Look at moiye!

Over here!

Heartache.

The emotions I'm feeling at the moment are a culmination of a series of Acts that have been passed by the Federal Legisature, most recently with VSU today. You know what? I think this calls for a rant. Beware any possible irrational or ridiculous thoughts. Just a warning there. A disclaimer, if you will.

Mateship. The word connotates to some notion that we as a body of people are in some kind of indissouble community. And it implies that we are all there for each other, to support one another when bad luck comes our way and to share in the fortunes when times are good. Mateship is the jewel in the crown of Howard's Australia. Unfortunately, it's no diamond. It's nothing but a cubic zirconia.

Mateship is a fun notion for Australians to have but in reality it's near nonexistent. Taxation is the primary fiscal manifestation of mateship. Wealth is redistributed from those more fortunate to those who are less so, by a group of elected officials on behalf of the of the electors, the citizenry, so that some semblance of equity exists within the society in which the citizenry resides. It appears though, that no appreciable understanding of the true value of consolidated government revenue exists amongst the voters in this country. Not only does the electorate want to minimise the tax they pay (which is understandable), but they also want to get as much of those tax dollars directed back to themselves as possible, regardless of the level of need of others. Such is the notion of entitlement, that there is even a feeling of downward envy upon those who receive assistance.

I suppose the people aren't themselves to blame. The people are in the service of the economy. It's a situation that never was and isn't supposed to be. But it's become the natural cultural paradigm, and it isn't even so much as questioned by the hoi polloi. While some draw benefit from the fruits borne of the 'strengthening economy', others suffer. And some see that purely as bad luck and that nothing, bar the trickle-down effect, can be done to help them. People, desperate not to lose their position, do all they can to defend their rung on the ladder and nothing will stand in their way.

Of course, it's a case of the chicken or the egg. Is the Government using this shift to its own advantage? Or is it all a product of Government policy? Either way, it sucks. What is true is that it makes the electorate all the more malleable. Strike the fear of God into them (or in the modern case, the fear of terrorists), and they have us all in the palm of their hands. Instead of government being a tool for society, the society is a tool for the government. It's the makings of a return to feudalism. Question their motives - that is, if you havent yet been dumbed down and re-educated - and it's seven years in the slammer.


Now thanks to VSU, the wheels are in motion. Hereafter, a great majority of Australian students won't get to have the character building experience that tertiary education provides. Instead of living and breathing the potent air of the powerhouses of politics that universities traditionally are, they'll be faced with sterile degree factories, where education only means a future income, and all without a shred of enlightenment.


In Another Life, I Was A Platypus v2.0 is hereby decommissioned.


Listening to:
Title: Won't Give In
Artist: Sara Storer
Album/station: She Will Have Her Way: The Songs of Tim & Neil Finn (2005)
Length: 4.18

Disjointed musings.

Some sections of the Sutherland Shire continue to make the place the joke of the Sydney Basin. Deary me, Reclaim the Shire, indeed. Take up your torches and pitchforks! It's time for a good ol' fashioned lynching! I get the feeling that they wouldn't be content until they've raised all of the bridges over the Georges River.


I've had this discussion with a few people about sausages. And by sausages, I mean the meat products one may purchase from the butcher at the local shops, not the piece of beef you can pick up from meatmarkets like Stonewall. Everyone I've spoken to about this seems to loathe them. But I absolutely love them, and not at all for their phallic form. It might be a bit of a stretch saying this, but I think they are an important part of the community. The way I see it, sausages are a cheap and convenient way of turning unpalatable meats into something more... edible. They say our society is extremely wasteful, especially with food. And well, waste not, want not. Sausages do perform the community a valuable service.

EDIT - Clarification: Despite only mentioning and ridiculing the mob-type reaction of some sections of the Shire community, I should mention here too that the alleged instigators, the ones not of the Shire, and regardless of ethnicity, are also being dicks. However, they should be dealt with by the law, not some ridiculous agenda-fuelled vigilante group.

Listening to:
Title: Still Missing (Royksopp Remix)
Artist: Beck
Album/station: Guero (2005)
Length: 5.58

Hot hot hot.

Forty-point-one degrees at my place (according to the Bureau). That was today's top temp, at about three-thirty in the afternoon. Gah! The heat was such that it drove me to get my hair trimmed-- erm, hacked away. See, I was thinking of going emo and growing a mop of hair, and I was halfway there. But then I realised how ridiculous a mop would be in the summer heat. Practically speaking. So several tonnes of keratin strands were lopped from my noggin and it's back to short and spikey.

At least it wasn't too humid today. Still, in all of today's heat, I had to postpone my run until the southerly change arrived, which came at around about ten-thirty. Mmm. So now it's a cool twenty-one-point-three.

And going for a run in the dead of night around these parts-- well it's a little scary. I'll admit it, I'm not the most fearless, burly example of manhood that I may have made myself out to be. I'm just a shy, overly cautious fag boy who's a little afraid of the dark. It didn't help that the field lights in the park weren't on and that my route takes me around past the local gay beat. Ew, creepy. You know, I should probably work out a different night-time route.


Listening to:
Title: Don't Look Back
Artist: Telepopmusik feat. Angela McCluskey
Album/station: Ministry of Sound: Chillout Sessions 7 (2005)
Length: 3.42

Oh yeah, results are in.

