Refugees: something we haven't tried which might actually work

Back from my four-night writing retreat to discover that, with the election only weeks away, the major parties continue to try and outdo each other in vote-grabbing cruelty. Opposition leader Tony Abbott has now abandoned the humanitarian stop-the-boats pretext and gone for a direct "we will decide who comes here" anti-immigrant approach, with no permanent visas for genuine refugees, and no recourse to the courts for asylum seekers. It's likely that, as with Prime Minister Rudd's PNG policy, this is a bunch of election-time hot air and won't survive legal challenges, but by the week of the actual vote I imagine there will be proposals to attack the boats with trained sharks and flog any reffos who survive.

Australia has been using variations of these punitive policies for over twenty years, and the only thing that has ever made any difference to the number of boat people has been the human rights situation in places like Iran and Afghanistan.

The only credible alternative on the table at this election comes from the Australian Greens, whose policy focuses on nearby countries like Indonesia, from which the boats come. They propose to immediately accept a large number of already assessed refugees in those countries, and to fund assessment services and welfare services for asylum seekers while they wait for their claims to be processed. The result would be creating a genuine queue for resettlement, thus removing all reason for asylum seekers to board boats.

I am not a member of the Greens, and the older and more cynical I become the less inclined I am to cheer for any one party, but on this issue I genuinely believe they deserve my vote.

Lessons learned from writing retreat

1. I am not a writer; I write.

2. A "writer" can be compared in status to another writer - someone else with more accomplishments and recognition, themselves past and (imagined) future, and so forth.

3. However, since I write, I only have to sit here typing, rather than worrying about my unfinished projects (by definition, there will always be at least one), whether I am a has-been, envying others' success, etc.

4. Since I am not a writer, I am free to have a life outside writing.

5. Scenes are for moving the plot forward and demonstrating character, not for exposition. Not even in science fiction.

6. Uh, that's it, I think. I'll add anything else if I think of it. Let's see how long I can keep 1-4 in mind.

My religion is not at all silly

A fellow Pagan, annoyed by some online twerp who thought the use of masturbation in sex magick was hilarious, invoked an Egyptian creation story (the Heliopolitan Cosmogony) in which the entire universe got started that way. While I share my co-religionist's disdain for that immature poster, I can't help wincing a little at their parting shot (which I paraphrase): "Shaming people who use sexual acts as part of their spirituality rubs me the wrong way."