Maybe I should take it down. How is the world going to see me if I have this post up here?" But then again, even though I do grapple with those things, it's all ultimately - yawn. Are there not enough things to hang my anxiety hat on throughout the day without worrying about things like that? Do I really want to Get Ahead that much? (Yes. When it comes to writing, yes, I do. Unfortunately.) Do I want to do it in a straightjacket? (No. Or at least not one that comes from excessive worrying about my "platform", or turning my platform from something that's fun to something that's Furthering My Career.)
UPDATE
And one more thing - I feel disturbed transcribing court cases as I do which involve family breakups and divorce how much focus there is on having professionals give evidence over non-professionals, the dweebs, the losers who don't know anything because they haven't got bits of papers and accreditations under their belts. So the focus is on psychologists and family report writers, professionals who may only see these people for relatively short periods of time considering the seriousness of what is at stake, but their evidence is given uber weight simply because they are professional and understand the court system. There is something very out of balance there, to me.
Great post here from someone who attended and was arrested at Occupy Melbourne yesterday. A large contingent of police going in with riot gear against ... 100 supporters. Who were peacefully protesting but still were treated with violence. And yet the Victoria Police claim they did not use undue force. I beg to differ.
Meanwhile the Lord Mayor bleats about $15,000 worth of damage, but I don't know what he's talking about. Must be the damage to the commerce of the shops which now line the City Square.
Well, I do feel sorry for those shop owners who may be losing out. But this is a city square, after all. A public place. Public places are for the public. Commercial interests are only one element of a citizenry. A wonky, cumbersome element that reminds me of cancer - it does not know when to stop, where to stop, how to stop, ever to stop.
Well, stop.
Meanwhile, across the seas in the US, Erin posted a link to The 99 Percent Declaration, a document which sends thrills, chills, hope and fear all kareening through my veins all at the one time.
Meanwhile the Lord Mayor bleats about $15,000 worth of damage, but I don't know what he's talking about. Must be the damage to the commerce of the shops which now line the City Square.
Well, I do feel sorry for those shop owners who may be losing out. But this is a city square, after all. A public place. Public places are for the public. Commercial interests are only one element of a citizenry. A wonky, cumbersome element that reminds me of cancer - it does not know when to stop, where to stop, how to stop, ever to stop.
Well, stop.
Meanwhile, across the seas in the US, Erin posted a link to The 99 Percent Declaration, a document which sends thrills, chills, hope and fear all kareening through my veins all at the one time.
Yesterday evening the manfriend and I drove down to Thai Angels for some takeaway. While we waited half an hour for it to be cooked, we went for a walk around the side streets of West Footscray, down Warleigh Road and exploring the newly-formed Beaurepaire Way and adjacent streets, a new housing development on the site of the old Southern Tyres land.
Unbearably neat townhouses run along the length of Warleigh Road too, across the road from that old white Victorian house I went and looked at when it was for sale years ago, another lifetime ago when I was trying to find a house that would make everything okay inside my soul, out the tail end of a six-year illness and a marriage, me so unbearably messy, everything hanging out of me like sausages.
Now the Victorian has across from it a long row of townhouses in the current style, two storeyed, combining dark brick with lighter rendered areas, clean lines, every surface clean, straight lines, the landscaped gardens corporate style - completely inoffensive, like corporate art, wanting to make a statement and an impression without actually saying anything.
Down Beaurepaire Way is a children's playground, new and pristine, safe with its coating of rubber underlay. Next to it is a large, grassed public area with a sign saying Keep Off the Garden. The row of townhouses which run down two sides of this area have a bit of green for their eyes to rest upon. It does give a nice feeling of space, and even a slight nod to community living. It is not, however, apparently a space they're allowed to muddy up by placing their defecating, orgasming, farting, dying bodies upon. A corporate public space, for show. (Or, depending on your view and your selling point, an iconic space).
