King tide washes out Sculpture by the Sea
visual.artshub.com.au
Perhaps better named ‘sculpture in the sea’ this year, several artworks were damaged as a result of king tides at Tamarama Beach.
Category: Uncategorized
Picorocos–Aliens from the Deep
During my lifetime I have developed a taste for a variety of foods. I have enjoyed culinary delights of all types and different cultures. Seafood of various kinds have titillated my palate, and made love across a bed of my taste buds, Oysters have seductively danced around the maypole of my tonsils, and crayfish have found haven in the depths of my appreciative stomach. Now with those words, I set the scene for my forays into the larders of the oceans deep.
Shark
Somewhere back in 1988, I found myself as a deckhand on board the shark fishing boat The Rhonda Lee trawling out of the port of Bicheno Tasmania, this boat was a long line fishing boat; long line fishing is where a fishing line is run out for a many kilometres with smaller branches running off at intervals with baited hooks, these lines can run out up to…
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Brexit,Trump, Syria and the Fabricated War on Terror
Adam Curtis Forced Hypernormalisation BBC
Directed by Adam Curtis
Film Review
Curtis, one of my favorite documentary makers, has a unique ability to conceptualize and describe the collective psychological conditioning the political elites subject us to – and the unintended consequences of their use of public relations (as opposed to diplomacy and statecraft) to retain power. In this fascinating documentary, he explores the link between the rise of Putin and Donald Trump, the Brexit vote in Britain and the fabricated War on Terror. He also explains Syria’s critical role in this process, dating back to Hafeez al-Asaad (1970-2000) and his dream of unifying the Arab world against western exploiting.
The Concept of Forced Hypernormalisation
According to Curtis, “forced hypernormalisation,” is a term coined by the Soviets to describe a psychological control technique in which politicians retain power by projecting a vastly oversimplified view of world. Curtis maintains that Ronald Reagan…
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Robert C. Koehler, Articles by this Author
http://www.commondreams.org/author/robert-c-koehler
| VIEWS Thursday, October 20, 2016 – 9:00am If Only We Could Vote for Peace Instead of a ‘Commander-in-Chief’ Maybe it’s the phrase — “commander in chief” — that best captures the transcendent absurdity and unaddressed horrors of the 2016 election season and the business as usual that will follow. I don’t want to elect anyone commander in chief: not the xenophobic misogynist and egomaniac, not the Henry… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, October 13, 2016 – 12:30pm Nuclear Standoff Values the size of Planet Earth are at stake, as the American presidential election grows ever smaller, ever pettier, ever more certain that rancor triumphs over relevance. Can you imagine, let us say, an issue the size of global nuclear disarmament emerging in this race, somewhere between the… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, October 6, 2016 – 8:30am The Politics of Fear “This politics of fear has actually delivered everything we were afraid of.” Well, OK, let’s think about these words of Jill Stein for a moment, as the 2016 presidential race enters, oh Lord, its final month — and the possibility still looms that this country could elect a hybrid of Benito… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, September 29, 2016 – 11:00am The Debate: They Both Bombed It Painful, stupid, trite . . . America! There was more than one loser in the big debate, but that’s no surprise. I hardly expected any issues of substance to get serious air time, let alone intelligent commentary, in Monday’s 90-minute presidential race spectacle, but something — something — matters… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, September 22, 2016 – 8:45am Stop the Killing Maybe half a million dead, half a country — 10 million people — displaced from their homes, jettisoned onto the mercy of the world. Welcome to war. Welcome to Syria. This is a conflict apparently too complex to understand. The U.S. brokered a ceasefire with Russia, then proceeded to lead a bombing… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, September 15, 2016 – 9:30am The Future Cries Out: ‘Water Is Life’ The dogs growl, the pepper spray bites, the bulldozers tear up the soil. “ Water is life !” they cry. “Water is life!” This isn’t Flint, Michigan, but I feel the presence of its suffering in this cry of outrage at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. No more, no more. You