Bah! The good thing about living in a double-brick house is that it stays nice and cool inside during the day. The bad thing about living in a double-brick house is that all the heat slowly accumulated during the day keeps the house hot during the night. Luckily it's cool outside. Unluckily for me, it's raining. And so from the hot interior of my home, sweating like a pig person that sweats a lot, I bring you one of those occasional insomniac blog posts.

This is the part I always forget about the summer. In the throes of winter, I often dream of the warm sunny days and the balmy summer nights. I dream of the beach. The occasional summer storm. Spunky lads wearing close to nothing, wherever they go. Going out at night and only wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Or a wifebeater and boardies, depending on the occasion or venue. Hmm. Wifebeater. Unfortunate name for a piece of clothing. But I digress.

So the bad things about summer I conveniently forget in the frozen wastes of a Sydney winter: hot and sticky nights. Sizzling hot days. Relentless sunshine, beating down from on high and burning skin. Flies. Mosquitoes. Suddenly summer is not quite so idyllic. Le pout.

Anyhoo, I received my results from uni yesterday. I passed everything, which is good. I achieved distinction for one, EDUF2007, a credit for another, PHYS2012, and passes for PHYS2013 and CHEM2402.

So I'll never need to do tertiary-level chemistry ever again, so I'm happy about that. Henceforth, the toughest chemistry-related things I'll ever have to deal with are titration exercises in Stage Six/Year 12 Chemistry. Bring it on. Bitch.

I'm quite disappointed with my physics marks though, seeing as it's the only subject area I don't have any particular distaste for. I loathe chemistry, and I'm impartial to my Teaching/Education units. Ah well. I don't take physics again until second semester next year, so I'll have nigh on seven months to charge up the interest and motivation again, and knock that anxiety/apathy demon on the head.


Listening to:
Title: Symphony No. 9 'From The New World': Largo
Artist: Dvořák / Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Album/station: Life Is Beautiful with ABC Classic FM (2005)
Length: 4.04

Censored.

I missed the gay Degrassi episode that was on earlier today. Stupid work. Stupid responsibility. Apparently they cut the part where the freshy outed boy Marco kisses the hot college jock Dylan. For shame! I suppose it was screened as a part of the ABC Kids afternoon programming, so it might have been a little too much to expect for them to show it. Ah well. ABC took the easy road and avoided controversy altogether. How boring.

Work was marginally better today. Longer shift, but I spent it with Dave from school and we kept ourselves occupied. Back in years eleven and twelve, we used to sit down the back of our biology class and play noughts and crosses or boxes, and we did that for most of tonight too. Ah, those were the days. See, in our senior bio classes we were the only two boys out of a class of about twenty. Of course, the girls got all the attention, talking about the episode of The Guardian or Charmed or whatever was on TV the night before. You know, not that I'm bitter or anything. Actually I think it was better that way.


Listening to:
Title: If She Wants Me
Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Album/station: Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
Length: 5.50

Kustomers are kunts.

Fuck I hate customers. Well, not all of them. Just a large proportion of them. They waltz in or call in an order for Faceless Corporation's^TM patented Product^TM and pay with cash, credit card and/or general nastiness. To the woman from Victoria who sprayed me with abuse this evening: fix your fucken phone line. Don't get all shirty with me because I couldn't hear your fucken order and had you repeating things so I could get it right. Ahem.

And there was this other man who was rude from the get go, kept changing his mind and had a go at me for not keeping up. He carried on and argued about prices, and disputed the quoted total on my register screen. Up the wall, he drove me. Something big must've crawled up his arse and died. Maybe something like Amanda Vanstone, deporting various organs from his digestive tract. Hmm. In that case, I suppose I'd be a little miffed, too.

I saw bits of my Dad in that last obnoxious customer, I must admit. My Dad just generally has a nasty demeanour. It's totally unintentional, but he never fails to rub people up the wrong way, even those who know him well. And gosh, how ever hard I try to bear that in mind, I just can't deal with him.

Gah, I hate idiots. Hence my unsuitability for customer service.

Listening to:
Title: Had Enough
Artist: Frenzal Rhomb
Album/station: Shut Your Mouth (2001)
Length: 2.48

In paradisum deducant te Angeli.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

From "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris - "Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die.", John Donne.

An Australian man convicted of smuggling drugs will be put to death in the morning. And while he should be punished for his crime, he shouldn't need to die. Indeed, no being with a conciousness of self should be unwillingly deprived of his or her life.

Van Nguyen is not a hero, nor is he a martyr and he shouldn't be made out to be as such. Nonetheless, he is a human. We die a little, as a human species, whenever anyone loses his or her life, whether it be through accident, or malicious intent at the hands of an individual, or as sanctioned by the state. And to order death by law undermines the rationality of our apparent civilised society. This might sound a little whacked-out coming from an aspiritual, atheistic person such as myself, but I just don't think that any progress in the name of humanity could be achieved by killing another person.


Listening to:
Title: Requiem: In Paradisum
Artist: Fauré / Schola Cantorum of Oxford
Album/station: Faure: Requiem, Messe basse, Cantique de Jean Racine (1994)
Length: 3.28