The long white Southern Tyres building and its art deco round-windowed office building still stand facing out the other side, onto Cross Street and the Sydenham railway line. Many of the windows have been broken by disaffected 14 year olds asthmatic at the ambivalence of West Footscray on the one hand going pretty, on the other hand its new footpaths and walkways no more inclusive and welcoming than the previous incarnation.
The townhouses proposed for this site are ones I could never afford. A one-bedroom apartment is yours for the bargain price of 340 grand. A two-bedroom deal up on Warleigh Road will set you back closer to half a million).
We walk back along Cross Street and then round the back of these two buildings. From here we are facing once again the public grassed area further out in front of us. Its pristine safety is separated from this view by temporary fencing, from the as-yet unreconfigured mess of old abandoned buildings. More townhouses ran off to the left of us, and as we walk towards them I think that if I was a new inhabitant of one of those townhouses, I would prefer it to stay how it is right now, the old buildings and their now-vacant land space, dirt turned to mud, glutted with water from the recent rains, the earth just lying there in the rest of being fallow, barren but honest space.
Earth breathing while it can, until another 40 townhouses get slapped down upon it, each one taking up 96% of its available footprint, blocking out the view of the Sita Bus Lines building with its red and yellow sign up on Sunshine Avenue, on the other side of the train line. I've never seen that bus lines building from this angle before. I've driven past it and ridden past it in a train carriage hundreds of times and thought it ugly, with its concreted yards and rows of buses lined up facing the wall, like kids in trouble at school in earlier times.
Perhaps it's just the chilliness of the air that suddenly fills me with melancholy. Unseasonably chilly, making me feel like there should be a football game on the telly and a coat round my shoulders. A melancholy come in suddenly sharp and tart like lemon on the tongue, right on the back of a moment of gratitude as I walk the streets with my beloved, in anticipation of a good meal, good company, a public holiday the next day, a spacious, workless day of meditation, yoga, walking, lovemaking, cooking, writing, of being inside a body and a life with mess, waste and tears, joy, snatches of hope, and music, and fear. A real, Velveteen rabbit life, everything belonging. An entirely uncorporate sort of a life.
Unbearably neat townhouses run along the length of Warleigh Road too, across the road from that old white Victorian house I went and looked at when it was for sale years ago, another lifetime ago when I was trying to find a house that would make everything okay inside my soul, out the tail end of a six-year illness and a marriage, me so unbearably messy, everything hanging out of me like sausages.
Now the Victorian has across from it a long row of townhouses in the current style, two storeyed, combining dark brick with lighter rendered areas, clean lines, every surface clean, straight lines, the landscaped gardens corporate style - completely inoffensive, like corporate art, wanting to make a statement and an impression without actually saying anything.
Down Beaurepaire Way is a children's playground, new and pristine, safe with its coating of rubber underlay. Next to it is a large, grassed public area with a sign saying Keep Off the Garden. The row of townhouses which run down two sides of this area have a bit of green for their eyes to rest upon. It does give a nice feeling of space, and even a slight nod to community living. It is not, however, apparently a space they're allowed to muddy up by placing their defecating, orgasming, farting, dying bodies upon. A corporate public space, for show. (Or, depending on your view and your selling point, an iconic space).
The long white Southern Tyres building and its art deco round-windowed office building still stand facing out the other side, onto Cross Street and the Sydenham railway line. Many of the windows have been broken by disaffected 14 year olds asthmatic at the ambivalence of West Footscray on the one hand going pretty, on the other hand its new footpaths and walkways no more inclusive and welcoming than the previous incarnation.
The townhouses proposed for this site are ones I could never afford. A one-bedroom apartment is yours for the bargain price of 340 grand. A two-bedroom deal up on Warleigh Road will set you back closer to half a million).
