…Canning the “Age of Entitlement”

 

G'day Petals,

Shane being canned

It's been an interesting few days where the myth of an "Egalitarian Australia" has been well and truly shown to be just that: a myth.

More later in Wombat Droppings.

A new book and some more of the last studio shoot. 

Ballet Theatre Australia's last performance has just been finished and published and a preview can be seen here ...

http://au.blurb.com/books/5067495

Unusually, I had to almost force myself to do the post-process on these shots and was pleasantly surprised at the books outcome.

Book cover

 Alec Bell, an Englishman commented on deviant-art on one of  the "Gille's" studio images with this delightful Hai-ku:  

Standing immobile as the dance whirls around him,

He Dances stillness.

He really caught the intention of the shot.

I hope you who are viewing also enjoy the following.....

Emma

 

Laura

 

Gus and Olivia

 

Gus

 

Olivia

 

Gus 2

Wombat Droppings or Low-Down Politics in Oz

Scott “Drone” Morrison, he of brutal cruelty to refugees, lying and dissimulation to the nation and obnoxious bullying of the press and appalling treatment of Minh Duong made this as his maiden speech in Parliament, 2008: "From my faith I derive the values of loving kindness, justice and righteousness, to act with compassion and kindness, acknowledging our common humanity and to consider the welfare of others; to fight for a fair go for everyone to fulfil their human potential and to remove whatever unjust obstacles stand in their way … Desmond Tutu put it this way: 'We expect Christians … to stand up for the truth, to stand up for justice, to stand on the side of the poor and the hungry, the homeless and the naked, and when that happens, then Christians will be trustworthy believable witnesses.' These are my principles."

Hmmmm... must have walked backward on the road from Damascus. What a hypocrite! 

The lowest levels I expected of this Murdoch mandated rabble has been well and truly exceeded within the first six months of their tenure. "Rabbott the Hun", Joe "Cereal-SPC Killer" Hockey, and Eric"Vichy"Abetz have been proven as liars and have been called such by one of their political colleagues. Whereas the Murdoch dominated media would be frothing at the mouth and maniacally screaming from the rooftops if this had been a Labor gaffe they were utterly quiet, Nine and Ten's News had it briefly as their last items and "The Herald Sun" reported it in a small way on page 2,  two days after the story broke. This is all happening as the ABC is facing a torrent of abuse for its "bias" and... "not supporting the home team...!" 

"Tardis State" ( Where-All-Goes-Backward) pretend Premier Dennis "Inutilus Rusticas" Napthine is bringing in legislation to ban pickets and rallys...which sounds awfully like Fascism to me, whilst the real Premier, the tarnished ex-Liarbril, Geoff"Fiddles" Shaw makes merry with the Liarbrils legislative program.

Do you want to be part of a serious effort to save this planet? Not a serious effort at collective delusion, not a serious effort to feel better, not a serious effort to save you and yours. But an actual strategy to stop the destruction of everything worth loving. If your answer feels as imperative as instinct, then you already know it’s long past time to fight.  www.deepgreenresistance.org

 

..during a severe heat -wave...

Mark Diesendorf: Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales, gave this interview  

http:/www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/strategies-for-addressing-climate-change/5239754

In the light of "Rabbott-the-Hun" saying that we are too energy expensive, he and his Non-Environment lackey "Ozone-Hole" Hunt will no doubt not read Diesendorf's book, particularly the part of the research that says Wind and Solar are now cheaper than gas and Coal and that Wind is Britain is half the price of electricity produced by nuclear and that we could have reliable full base load electricity by 2020. This research  makes their position on re-newables utterly stupid and ludicrous.They would prefer the insanity of advice from "The-Coot's-With-Queer-Ideas-from-a-Parallel-Universe" the IPA whose secret backers couldn't care less for the future of the planet, only for their personal profits.

