Moving Address

It's time.

After many months of procrastinating, and a couple of weeks of actual leg-work, my new site is up, running and ready to be enjoyed.

You can find it here: http://www.sansicarus.com/

See you there.

Antony and the Johnson's Video

So you might have noticed I'm being a little slack at the moment in terms of posting. The main reason, as I mentioned last week, is that I'm doing some major work on the look and feel of the blog. Fingers crossed I'll be launching it sometime over Easter. It's going to be such a huge improvement. I'm slightly embarrassed to even be posting on here at the moment.

But I thought I should tie up a couple of loose ends here. One is the last 'And the Next line is?' that I set a couple of weeks ago and then didn't get around to posting the video. The competition will crossover to the new site, but here's the video for now anyway of For Today I Am a Boy, by Antony and the Johnsons. There's no official vid, so we'll have to make do with a fan's effort.



What an awesome voice. Stay tuned.

One Year On

I'm back from my little Queensland hiatus, refreshed and reenergised. I can't believe how much stuff happened while I was away: the G20 takes on the GEC, a new (scary) government in Israel, the NSW Government Australia trying to curb civil freedoms in a pathetic attempt to tackle organised crime, and best of all, Mad Dog Turnbull is whipping up the latent racism of White Australia.

It might sound a little callous to say it, but this is a really exciting time to be alive. In the past I've heard my generation criticised for having a lack of focus or engagement with the world. This was coming from the elder folk who, in the first seventy-odd years of the last century, had their diamonds polished by a couple of World Wars, a Great Depression, Vietnam, sexual liberation and equality, all the fun stuff.

The criticism is fair enough too. All that which our forebears fought for we took for granted or yawned over in history books. We were the generation of unparalleled opportunity – there were little or no constraints on what we could do, and largely, I'm sad to say, we took it pretty easy. I certainly did.

But the proverbial shit is starting to hit the fan. In so many spheres – political, economic, environmental, social – our past excesses and indulgences hitting critical mass, and I don't think it's too OTT to say that the next 10-20 years are going to see some pretty interesting global developments.

When I follow stories like those I mentioned in the opening, I often feel helpless. I know in my core that what's occurring out there is wrong, but what does my small voice matter in the thick of things? Endless self-congratulatory debate with fellow sympathisers is so unsatisfactory, and such a waste of time - the trendy educated urbanite sipping lattes (or is green tea the new cool?) in Glebe and Newtown, so self-satisfied that they KNOW what's going on and can so eloquently discuss it over Tom Yum Goong. What can I say? That's me.

*Sigh* It's an endless debate. But what I was driving at before is that change is afoot in the world. So why not with me? In my most recent relationship, I dropped completely out of the loop with what was going on in the world outside of her and I. After the break up I threw myself into a number of things, one of which was an Xbox 360, but a little more practical was looking into ways that I could engage more with the world around me.

As part of that, I'm in the process of reorganising and relaunching this blog. Amazingly, it's been almost a year since the first post. I've learned a few lessons and so I'll be putting those into practice over the next month or so, along with a new look. Thanks for reading – hope you've enjoyed the ride so far.

Hiatus

I'll be in Queensland for a week, without regular internet access, so I don't know how regularly I"ll be able to post.

Don't miss me too much :-)

Horror stories from recent Gaza conflict

Israeli soldiers have admitted killing Gaza civillians in the recent conflict. Not only deliberately, but also having been ordered to:

“That’s the beauty of Gaza. You see a man walking, he doesn’t have to have a weapon, and you can shoot him,” one soldier told Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy, who asked him why a company commander ordered an elderly woman to be shot.

"The climate in general... I don't know how to describe it.... the lives of Palestinians, let's say, are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers," an infantry squad leader is quoted saying. 

There was also a complete lack of respect for people's privacy:

"We would throw everything out of the windows to make room and order. Everything... Refrigerators, plates, furniture. The order was to throw all of the house's contents outside," a soldier said. 