We walk back along Cross Street and then round the back of these two buildings. From here we are facing once again the public grassed area further out in front of us. Its pristine safety is separated from this view by temporary fencing, from the as-yet unreconfigured mess of old abandoned buildings. More townhouses ran off to the left of us, and as we walk towards them I think that if I was a new inhabitant of one of those townhouses, I would prefer it to stay how it is right now, the old buildings and their now-vacant land space, dirt turned to mud, glutted with water from the recent rains, the earth just lying there in the rest of being fallow, barren but honest space.
Earth breathing while it can, until another 40 townhouses get slapped down upon it, each one taking up 96% of its available footprint, blocking out the view of the Sita Bus Lines building with its red and yellow sign up on Sunshine Avenue, on the other side of the train line. I've never seen that bus lines building from this angle before. I've driven past it and ridden past it in a train carriage hundreds of times and thought it ugly, with its concreted yards and rows of buses lined up facing the wall, like kids in trouble at school in earlier times.
Perhaps it's just the chilliness of the air that suddenly fills me with melancholy. Unseasonably chilly, making me feel like there should be a football game on the telly and a coat round my shoulders. A melancholy come in suddenly sharp and tart like lemon on the tongue, right on the back of a moment of gratitude as I walk the streets with my beloved, in anticipation of a good meal, good company, a public holiday the next day, a spacious, workless day of meditation, yoga, walking, lovemaking, cooking, writing, of being inside a body and a life with mess, waste and tears, joy, snatches of hope, and music, and fear. A real, Velveteen rabbit life, everything belonging. An entirely uncorporate sort of a life.
Saw a doco late last night/early this morning about this dude who's been crusading against Corporate America (TM) for the last 25 years by hijacking billboards and putting up stuff to make some people think.
Rock on. This kind of stuff gets me excited, you know? Culture jamming! This dude does jail time for his passion to use his talent to make people think (and drive his wife crazy in the process, which was quite amusing. He's been promising her for years to stop doing these billboards and do more painting to make some cash. But he seems to have a bit of an addiction going on).Yeah, yeah, I know - this is illegal. But then so were indigenous Australians keeping their children, or black and white Americans sitting together on the bus. And yeah, I know those things and advertising are a bit different. Or are they? Like he said, corporate America - corporate World - gets to relentlessly, constantly infiltrate us 24 hours a day. I complain on here semi-regularly about advertising, and the relentless, constant infiltration of our own minds. Sometimes I think advertising will be one of those things that the world will look back on in 100 years time (if it's still here) and scratch its head at the ridiculous things humans allow to be done to them.
Now, I think that all things powerful, corporate and controlling are entitled to be criticised. Indeed, require criticism. Which definitely includes religion. Christianity has for too long been a power dome no-go zone which i probably why it's grown an extra head or seven in some parts. However, this one seems a bit "what the hell are you saying here anyway?" to me, you know? A teensy bit childish, maybe. Just plain silly. Provocative. Or maybe I'm missing the point, I don't know.
It doesn't offend me - once it may have. Do you find it offensive? To me, I don't think he is criticising Jesus Christ hanging on a cross. But even if he is - why do the criticisms of other people against Christianity get played so offensive. Why are some Christians so defensive? In fact, this doesn't even seem like a criticism against Christianity to me. It just seems ... well, I guess in some ways it seems a bit dumb. A bit childishly provocative maybe. But surely slightly nonsensical, right? If you believe in any kind of God, to get offended at this seems to me to miss the point of Christianity entirely (a powerful God making himself weak). And so it's surely ironic, Alannis, considering the content, that after they put this one up, a vanload of people began chasing them, while meanwhile someone had gone to grab a baseball bat from their nearby apartment. Started chasing them down the road.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Edit: Tyler went a-searching and came up with this explanation, origin unknown, for the Jesus billboard:
English said the image and message are meant to comment on the hypocrisy of the Religious Right, whose intolerance he compares to that of the mob that urged Pontius Pilate to sentence Jesus Christ.Well, then, I admire him even more :) That's one powerful joint you're messing with there, dude.;
I went to Telstra Dome yesterday to watch my beloved football team record their third win of the season. Those of you who were reading this blog last year in its older MySpace incarnation will probably remember me banging on about how hateful and horrid I find Telstra Dome to be. Well, I'm going to do it again.