This intellectually lazy and imagination bereft rabble  were well and truly "King-Hit" when the satirists Clarke and Dawe  in one of their 5 minute works, used solely only what "Rabbott-the Hun" had said publicly to make a hysterically funny (but sad) piece of satire. I have never seen anything as pointed. Needless to say the MSM didn't notice as they were busily repeating that "The Age of Entitlement" is over and we have entered "The Age of Personal Responsibility". Read: Code for reverse Robin Hood tactics.

Leigh Sales once again allowed an interview with "Rabbott-the-Hun" into a Liarbril slogan fest... she's turned 7:30 Report into a light-weight puff-piece and is a disgrace.

cheers Possums

Shane.

PS., copies of "The Horst Wessell" song will be available soon... get your orders in quickly as they're sure to go off with a bang...

...ranting into the Abyss of the new Dark Age

G’day Possums,

This is me with Jeff (“Boof-Head”, “Foot-in-Mouth”, “Bully-Boy”) Kennett: The Dorian Gray of Tardis State (“Where-All-Goes-Backward”) politics. It was made some years ago as a fund-raiser item when this eminence grise’ was leading the Liarbril pack and selling off the most profitable, publicly owned bits of the Tardis State (“Where-All-Goes-Backward”) to overseas private interests so he could destroy Unionism. 

Ya wanna complain ‘bout your electricity, transport, water, councils, building approval times, hospital waiting lists, emergency ward crisis… see “Boof-Head!”

He has Hob-nail Boots …all the better for kicking you when you’re down. He’s sitting on a coffin with a “V” on it… an explanation shouldn’t be necessary.

He’s also either opening a bottle of Liarbril fund-raiser wine, allegedly, sold illegally from his parliamentary office (shades of “Fiddles” Shaw)…or he’s ..  well let’s just not go there, eh?

And he’s got a bunch of Crown Casino chits in his back pocket;  although now is not the time to depress you with the social costs of 
gambling or back-scratching, is it?

Again…see “Boof-head”… he’s got a sinecure; the Farthest Azure.

I’ve been thinking it might be time to re-constitute the clay and model a Federal series a’la “Rubbery Figures” meets “I am not an Animal” for filmic purposes….. …contributions as to characters, content, chorus, costume, cynicism and scenarios most welcome.

I viewed the Ballarat Photographic National Show t’other day at BFAG. Whilst I can be positive about this show to the extent that all the work exhibited was very worthy, very well made, very solid technically and very well presented, I could only hear conversations about HDR technique and lenses and cameras. Nothing in this exhibition struck me as having a feeling for an idea or concept that was pursued with that brio of aesthetic vigour which allows chance, happenstance, influence and that tenuous personal search for the sublime which informs and creates something that exists independently outside of you.

It was all too formally correct, too overworked and ultimately, repellingly dull.

I’ve no samples to show here, as BFAG in its wisdom, A/; wouldn’t allow photo’s, although B/; I didn’t have a camera with me but would have used it if I had; C/; wasn’t willing to part with $12.50 for an illustrated program and D/; I’m not intending to return. 

It’s a good photo show but it ain’t what art is made from!

Them following are some of my favourites from work this year...an eclectic selection

The sleep of reason..outdoor gallery Ballarat exhibition

 Personal highlights re this blog from 2013: Fairfax journo writing about the bitchy, vituperative election campaign and the 3 years preceeding it …bemoans “Sophie Mirabella  being called “Pit-Bull”…. I think I was the first with that phrase.  And some weeks ago on Late-Night-Live with Phillip Adams, (may he be well),  “…and now let’s go to the Tardis State of Victoria…” Eureka!

Someone is reading.... and the image below featured on ABC's website as an illo for their French 100 Classical music...

Tuilleries

Wombat Droppings or Low-Down Australian Politics

Australia quickly need to take stock of what sort of country they want because the one we are fast getting is not how I think we would generally define ourselves.