will not poison… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, September 8, 2016 – 8:45am War vs. Democracy The paradox of democracy is that it depends on the integrity of those who have the most to lose if an election goes the wrong way — you know, the people in power. That’s a particularly thorny dilemma when the “fourth estate” — the speakers of truth to power, the public’s counterforce against… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, September 1, 2016 – 10:15am Reflections on the Anthropocene “However these debates will unfold, the Anthropocene represents a new phase in the history of both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined, so that the fate of one determines the fate of the other. Geologically, this is a remarkable episode in the history… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, August 25, 2016 – 8:15am The Heart of Order He’d left the water running, flooding neighbors’ apartments. He’d been running around outside naked. By the time police arrived, he was standing in the window of his fourth-floor apartment on Farwell Avenue — a few blocks from where I live in the diverse, unpredictable Chicago neighborhood called… Read more |
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VIEWS Thursday, August 18, 2016 – 8:30am Beyond Winning and Losing It’s the smallest thing in the world. Does the tennis ball land inside the line or outside? But somehow, as I watched this 60-second YouTube clip of an Australian tennis match last January, and heard an explosion of joyous approval surge from the crowd, I could feel the planet shift. Or at least it… Read more |
To Build the Political Revolution, Grassroots Group Endorses 22 “People’s Candidates”
Offering hope to those who feel “dispirited” by the presidential contest, the grassroots political organization People’s Action on Tuesday released its list of 22 down-ballot endorsements for the 2016 election.”These candidates come from out of the justice movement in America—some as leaders within our own organizations,” said LeeAnn Hall, co-executive director of People’s Action.
Source: To Build the Political Revolution, Grassroots Group Endorses 22 “People’s Candidates”
RESILIENT LIVING: This Wind-Powered Device Pulls 11 Gallons Of Drinkable Water From The Air Each Day
It looks like this invention could help a lot of people.
Source – trueactivist.com
– “… A constant stress for approximately 2.3 million people on the planet has to do with obtaining clean, drinking water. Fortunately, a solution to the latter conundrum has been presented…the Water Seer collection device relies on simple condensation to collect drinkable water from the atmosphere and can provide up to 11 gallons of clean aqua without one external power source each day”:
(This Wind-Powered Device Pulls 11 Gallons Of Drinkable Water From The Air Each –
This low-cost, low-tech water condenser could help create water self-sufficiency in communities around the world that lack regular access to clean, drinkable water.
Credit:
Whereas many individuals in developed nations often worry over catching their favorite television show, a constant stress for approximately 2.3 million people on the planet has to do with obtaining clean, drinking water. Fortunately, a solution to the latter conundrum has been presented…
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Can we solve the asylum seeker crisis? – video
Highlights from the Guardian workshop and panel on asylum at the 2016 Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
With David Marr as host, a panel of experts on international law, domestic policy and global forced migration discussed alternative policy perspectives.
The forum separated into groups to explore and test these ideas. Each group then presented its key policy proposal and suggested ways to implement it.
Among the panellists were the director of the Kaldor Centre for International Law, Prof Jane McAdam, the director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre, Daniel Webb, University of Essex professor Geoff Gilbert and Refugee Council of Australia policy assistant Shukufa Tahiri.
• Watch the Dear Australia video series
Source: Guardian Australia
Saturday 10 September 2016 02.23 BST Last modified on Friday 23 September 2016 12.03 BST
Australia Guardian Videos
The Guardian says:
“Refugees are too often described by politicians and parts of the media as a problem. But behind the headlines are people with powerful personal stories. The Guardian’s Dear Australia project is a new series that will hear the firsthand testaments of refugees and asylum seekers. Together their videos will tell the larger story of those who seek sanctuary to build new lives in Australia.”