I find Telstra Dome to be hateful and horrid. But Telstra Dome is lovely and shiny, too. It's rather like a new housing estate with all the ugly power lines underground and caveats in place to ensure that all the houses are rather the same and no one paints their house bright yellow so as to offend. Everything is so gleaming and chrome and inoffensive at Telstra Dome that the corporates can take their clients to dine finely without nary a problem. Telstra Dome looks after you.
In fact, Telstra Dome mothers you so well that you don't even have to think for yourself if you can't be bothered. Isn't that nice? You get to sit down in your seats (in my case, sitting with the arch-enemy, in the Medallion Club, on the second level, the padded seats in front of the restaurants where suited men dine and drink wine and gaze out at games they're probably not even all that interested in while they schmooze people they dislike. But I'm not one to knock back free tix. Even if I feel uncomfortable sitting there (and anyway, my Mum wanted to sit there. And it's a bit quieter up there, so my snothead didn't pound too much :)
Anyways. Telstra Dome lovingly mothers all the people enfolded in its concrete womb. It very kindly warns the patrons of the dangers that can occur indulging in such utter dangerous behaviour as sitting on your arse for 2 hours watching people kick a dead leather ball to each other . Ye Gads! How do we all survive intact, living in such a horridly dangerous society as this (well into our 80s, many of us - a very high mortality rate in comparison to previous generations.) If catastrophe should strike, Telstra Dome points out in portentous grave voices where the exits are, and to run onto the ground if there is a nuclear meltdown and your face is falling off from the radiation. Because Telstra Dome really cares about you, patron.
Yes. That's why it didn't want you going outside the ground at half-time last year. It didn't want you accidentally getting hit by a flying ball by kids indulging in the age-old past-time of having a kick of their footy at half-time. Telstra Dome cares about your safety. Or, at least, that's the way Telstra spun it until they got called onto the carpet. Turns out it was just to keep the patrons inside its concrete womb because it preferred them paying over-inflated prices for its food inside, rather than going and buying the cheaper stuff outside.
The thing that irritated me the most yesterday was the motherly announcement before the game to behave yourself. The overhead voice suggested that people should be mindful of other patrons and to watch their manners, to be mindful of their swearing. Well *&$# you, Telstra Dome, but I would laugh at the irony of a giant corporation telling me how to behave if my sense of humour hadn't already dripped off the edges of my 17 foot high soapbox :)
The problem with society taking the Old Testament approach and telling us how to behave is it detracts from the reality that I sense, that God has written his law on our hearts, that, on the whole, the good little patrons know what is right and wrong and how to behave. They sense it in their hearts and their guts and their souls. If they will look there.
But the problem is that often we won't look there. That's human nature. We know instinctively, all the way back from childhood, that the right thing doesn't necessarily mean the right thing for us. Humans are selfish and we behave badly. And yes, that's where laws come in, to keep the peace. But there also needs to be a general bit of elastic streteching in social situations for the fact that social situations are made up of stuffed-up human beings like you and me and things are gonna get messy sometimes. But I don't need to be told like a large child to be a good girl at the footy. Because my behaviour is always gonna be on my own head, no matter how much Telstra Dome tries to take it off of me.
We allow a large corporation to dictate morality terms to us because we like it like that. Humans have this insatiable appetite to be told what to do, because then we don't have to hear it whispered on the wind for ourselves, or to look inside and see what our gut feelings are telling us, what are hearts are bleating. Because there's all these dark corners inside, and we don't want dark corners. We want everything a nice shade of Ikea.
But life is not Ikea. It never was. It's mess and pain as well as light and joy and that might not fit a good theory of economic rationalism or corporatism, but neither do human beings. So sod off Telstra Dome, you and your gleaming chrome. I prefer my life a bit more real and a bt more messy, thanks very much. Even if that gets in the way of the digestion of corporate diners. 'Cause life ain't about money, neither. But then, you all know that deep down anyway, don't you?