We are allowing one of the worlds best health systems be “Americanized”, our environment blasted for multi-national profit, our education system being ripped to privatised shreds,  a welfare system that succours the middle-class, not the needy and a incompetent pretend government too willing to sell off our sovereignty.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

Jack And Alexandra

Some think that “choice” in Education, Health, Services and Transport is essential for the well-being of society when the opposite is true. 

Lake Mungo Dunes

Choice is about selectivity, exclusivity, class and ultimately, selfishness. It is a definition of division within society and a tacit acknowledgement that some are “better”, more worthy and of more value to the society than others primarily because of their wealth.
 

Olivia and Gus

It is much easier to think this way when wealth is spread disproportionately. Your belonging to, being in and only having to consider a small group is much easier to deal with than having to reasonably consider society as an equitable whole. The exclusiveness of your group defines its simpler parameters, its notions of  “well-being”, like its wealth cannot to be shared, as that would deny it the charm of its exclusivity.

It is therefore a self-referential, selfish system.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

St Kilda

A divided society is neither a happy one nor a safe one. Historically, inequality fosters resentment and ultimately, retribution. All that is not new but what is it’s sad to say is that the arguments for maintaining contemporary inequality that have been raised to near philosophic levels are: “Individual Aspiration” and the “Economy”. It’s now almost a holy virtue for an individual to “Aspire” but unfortunately as the “Economy” can only afford so much Individual Aspiration there is not enough of it to go around. Ergo: most will have to miss out.

There is a sense of mindlessness in this place and when the inevitable backlash occurs our ugliness will be fully revealed.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

Frogmore, Trentham

Scott “The Drone” Morrison goes to water over high court challenge to his visa changes for refugees and hides from journalists by not having weekly (or should that be weakly?) press briefings. Were the journo’s not laughing at his “stand-up “ any more?

Advance Australia Fair

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

The Dalai Lama’s answer to the question of what surprised him most about humanity was: “Man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”    There's a person who has made a real choice.

Mildura, Grand

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

Myrniong

“John Howard and Julia Gillard both had their share of haters.  Alas, I fear many otherwise decent Australians have become angry little haters. It is easy to think that who and what we dislike says something about us. In a small way it does. The narcissistic think it important that the world knows their view. They are in fact talking about themselves.” Amanda “Il Patrone” Vanstone (she of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon infamy, amongst other indiscretions as a minister) obfuscating hypocritically and inaccurately again.  Perhaps Mandy was really thinking of Scott Morrison, or Cory Bernardi or even Steve Ciobo. Maybe even Alan “Bondi’ Jones or the Queensland restaurateur and his sexist, misogynist menu? Or perhaps this is a pathetic attempt to tell us subtly that Andrew Bolt is a decent writer and requires more freedom to express himself?
And for Mandy to equate the vileness meted out to Gillard by the Murdoch press and minions with the treatment “Little Johnny” received only indicates her sheer political (liarbril) blindness to actuality.  Which parts of the vile torrents pouring from her conservative side of politics could she  compare and contrast with Labor's actions?
 
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

Heather “Leer” Ridout, Peter “Children Overboard-Rottweiler” Reith,  Michael “Thug” Kroger and Peter “I-Had-a-Baton-Once” Costello came to mind t’other day when Coca-Cola-Amatil, owners of the Ardmona  canneries in Shepparton sacked 70 of its full time maintenance staff to replace them with contract workers. CCA did this it seems to curry favour with “Rabbott” in order to get $25,000,000.00 as a bailout package.

It has an eerie resemblance to an interstate plastics manufacturer who, back in 2005 bought a second business in “The Tardis State” (Where-All-Goes-Backward) and was promptly conned by the afore-mentioned to “experiment” with Industrial Relations by “offering” his workers the “choice” to be self-employed. 
This was gleefully abetted by “The-Coots-with-Queer-Ideas-from-a-Parallel-Universe,” the IPA.

