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Jacaranda trees
Signal blazing through the noise
A violet svaha
Signal blazing through the noise
A violet svaha
(no subject)
Oct. 31st, 2004 06:52 pmWe visited Canberra this weekend for my high school reunion. I despised Weston Creek High and am glad it's been closed for years, saving me the necessity of burning it down and pissing on the ashes. I was constantly bullied there - luckily I was seldom physically attacked during my high school years, just incessantly verbally abused. This sort of harassment must be very costly in terms of students' health and performance, but was tolerated and seen as normal; it's only recently begun to be addressed in Australian schools. (To be fair to WC, it was no different at James Fenimore Cooper Junior High in the US, Camberwell High in Melbourne, or Wanniassa High in Canberra - don't get me started on the last. I got on my bike one lunchtime, rode home, and refused to return.)
I was nervous about attending the reunion despite the offer of mutual defence by an old classmate, but I came to realise that my anxiety was my usual social phobia*, not the re-emergence of my adolescent experiences. It was absolutely smashing to recognise some old friends (and grab their email etc addresses) after 20 years. But I recognised very few people - I didn't go about the soiree thinking "Are you the baboon** who pulled my hair? Are you the baboon who called me a "stupid dog" out of the blue on the stairwell?" The bullies, and a very great deal of my two years at WC, have simply become irrelevant. What I hope happens now is that the old pals, the positive part of my experience, become part of my present life. That would mean I'd salvaged the best part of it while letting the rest simply fall away.
Canberra is as beautiful as always. I always long to move there whenever I visit.
The cats seemed oddly shaken up by being left alone overnight - they didn't meet us at the door with their usual enthusiasm, and kept flinching away. They also hadn't eaten all the dry food I'd left for them, which really surprised me. Anyway, after about half an hour they were back to normal. They really don't like having their routines disrupted.
I make a point of reading the local newspapers wherever we go. The Canberra Sunday Times seems reasonably respectable. With Beltane / Hallowe'en coming up, they ran an article on a local "witches' meet-up", with a nice colour photo. It was the usual mix of limp jokes and pop culture references, but did clearly get across the conclusion that these folks are nothing to fear. Coincidentally, there was also a snippet on the pardoning of 81 witches executed in the Scottish town of Prestonpans during the 16th and 17th Centuries. It's easy to joke that the pardons are rather too late to do any good; but it's good for any community to acknowledge past injustices, with the hope of preventing them happening again.
___
* I haven't had a formal diagnosis of this, but it's pretty clear that's the problem. I plan to see a new psychiatrist about it shortly.
** The brutes are expert bullies, so I like to think of the human variety as baboons.
I was nervous about attending the reunion despite the offer of mutual defence by an old classmate, but I came to realise that my anxiety was my usual social phobia*, not the re-emergence of my adolescent experiences. It was absolutely smashing to recognise some old friends (and grab their email etc addresses) after 20 years. But I recognised very few people - I didn't go about the soiree thinking "Are you the baboon** who pulled my hair? Are you the baboon who called me a "stupid dog" out of the blue on the stairwell?" The bullies, and a very great deal of my two years at WC, have simply become irrelevant. What I hope happens now is that the old pals, the positive part of my experience, become part of my present life. That would mean I'd salvaged the best part of it while letting the rest simply fall away.
Canberra is as beautiful as always. I always long to move there whenever I visit.
The cats seemed oddly shaken up by being left alone overnight - they didn't meet us at the door with their usual enthusiasm, and kept flinching away. They also hadn't eaten all the dry food I'd left for them, which really surprised me. Anyway, after about half an hour they were back to normal. They really don't like having their routines disrupted.
I make a point of reading the local newspapers wherever we go. The Canberra Sunday Times seems reasonably respectable. With Beltane / Hallowe'en coming up, they ran an article on a local "witches' meet-up", with a nice colour photo. It was the usual mix of limp jokes and pop culture references, but did clearly get across the conclusion that these folks are nothing to fear. Coincidentally, there was also a snippet on the pardoning of 81 witches executed in the Scottish town of Prestonpans during the 16th and 17th Centuries. It's easy to joke that the pardons are rather too late to do any good; but it's good for any community to acknowledge past injustices, with the hope of preventing them happening again.
___
* I haven't had a formal diagnosis of this, but it's pretty clear that's the problem. I plan to see a new psychiatrist about it shortly.
** The brutes are expert bullies, so I like to think of the human variety as baboons.
Political gunge
Oct. 29th, 2004 05:32 amAustralia:
We pretty much have a Senate result. The Coalition (between the conservative Liberal and National parties) have a majority of 39 seats, meaning they can pass their own legislation unamended and can quash Senate inquiries into their doings. Labor has 28 Senators, the Dems and Greens each have 4, and Family First have 1.
Democrazy: ten ideas for change. The draft final chapter of Margo Kingston's book Not Happy, John.
Speaking of John Howard: Iraq war spurs local terrorists, says ASIO. Thanks a bundle, mate.