It's not all about sport either. Still. Go Hawks.
I find Telstra Dome to be hateful and horrid. But Telstra Dome is lovely and shiny, too. It's rather like a new housing estate with all the ugly power lines underground and caveats in place to ensure that all the houses are rather the same and no one paints their house bright yellow so as to offend. Everything is so gleaming and chrome and inoffensive at Telstra Dome that the corporates can take their clients to dine finely without nary a problem. Telstra Dome looks after you.
In fact, Telstra Dome mothers you so well that you don't even have to think for yourself if you can't be bothered. Isn't that nice? You get to sit down in your seats (in my case, sitting with the arch-enemy, in the Medallion Club, on the second level, the padded seats in front of the restaurants where suited men dine and drink wine and gaze out at games they're probably not even all that interested in while they schmooze people they dislike. But I'm not one to knock back free tix. Even if I feel uncomfortable sitting there (and anyway, my Mum wanted to sit there. And it's a bit quieter up there, so my snothead didn't pound too much :)
Anyways. Telstra Dome lovingly mothers all the people enfolded in its concrete womb. It very kindly warns the patrons of the dangers that can occur indulging in such utter dangerous behaviour as sitting on your arse for 2 hours watching people kick a dead leather ball to each other . Ye Gads! How do we all survive intact, living in such a horridly dangerous society as this (well into our 80s, many of us - a very high mortality rate in comparison to previous generations.) If catastrophe should strike, Telstra Dome points out in portentous grave voices where the exits are, and to run onto the ground if there is a nuclear meltdown and your face is falling off from the radiation. Because Telstra Dome really cares about you, patron.
Yes. That's why it didn't want you going outside the ground at half-time last year. It didn't want you accidentally getting hit by a flying ball by kids indulging in the age-old past-time of having a kick of their footy at half-time. Telstra Dome cares about your safety. Or, at least, that's the way Telstra spun it until they got called onto the carpet. Turns out it was just to keep the patrons inside its concrete womb because it preferred them paying over-inflated prices for its food inside, rather than going and buying the cheaper stuff outside.
The thing that irritated me the most yesterday was the motherly announcement before the game to behave yourself. The overhead voice suggested that people should be mindful of other patrons and to watch their manners, to be mindful of their swearing. Well *&$# you, Telstra Dome, but I would laugh at the irony of a giant corporation telling me how to behave if my sense of humour hadn't already dripped off the edges of my 17 foot high soapbox :)
The problem with society taking the Old Testament approach and telling us how to behave is it detracts from the reality that I sense, that God has written his law on our hearts, that, on the whole, the good little patrons know what is right and wrong and how to behave. They sense it in their hearts and their guts and their souls. If they will look there.
But the problem is that often we won't look there. That's human nature. We know instinctively, all the way back from childhood, that the right thing doesn't necessarily mean the right thing for us. Humans are selfish and we behave badly. And yes, that's where laws come in, to keep the peace. But there also needs to be a general bit of elastic streteching in social situations for the fact that social situations are made up of stuffed-up human beings like you and me and things are gonna get messy sometimes. But I don't need to be told like a large child to be a good girl at the footy. Because my behaviour is always gonna be on my own head, no matter how much Telstra Dome tries to take it off of me.
We allow a large corporation to dictate morality terms to us because we like it like that. Humans have this insatiable appetite to be told what to do, because then we don't have to hear it whispered on the wind for ourselves, or to look inside and see what our gut feelings are telling us, what are hearts are bleating. Because there's all these dark corners inside, and we don't want dark corners. We want everything a nice shade of Ikea.