Rehearsal

Needless to say the “experiment” failed. The business folded and 80 workers lost their jobs. Sadder to note, the original interstate business, a family one, of 60 years productive service folded the next year, with its 80 workers losing their jobs, too.

I’m sure the ideological mongrels from the IPA were well satisfied with their “experiment” as were Ridout, Kroger, Costello and Reith!  Pity they've never had to run a business or feel responsible for 160 losing their livelihoods.

Let’s keep an eye on Shepparton and the tenor of the town.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

Cheers Petals,
Shane.



Sitedfgures

into The Solar Light

 

G’day Possums,

Shane with stats....

Some four months have passed since we had our solar panels installed on  burrow's top and last week the first electricity statement since the fitting, arrived.

It made interesting reading and has brought up other interesting thoughts but first: back to the beginning.

It may be of ironic interest to note that I’m writing this by candle-light on a laptop with a dwindling battery charge. There has been no power for the past hour, an all too common occurrence in this locality.

The reason behind going solar as far as we could afford, was to attempt becoming self-sufficient in electricity. It was not about making money (the ex-premier of the Tardis State [where-all-goes-backward] “Big Bird” Baillieu [genus: Silvertail Incompetens] had well and truly stuffed that by dropping the tariff paid for electricity returning to the grid to $0.08 per kilowatt hour. 

Our burrow is “all electric”, energy prices are escalating, so it seemed to make sense that we look after ourselves.

The first hurdles were acquainting ourselves with as much PV knowledge as we could, making the best decision for our circumstances and having the event as smooth as possible.

 Where to start? 

Well, probably like most I started with the advertisements soon discovering that although attractive, they could be misleading.  E.G. “…buy our 1.5 kw system and get a 5kw inverter … upgrade later.” Up-grade to what… the same panels… are they still made…do the generic equivalents have the same capacity and output… will they be compatible with the existing panels?

Then the real  “tech” things not really touched in the ads concerning panel capacity, efficiency, output, micro-crystalline or silicone, longevity, German, Australian, American, Japanese or Chinese,175W, 200W, 350W, roof slope, one or two storey, tree cover and the BIG one …Do-You-Have-a- Smart-Meter?

Well Smart meters were supposed to be installed in all properties by 2013 and are bi-directional… can receive energy and transmit it and can be remotely monitored..  and what about STC’s….Small-scale Technology Certificates?

Below are some sites that I found very useful and informative…although be a bit wary of the quotes with “solarquotes” they tend to be a bit out of date and the reliability of call-back is questionable.. otherwise it’s a very informative site with lots of info.

“Solar Centre” is a beaut! Clear, concise, informative particularly about efficiency etc and by not “selling” anything  and the State and Federal Govt. sites are recommended for the same reasons.

http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au

http://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au

This site is worth a look NOW as it’s one on the agency’s “Mr Rabbott” in his climate-denial suit has said he will axe if he gains power.

http://www.greentechmedia.com

http://www.greenmarkets.com.au

http://www.dkasolarcentre.com.au/

http://www.solarquotes.com.au/panels/comparison/chart/

Some questions you may well ask your supplier: Why do they say it will take 40 days from installation to “be linked to the grid” when they really mean 40 “working” days?

Why does it take that time when, because of the smart meter, it’s automated and the chap doing the checking (for $281.00) was the same chap who verified the installer’s work?

Why tell us to turn the system off until it’s been checked as “…you might be charged for the power you supply back to the system”? We didn’t, and they didn’t charge us! When we queried about this odd supposition we couldn’t obtain a clear answer……One can only assume a profit motive.

Another thing to note: this is a privatised system. We as the householders contract with the retailers and suppliers of electricity and pay the agreed price. Why then does the State government set the price at which we can be recompensed with for the Kw H we provide back to the grid?

Propping up foreign profits?

Who knows.

Inverter reading 1:00pm winter's day..

