Fragments

See also..poems 2010

Yoav
died from burns and shock and loss of blood
after his tank was hit
in the Saluki Valley
Lebanon
aged 21


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Everyone knows that the BBC has a programmatic agenda to demonise and dehumanise Israel and Israelis and that this agenda has been part of its corporate culture for the last 40 years. A young reporter who joins the organisation can quickly gain acceptance and approval from both peers and from those higher up in the hierarchy by producing news items which portray Israelis as brutal oppressors, or as corrupt, or as fanatical zealots, and Palestinians as an exploited indigenous people who nevertheless seek peace and accommodation. By contrast, having the courage to see or say otherwise is a revolt against the tacit concensus, and will quickly lead to punitive sanctions - social ostracision, or being fired on one or other pretext.
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I don't live in Israel because the narrative which took me there in the first place - two months before my 18th birthday - has been contaminated by another narrative to which I do not relate, or which I cannot relate to with enough of my being to make it possible for me to add to and perpetuate myself as part of that narrative.

I don't like the triumphalist discourse which has developed, or the viewing of territory and possession of territory as a value in of itself. territory must serve the people whose lives it was meant to enhance, not the other way round, else the whole thing becomes absurdly circular. Establish the State of Israel to redeem the Jewish people from their powerlessness, but if the Jewish people need always to serve the state of Israel and sacrifice themselves for it in order that it might be there to one day redeem them, then who is benefitting. Nevertheless the energy and vitality there are astounding - much more so than in carrot up the arse upper midle class Australia.

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I like them meat and milk..first the milk, then the meat, which is anyway permissible
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Comic possibility: the serial mangling of the Jewish surnames by the British/ Australian staff @ Emanuel

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Treat your love
to a Valentine day's special
juicy grain fed steak
prodded along with electric prods
to the

Treat her to a blood Diamond from Angola or the Congo

Celebrate!


In this world (and which world is this? It all depends on you...) it's often about choosing the lesser evil rather than the greatest good. I find this thought comforting when having to make difficult "choices" (assuming there is such a thing as choice) where something suffers, no matter what option is chosen.
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Here is a contradiction. How can I (supposedly) care about the whole, when I often resent and dislike many of the whole's component parts? How can I care about saving the earth (what a conceit!) when I resent or want to get rid of the person who parks me in, or the people whose party keeps me awake all night, or the people who left shards of glass on the children's playground, or all the people around me whose actions did not conform to my expectations, or even the ants that have invaded my worm farm, or the cockroaches who have invaded our flat ? Whose left to save the earth for? Riddle me that.

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The spirituality ( a much abused and com modified word) of sustainability. When does the advice about living in the now given by many teachers and traditions clash with the idea of planning for the future. Let the future take care of itself...we know nothing of it and projections and extrapolations based on current data are incomplete and imperfect ("current" is changing even as we "capture' it).

At present the spend on conservation and the environment and sustainability is a grudging afterthought, whereas the spend on a family car, holiday, makeup and home are the main course. Why? Because the latter are all linked to self esteem, to our sense of progress and value and achievement, whereas if a species becomes extinct its not my failure, and if indigenous forests are preserved its not my success, my having "made it". How can we create the same linkage that exists and is used by the devious sellers of unnecessary electronics and clothes and non-utilitarian goods of all kinds - like cosmetics - with their nauseating "You're worth it" slogans.


Is sustainability making you sick. Are you going green with nausea?
(Too much of anything applied inflexibly is generally not in service of freedom.)
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submissiveness is sexy
acquiesence is sexy
power is sexy
but not brutal, humourless, excessive power
power with limits
we all know this, don't we?
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Self esteem (you're worth it)

"wow these two smoking hot blonds are really having a good time"
"don't ignore your premature problems"
"stay regular like me"
"look and feel like a million dollars"
"health in a bottle"
"call and chat to me now"
"
"
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"I was born under the star
of timidity and there's nothing I can do about it...."
so my story goes
early infected by the mono coccus
of self doubt
I have lived my life
suspended over failure

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Article on donor fatigue - the overwhelming number of requests that arrive in my inbox each day, my own very finite resources, and the part of the poor in perpetuating poverty...this could become a Talmudic dialogue with an editor such as Steve Payne

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"Married man desperately looking for someone to share his life with"
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The Jews, backs bent from centuries of persecution, left the Thai restaurant.
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If I was a brilliant inventor
I would invent a ray gun
ZAP!
that softened people's hearts
and removed their fear
allowed them to act
on their deepest knowing
then factory farms would have no-one to sell to
journalists would not enroll others in their resentments
casinos and adult stores would go bust
and poppy growers would only sell their crop to bakers
people would not take out their anger
on the innocent and blind
and blame like smoke
would vanish from the earth
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I am a mouse by say, and a Tiger by write

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Who done it?