Unsurprisingly, the Israelis tried to find religious justification for their actions:

distributing booklets that framed the fighting as a religious war. “All these articles had a clear message: we are the Jewish people, we have come to the land by miraculous means, and now we have to fight to remove the Gentiles who are getting in our way and preventing us from occupying the Holy Land… a great many soldiers had a feeling throughout this operation of a religious war,” said one soldier. 

All of this is absolutely disgraceful. Why do the West continues to put up with shit like this from Israel? It's time for Israel's free pass to expire. For too long people have turned a blind eye to their attrocities - afraid perhaps of being accused of anti-semitism. We need to distinguish between the Jewish religion and the state of Israel - two completely separate entitities.

We should also remember that the Nazis also persecuted Gypsies, Christians, homosexuals and the disabled. So the next time the Wheelchair Mafia, the Homo Homies or the 2Christ Cru come knocking on your door demanding protection money, tell them to sod off - they can't get away with milking your guilt or sympathy anymore.

BTW, this story hasn't made news in Australian yet. Just another example of how poorly served we are by our media. The BBC are a much better news source. I first found out about it through Facebook, of all things.

Like popping a Champagne cork straight back in your face

The alcopop tax saga has come to a close. After fierce lobbying by Big Alcohol in the lead up to the vote in the Senate, the bill was finally shot down when Family First Senator Stephen Fielding joined forces with the Opposition. And really it's a bit like when you leave a beer in the freezer. It's exploded all over the place.

There are plenty of losers in this situation. Not only the government, and the $1.6bn hole in revenue this is going to make, but also Senator Fielding himself. His opposition to the tax all along has been because he wanted the government to be doing more to tackle binge drinking in young people. Well, Senator Fielding, how about the $70million boost for alcohol warning advertisements negotiated by the Greens and Senator Xenaphon? All gone now.

Your job, Senator Fielding, was to draw extra attention to the issue and get some action taken. You did that well, but having done so, you should have voted for the bill. You're not in government, you don't have a mandate to dictate policy. You got greedy, asked for too much, refused to budge and it backfired. So what have you achieved? Do you think the people who voted for you will thank you for making it easier and cheaper for young people to get riotously drunk? Family First? I don't think so. Congratulations on reducing both the amount of money government has to spend fighting binge drinking and also the money they're planning to spend on it.

The winners here are Big Alcohol and teenagers looking for a cheap night out which doesn't involve cask wine. The Coalition aren't winners here. These constant problems in the Senate leave the country with the distinct possibility of a double dissolution of parliament and subsequent elections. I can't see the Coalition doing well there, considering the recent leadership squabbling. Plus, their political strategy at the moment is to vote against everything the government puts up, with the only justification being 'we could do it better'. It might be cute politics, but it's not winning support amongst the public. We'd like a concrete alternative vision thank you very much. Otherwise, let the government do the job they were voted in to do.

This week: ending March 15

Three stories from this week:

In order to protect jobs, the Australian Federal Government has announced changes to their skilled migration policy. Foreign tradespeople such as carpenters and electricians will no longer have an easy ride to work and residency in Australia. Last year they removed cooks and hairdressers from the same list. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about the policy, but I do know that less people trying to migrate will affect my work as an IELTS examiner.

Tensions rose between China and the United States in the South China sea, with one U.S. vessel 'jostled' by five Chinese ones. I don't really know how boats can 'jostle' each other, but this relationship is the one to watch. The Chinese are worried about the U.S. defaulting on paying back all the money they owe China, about US$1trillion. They also don't like Obama raising the issue of Tibet with them recently. The drama is likely to play out in smaller countries – my money's on North Korea – but it could just as easily be South East Asia. Check out this map (from the BBC) detailing disputed islands/territory in the resource rich South China Sea.

I read an article on the Christian Science Monitor (know your enemy) which says that evangelical Christianity is on the road to self-destruction and anti-Christianity is on the rise. Huzzah! One thing the article said was 'Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it.' It reminded me of a conversation I had with a cute girl last year. In brief:

Me: Why are you a Christian?
Her: Because I need to be saved.
Me: Saved from what?
Silence.

That one stumped her. You gotta love how well thought out some of these people are. It was a very satisfying conversation. The downside? She never talked to me again.