Q&A: Operation Sovereign Borders co-author Jim Molan defends facilities on Nauru, Manus Island
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-11/q-and-a-jim-molan-defends-extraordinary-facilities-on-nauru/7920042
Q&A: Operation Sovereign Borders co-author Jim Molan defends facilities on Nauru, Manus Island
Updated
Media player: “Space” to play, “M” to mute, “left” and “right” to seek.
In a Q&A special on asylum seekers, co-author of Operation Sovereign Borders Jim Molan described Australia’s border policy as a “success”, defending facilities on Manus Island and Nauru as being “far ahead” of other refugee camps around the world.
The retired general joined the panel with lawyer and asylum seeker advocate Shen Narayanasamy, refugee and entrepreneur Huy Truong, Jesuit priest and law professor Frank Brennan and Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law director Jane McAdam.
In response to a question on the success of the current Operation Sovereign Borders policy, Mr Molan said he was “absolutely astonished” at the description of Manus Island and Nauru as places of “enormous levels of suffering” where asylum seekers were “essentially kept as hostages”.
“I haven’t been to Nauru. I have been to Manus and I have been to refugee camps all over the world … I have seen enough information to convince me that if you go to Nauru you will find the most extraordinary medical facilities that most Australian towns would give their right arm for,” he said.
“We are so far ahead of refugee camps throughout the world compared to Manus Island that it is not funny.
“It is a policy success; 1,200 people died when we tried to do [asylum seeker policy under Labor] in a different way.”
Ms Narayanasamy disagreed, using the example of a Syrian man named Ali who she said was detained on Manus Island.
It shows us that we should react to people dying at sea by setting up safe alternatives | Shen Narayanasamy #QandA
“Right now we have Ali. He is a Syrian citizen. He has brothers in Sydney … he can see in Syria that war is about to start,” she said.
“He applies through the formal safe pathways for family reunion to Australia.
“Do you know what the waiting list in our immigration program is at the moment for that family reunion? It’s 30 years. So he can’t get in through that way.
“He is blocked … so what does he do when bombs rain on his house? He gets on a boat and puts his life into the hands of a people smuggler and he comes here and runs into Operation Sovereign Borders.
“That man is now spending the last three years on Manus Island. Is that a policy failure or success?”
Australia’s border control policies, which have seen asylum seekers — including children — detained on Christmas Island, Manus Island and Nauru have been heavily criticised by human rights groups and non-government organisations, including the recent UN Human Rights Council’s periodic review.
At the UN Leaders Summit on Refugees and Migrants last month, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said his Government was working on resettlement options for refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru.
‘It was a sense of hope’
Mr Truong, himself having come to Australia through a refugee centre, said there was more to measuring the quality of such camps than looking at facilities.
“The quality of the camp is not necessarily measured by medical facilities and what have you, but the sense of hope and direction that comes out of it,” he said.
A sense of hope was worth more than physical comforts. Restarting our lives in safe haven, says Huy Truong #QandA
“You can be in a five-star luxury hotel, but if you feel like you are locked in and not going anywhere and you have no idea when you will leave … I think the despair and depression that would be associated with that would far outweigh living in a camp.
“I can recall living in Jakarta where there was no real infrastructure that I can sort of really recall. We would go out hunting toads and frogs at night-time to cook a meal. It was a sense of hope.
“We knew in weeks and months we would be processed and we knew where we were going. That was worth more than anything relative to the physical comforts that a camp might produce.”
But Mr Molan said Operation Sovereign Borders was “the new normal”, and that Australia was “leading the world”.
“There are 14,000 people waiting for weakness on our part … for the people smugglers to cross them into Australia. That is the first point, we need Operation Sovereign Borders and that is the new normal,” he said.
“The second point is that no one should ever think that Australia is not doing its bit in relation to this … we are the third largest taker of permanent settlers in the world.
“We are leading the world. No Australian should feel embarrassed about what we’re doing for refugees in the world.”
AuntyUta 