Was it the Germans, Latvians, Poles, and Lithuanians
who destroyed their bodies
or was it the gas and bullets and fire
or was it G-d who gave them bodies in the first place?

Surviving your forties

If you are a parent of adolescent children, Dr Phil will tell you your job is to get them through to adulthood. But what is your job re yourself? Given that by now you have realised:

a) That you cannot be fixed
b) Nothing helps

what to do with yourself? When someone has written this guide, please send it on to me.
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And further...the more I do to stave off the thought "I'm inadequate", the more inadequate I feel.

Australia Day

See also more-notes-on-australia

You have to take your hat off to Australia. Or Australians. I mean by this Anglo Celtic Australians. I mean look-a-here, they only came over a mere 200 years ago and in that short space of time they have managed to transform this continent and

a) eliminate or inebriate the indigenous inhabitants
b) turn pristine bush and forest into useable farm land and then
c) turn nearly six million hectares of that farm land into unusable salt marshes where nothing will grow
d) bring to near extinction more species than any other continent, via the introduction of exotic animals such as cats, dogs, foxes, cattle, rabbits, deer,and sheep

So hats off to yer, boys, you've done us proud.
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So shoot me. So dismember me. So have me quartered and eigthed. So have me pilloried and stone me with factory farmed chooks and doggie do. But I celebrated Australia day by ignoring it.

(Other ways of celebrating it. Fly the aboriginal flag. Don't own a dog and if you do own one, don't train it. But rather get an indigenous pet such as a blue tongued lizard or spinifex hopping mouse or plains rats. [with the appropriate license, of course.] Also the dingo, but that would require a large property. Plant an indigenous tree. Visit an old age home instead of a pub. Get together with some friends and write, and then perform, a song. Join a drumming circle. Have tantric sex with your partner, and if you don't have a partner, volunteer for a service organisation - who knows, you may meet somebody there. And if sex is not on the menu, give each other a foot massage - which is a kind of sex anyway. Instead of buying anything, make something delicious at home and then organise a tea-picnic somewhere that's so close you can walk there rather than drive.

Smoke grass/pot dagga rather than using alcohol as your drug of choice. Boycott fast-food outlets. Visit a land fill site or an abbatoir or a refuge for women and children fleeing domestic abuse to get in touch with the underbelly of our so-called 'civilisation. Don't go fishing, or, if you must, don't use a barbed hook and put the fish back once you've caught it. Unplug the television and read a book, or talk to the people you live with. Throw a sheet over the computer and ignore it for a day or two. It won't mind and you will benefit. Ride a bike. Put on a clown costume and visit a children's hospital. Do absolutely nothing. Ignore your thoughts, or better still, notice your thought and refuse to believe them. Support the opposing team instead of the one you regularly support. Have a vegetarian meal, or cook one for friends and family. Go rock climbing or hang gliding instead of to the horse (disg)races. Speak languages other than English loudly in public places. Write stories or poems or plays that illuminate the experience of your minority ethnic or faith tradition in this land.)

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Australian history begins in Southern India
Australian history begins in Ireland
Australian history begins in Poland and Greece and Lebanon and South Africa
The narrative does not start here it only continues here
we all bought our lives inside us with us, and tried to continue them here as best we could, in some shape and form, even if we had lost everything there...

Kangaroo Valley

Crocodile Rock

Say no to Optus, say no to Microsoft, say Yes to Ubuntu

Here are some excellent free open source software resources, that help you get away from Microsoft's endless "improvements" and ever proliferating and paralysing attempts to make what worked fine even "better".

As for Optus...had a ghastly experience with them. I don't reccomend them as a service provider.