Net results …on the figures so far into this winter we seem to be using about a 1/3 of what we did by modifying our electricity usage patterns plus the stuff we generate and the system on the roof is placing another 1/3 back into the grid… it seems to balance at about ½ of our normal total.

As we will produce more consistently during Spring, Summer and Autumn I think we could well achieve a self sufficient result in another nine months.

I have to admit that six trees were sacrificed for more Winter light.

Winter light Greendale.

Wombat Droppings is going to become a separate posting on Shane’s blog postings for the election period.….and for the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

Cheers,

Shane.

The Australian Index

..and sees the last of the "Fringe"

Hello Possums,

a last rant about the Ballarat International PhotoBiennale "Fringe"...  

venue 52 was in an old renovated brewery in Buninyong  and although I'm almost a local it took some twenty minutes running around Buninyong before I found it.

As you can see it's a good clear space that would be an excellent proposition for people thinking about 2013.

the works on display were screen based DVD images from Japan titled Elegy Japan by Darron Davies of which I saw some  but was distracted ( it looked very interesting) by the other two presentations in the room.

Pam Kleeman's "A PrivateView: Skinned":  insallation pieces that made place-mats, handbags, wallets. hats etc from images of skin and hair that was purportedly about consumerism and cultural colonisation.

 I found the Dinner setting a rather thin take on Judy Chicago's grander sculptural work from the 80's because it tackles less with less ...as Chicago herself said, "...the women develop as artists, they build skills that are relevant to their content. Their work improves and they become more sophisticated, but that sophistication is built on a solid, personal foundation and is not the result of prevailing art modes" . ( Women Artists:  Peterson & Wilson, Harper/Colophon 1976)

What made me a little queasy with the handbags etc was the thought  that concentration camp guards during WW2 made similar objects from the cadavers of murdered Jewish inmates.... there was no mention of this in Kleeman's text .

 Konrad Winkler's "Love At First Sight"...only made me think, Why so grayly mis-named?

And......... Too Much Information!


I fled!

To the Ballarat Observatory where the map, again was not particularly helpful. But the works in the main were delightful.. Alex Cherney's celestial time-lapse images were hauntingly beautiful (sorry no images) and Julie Boland's "Visiting Diana" was a quietly evocative and feminine evocation of freindship ... lovely, lovely stuff.

As was Angie Turnbull's: shots on 10x8 plate, of film and reels, photographs of stock...'a la Bauhaus, Lazlo Moholy Nagy style.  Good puns all round. These two sets of work were really very impressive in their dignity toward both the subjects and the medium.


Although the venue was OK ..just... it was not an inviting place and I found I really had to concentrate hard on the works and not be distracted by light reflections and bumping into that monolithic telescope in the middle of the room.



Speaking of reflections ...cop this.....10:00am .....
not a good look for images... and weaving in and out of the tables( luckily all the guests had eaten and departed) was not comfortable at all.  


The nature of "Fringe" events is like this and it is the exhibitor who must make a conscious decision to present appropriately for the circumstances they have at hand.







Although, that being said there was one venue that really confused its exhibiting artists with its own wares....

...... but I'm pleased to report that Simon Peterswald did sell some stuff.... nice strong images.

Confusing as hell, that place... always asking yourself if it is an exhibit or part of the shops' stock......???

I think this has given a reasonable overview of the "Fringe" .... I'd  also comment that it was very funny to see so many people running around Ballarat with camera's on display for the month of the biennale.....and joyous that they came out in such numbers.... but even funnier to find stuff online..... one was a pic of one of the venues because the tog seems to like old architecture; he mentions the biennale was on at the time but none of either the core or fringe exhibits so I wonder if any thing impressed this teacher of photography at all?

A more ludicrous entry was from a Ballarat amateur who posted a journal note/survey on a particular site asking if anyone knew of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale?

OK, all you child psychologists.... work that one out!

seeya,

Shane.