But life is not Ikea. It never was. It's mess and pain as well as light and joy and that might not fit a good theory of economic rationalism or corporatism, but neither do human beings. So sod off Telstra Dome, you and your gleaming chrome. I prefer my life a bit more real and a bt more messy, thanks very much. Even if that gets in the way of the digestion of corporate diners. 'Cause life ain't about money, neither. But then, you all know that deep down anyway, don't you?
It's not all about sport either. Still. Go Hawks.
Jennifer linked today to the Dervaes family who began in the early 80s to set themselves up as self-sufficient on their standard house lot in the States. I've looked at one 'episode' of their vlog and it is fascinating stuff. I love what Jules Dervaes says here:
I have been planning forever to grow some veggies for myself. Home grown organic produce is just a teensie bit cheaper than the expensive shop bought alternatives. I don't want to eat pesticided vegetables, and I don't want to eat veggies that have been grown outside of my own country. I want to eat what's in season that I have planted myself. It really doesn't take too much effort. The physical effort, if I choose my day and make sure it's one where I'm not fighting off the flu (again), it's so simple that I can't quite work out why I haven't done it earlier.
Probably apathy from all the veggies I've eaten with DDT on them ;)
In our society growing food yourself has become the most radical of acts. It is truly the only effective protest, one that can - and will - overturn the corporate powers that be.I was talking earlier with someone about what seasoning our world and "bringing out the God colours" might look like. It's funny, but it seems we are in a world where the most radical acts are often the most simplest. Perhaps it's always been this way; however, it seems so much more pronounced in these globalised times.
By the process of directly working in harmony with nature, we do the one thing most essential to change the world ... we change ourselves!
I have been planning forever to grow some veggies for myself. Home grown organic produce is just a teensie bit cheaper than the expensive shop bought alternatives. I don't want to eat pesticided vegetables, and I don't want to eat veggies that have been grown outside of my own country. I want to eat what's in season that I have planted myself. It really doesn't take too much effort. The physical effort, if I choose my day and make sure it's one where I'm not fighting off the flu (again), it's so simple that I can't quite work out why I haven't done it earlier.
Probably apathy from all the veggies I've eaten with DDT on them ;)
Tomorrow is the big day in the Australian Football League calendar - the Grand Final. The biggie. Unfortunately, a great deal of Geelong and Port Adelaide members haven't been able to secure tickets. Only 22,000 tickets were allocated to them, out of an MCG seating capacity of 100,000. So the ones who are the most passionate don't even get half of the tickets. That is just shameful, AFL. The vast majority of the rest of the tix go to corporates and some to the other 14 clubs. So one-fifth of the ground will be filled with passionate members. The rest will maybe feel vaguely uneasy.
So Telstra boss Sol Trujillo's auntie's dentist's brother's dog has probably got tickets for tomorrow. It can sit next to some guy and his mate who don't even care all that much but his Mum got them from her work so they may as well use them (or scalp them). Meanwhile lifelong members miss out. It's not fair. If the AFL was at all fair dinkum it would grant the vast majority of tickets to team members. Imagine what a fantastic atmosphere that would be! I think that 70% of tickets should be for members. That would leave 30% for corporates. That's more than enough.
The AFL is far too corporately-focussed for its own good and for the good of the game. But hey, why would it be any different than any other large corporation that can't end up seeing past its own nose and ends up stuffing up its own nest by expansionary greed? I vote for an uprising by all 16 clubs to wrestle back control from its evil clutches. Let's rise up, friends! Rise up! Now, that'd be something fun to do over summer until the next season, wouldn't it! I am in the mood for a cause ;)
Or maybe a rally of some description. A march against oppression of some sort. Something to focus my considerable angst and frustration on. Something I can protest against so I can get capsicum sprayed and bashed by policemen totally overreacting to citizens exercising their citizenly rights to protest against stuff big people are doing against little people (like, for example, those protesting Burma in Canberra today). Maybe I'll go to Tassie and chain myself to a tree on the proposed Gunn's site (Gunn's should feature in an episode of The Simpsons. They are so caricatureishly evil).