US:
Wickedness from The Onion: Republicans Urge Minorities to get Out and Vote on Nov. 3
UK:
Australian novelist Sophie Masson has a fit of the filthy quislings over the Church of Satan guy in the British Navy, worried that spoooooky things will happen. This is amusing up to a point: drawing a connection between Polanski directing Rosemary's Baby and the vicious murder of Sharon Tate is, frankly, offensive. The Guardian's Catherine Bennett takes a more fruitful path by taking the piss, but sadly also comes down firmly on the side of religious bigotry, perhaps without noticing that at least some of the stuff she finds hilarious about Satanist rituals, such as the extensive equipment, can also be levelled at mainstream religions. (Certainly Wiccans would be "excluded from public life" and left unprotected against religious vilification if Bennett's standards were applied.)
ETA: A letter in the Herald quips that the sailor need not choose between the devil and the deep blue sea.
And just generally:
How Yehudi Menuhin got his name.
We've gotta lock this guy in a room with Comptroller Schaefer.
We pretty much have a Senate result. The Coalition (between the conservative Liberal and National parties) have a majority of 39 seats, meaning they can pass their own legislation unamended and can quash Senate inquiries into their doings. Labor has 28 Senators, the Dems and Greens each have 4, and Family First have 1.
Democrazy: ten ideas for change. The draft final chapter of Margo Kingston's book Not Happy, John.
Speaking of John Howard: Iraq war spurs local terrorists, says ASIO. Thanks a bundle, mate.
US:
Wickedness from The Onion: Republicans Urge Minorities to get Out and Vote on Nov. 3
UK:
Australian novelist Sophie Masson has a fit of the filthy quislings over the Church of Satan guy in the British Navy, worried that spoooooky things will happen. This is amusing up to a point: drawing a connection between Polanski directing Rosemary's Baby and the vicious murder of Sharon Tate is, frankly, offensive. The Guardian's Catherine Bennett takes a more fruitful path by taking the piss, but sadly also comes down firmly on the side of religious bigotry, perhaps without noticing that at least some of the stuff she finds hilarious about Satanist rituals, such as the extensive equipment, can also be levelled at mainstream religions. (Certainly Wiccans would be "excluded from public life" and left unprotected against religious vilification if Bennett's standards were applied.)
ETA: A letter in the Herald quips that the sailor need not choose between the devil and the deep blue sea.
And just generally:
How Yehudi Menuhin got his name.
We've gotta lock this guy in a room with Comptroller Schaefer.
Flying fruitloops
Oct. 20th, 2004 06:53 pmMadness from public figures. Firstly, Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, who has defended his repeated calls for a public registry of HIV positive people. He refuses to accept the findings of studies which show this would stop people at high risk seeking testing - in other words, it would mean more cases of AIDS (cf abstinence-only sex education, which increases pregnancies and abortions) - let alone the fear and hate it would unleash. Here's Equality Maryland's statement, endorsed by health agencies and ACLU amongst others. One legislative leader, John Adams Hurson, is calling for Schaefer's resignation.
You can drop the Comptroller a line at wdschaefer@comp.state.md.us or at Comptroller of Maryland, 80 Calvert Street, Annapolis, MD 21401 . You can email John Adams Hurson at john_hurson@house.state.md.us, or write to Lowe House Office Building, Room 161, 84 College Ave, Annapolis, MD 21401 - 1991. (You could write to Hudson supporting his call for Schaefer's resignation, and cc your message to the Comptroller. You only need to write a few sentences. Whatever you write, keep it polite.)
__
More from the Anglican Dean of Sydney, the Rev Phillip Jensen. He denies saying all that exciting stuff about the "temple to paganism" etc, but reckons he's engaged in "spiritual warfare" with "the father of lies" (ie the Devil). Jensen has nothing on Greek religious leaders who want potential priests to be tested for homosexuality, and who lament a ban on premarital sex which results in their taking wives "only fit for the circus". You could not make this stuff up. Pass the popcorn!
Disclaimer: my own religion is often beyond parody.
You can drop the Comptroller a line at wdschaefer@comp.state.md.us or at Comptroller of Maryland, 80 Calvert Street, Annapolis, MD 21401 . You can email John Adams Hurson at john_hurson@house.state.md.us, or write to Lowe House Office Building, Room 161, 84 College Ave, Annapolis, MD 21401 - 1991. (You could write to Hudson supporting his call for Schaefer's resignation, and cc your message to the Comptroller. You only need to write a few sentences. Whatever you write, keep it polite.)
__
More from the Anglican Dean of Sydney, the Rev Phillip Jensen. He denies saying all that exciting stuff about the "temple to paganism" etc, but reckons he's engaged in "spiritual warfare" with "the father of lies" (ie the Devil). Jensen has nothing on Greek religious leaders who want potential priests to be tested for homosexuality, and who lament a ban on premarital sex which results in their taking wives "only fit for the circus". You could not make this stuff up. Pass the popcorn!
Disclaimer: my own religion is often beyond parody.
wmoen will love yuo!!!!
Apr. 1st, 2004 09:30 amLast night was the first installment of Magus: exploring the world of the occult, a proper course from Sydney University's Continuing Education thingy, taught by a real historian and everything. Dr French turns out to be engaging, funny, and sympathetic to what he calls the "alternative spiritual history of the West". Gems from the first lecture included summing up where people's impressions of the occult come from in one word: "Buffy" - and the tale of his dwarf-rubbing grandma.