I must have looked particularly grumpy as I walked to work on Wednesday (I was, rather) because the Australian Childhood Foundation guy backed off really quickly midway through his spiel. Then I felt bad. I felt like I was contributing to the big vast horridness that is called living in a city in the early 21st century when nobody gives a toss about anyone else. This poor guy was probably on some stupid pittance of a salary and will be quitting by next Tuesday because so many people are snarling at him trying to make money for the Australian Childhood Foundation.
But then I pondered as I walked to work how easy it is to throw some money at foundations (not to mention how frustrating to be accosted by them in the street), and then think we've done our job. Oh well, that's my contribution towards Australian childhood taken care of - phew! Now I can go about my business of not giving a shit about anyone else and if I accidentally squash some small children on my way I can do it without too much guilt.
People say that Australians are generally friendly and overseas visitors comment on how warm it is here but I personally don't see it. Perhaps I'm doing that old person's thing of living in the past, but it was so much warmer when I was a child. Daggier, sure. Everyone's hair wasn't as beautiful as it is now. But now, the iciness resembles the air this evening as I walked to the station (brrr, a burst of winter ushering the weekend in). I must be over-sensitive because sometimes the coldness makes me ache (not to mention cough). The gloomy knowingness that of all the thousands of people you have just walked past on your way home, none of them really gives a stuff about you. It's very depressing.
Sigh. I'm being melodramatic again. "Don't curse the darkness - light a candle!" my surely 3 million more-positive-than-I-at-present readers are saying. "Why!" they cry. "Instead of whingeing to the blogoverse about your frustration at living in a dying, cold as stone civilisation, go out and do something proactive! A tiny little flicker of warmth can start a bonfire. A small little gesture in a sea of apathy!"
I glared at a woman on the train earlier, and then out of the blue felt a burst of compassion for her (she seemed weighted down by life). I smiled at the woman in the carpark before. Does that count? I said prayers for a few people who looked strung out on the train. I hugged my dog. I cooked my ex-husband spaghetti bolognaise last night as a welcome-home-from-the-hostible meal. I babysat my cousin's kids the other night for her. I guess these things count.
As a bad global citizen I stopped in at The Warehouse on my way home. The Warehouse is an evil multinational chain that sells incredibly cheap stuff that were probably made by four-year-olds working for a grain of rice a day in a country I shall never have to look at or think about unless I turn my mind to it. I spent $17.75 I don't have on stuff - just stuff. Actually, what I went in there for was a candle. I decided that tonight I would sit down and carve out a haven for myself and do some writing. I was clean out of candles. I also bought 100 sheets of coloured paper to write on (I lurve stationery). And a doodle pad of different coloured butcher's paper which appealed to me because of its roughness and its colourness. Good doodling paper. And a black and white coffee mug. And some soup and a box of teabags.
As penance for shopping in The Warehouse, I have joined the Big Brother Big Sister program. They are looking for people to become buddies for people with intellectual disabilities. It's something I've been wanting to do for years. I joined the Oakleigh Centre several years ago and then promptly didn't ever volunteer there (in hindsight, I was still too ill). But I'm really looking forward to this. It will be a bit scary, I imagine - but hey, ain't all the good stuff?
Unfortunately it's far easier to write that than it is to live it :)
So Telstra boss Sol Trujillo's auntie's dentist's brother's dog has probably got tickets for tomorrow. It can sit next to some guy and his mate who don't even care all that much but his Mum got them from her work so they may as well use them (or scalp them). Meanwhile lifelong members miss out. It's not fair. If the AFL was at all fair dinkum it would grant the vast majority of tickets to team members. Imagine what a fantastic atmosphere that would be! I think that 70% of tickets should be for members. That would leave 30% for corporates. That's more than enough.
The AFL is far too corporately-focussed for its own good and for the good of the game. But hey, why would it be any different than any other large corporation that can't end up seeing past its own nose and ends up stuffing up its own nest by expansionary greed? I vote for an uprising by all 16 clubs to wrestle back control from its evil clutches. Let's rise up, friends! Rise up! Now, that'd be something fun to do over summer until the next season, wouldn't it! I am in the mood for a cause ;)
Or maybe a rally of some description. A march against oppression of some sort. Something to focus my considerable angst and frustration on. Something I can protest against so I can get capsicum sprayed and bashed by policemen totally overreacting to citizens exercising their citizenly rights to protest against stuff big people are doing against little people (like, for example, those protesting Burma in Canberra today). Maybe I'll go to Tassie and chain myself to a tree on the proposed Gunn's site (Gunn's should feature in an episode of The Simpsons. They are so caricatureishly evil).
I must have looked particularly grumpy as I walked to work on Wednesday (I was, rather) because the Australian Childhood Foundation guy backed off really quickly midway through his spiel. Then I felt bad. I felt like I was contributing to the big vast horridness that is called living in a city in the early 21st century when nobody gives a toss about anyone else. This poor guy was probably on some stupid pittance of a salary and will be quitting by next Tuesday because so many people are snarling at him trying to make money for the Australian Childhood Foundation.
But then I pondered as I walked to work how easy it is to throw some money at foundations (not to mention how frustrating to be accosted by them in the street), and then think we've done our job. Oh well, that's my contribution towards Australian childhood taken care of - phew! Now I can go about my business of not giving a shit about anyone else and if I accidentally squash some small children on my way I can do it without too much guilt.
People say that Australians are generally friendly and overseas visitors comment on how warm it is here but I personally don't see it. Perhaps I'm doing that old person's thing of living in the past, but it was so much warmer when I was a child. Daggier, sure. Everyone's hair wasn't as beautiful as it is now. But now, the iciness resembles the air this evening as I walked to the station (brrr, a burst of winter ushering the weekend in). I must be over-sensitive because sometimes the coldness makes me ache (not to mention cough). The gloomy knowingness that of all the thousands of people you have just walked past on your way home, none of them really gives a stuff about you. It's very depressing.
Sigh. I'm being melodramatic again. "Don't curse the darkness - light a candle!" my surely 3 million more-positive-than-I-at-present readers are saying. "Why!" they cry. "Instead of whingeing to the blogoverse about your frustration at living in a dying, cold as stone civilisation, go out and do something proactive! A tiny little flicker of warmth can start a bonfire. A small little gesture in a sea of apathy!"
I glared at a woman on the train earlier, and then out of the blue felt a burst of compassion for her (she seemed weighted down by life). I smiled at the woman in the carpark before. Does that count? I said prayers for a few people who looked strung out on the train. I hugged my dog. I cooked my ex-husband spaghetti bolognaise last night as a welcome-home-from-the-hostible meal. I babysat my cousin's kids the other night for her. I guess these things count.
As a bad global citizen I stopped in at The Warehouse on my way home. The Warehouse is an evil multinational chain that sells incredibly cheap stuff that were probably made by four-year-olds working for a grain of rice a day in a country I shall never have to look at or think about unless I turn my mind to it. I spent $17.75 I don't have on stuff - just stuff. Actually, what I went in there for was a candle. I decided that tonight I would sit down and carve out a haven for myself and do some writing. I was clean out of candles. I also bought 100 sheets of coloured paper to write on (I lurve stationery). And a doodle pad of different coloured butcher's paper which appealed to me because of its roughness and its colourness. Good doodling paper. And a black and white coffee mug. And some soup and a box of teabags.
As penance for shopping in The Warehouse, I have joined the Big Brother Big Sister program. They are looking for people to become buddies for people with intellectual disabilities. It's something I've been wanting to do for years. I joined the Oakleigh Centre several years ago and then promptly didn't ever volunteer there (in hindsight, I was still too ill). But I'm really looking forward to this. It will be a bit scary, I imagine - but hey, ain't all the good stuff?
Unfortunately it's far easier to write that than it is to live it :)
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