Further unravelling the Nation…

Shane in defensive fence

G’day Petals

I’m  preparing for another Ballarat International Foto Biennale, August 22 –19 September.

Title of show: “Dancer.”  And some of what I’m showing.

Dancer: Lawrence Winder

Dancer: Lawrence Winder

More detail, closer to the event.

Wombat Droppings

The chronicle of Australia’s descent from Egalitarianism to Fascism.

What has become known as “Chopper-gate” is still maintaining a focus on the dishonesty and fiddling the public purse, which looks to have become endemic amongst the ruling rabble.

Speaker Bronny Kero-Pompadour Bishop attended another wedding under the cover of a “secret meeting” with an “undisclosed academic” in the Deep North.

If this sounds a bit like Two Weddings and a Funeral you would not be mistaken as the publicity surrounding Bronny’s and other pollies rortings have wiped another 3 points from the ruling rabble’s poll figures in a week and many of them are becoming nervous that the prospect of being a “oncer” is looking ominously possible and their snouts will be removed from the trough.

Deputy Prime Miniature Warren Ploughman Truss it turns out, spent $21,000.00 on chartered aircraft to fly to a meeting (again in the Deep North) to tell pensioners to tighten their belts… or “…we’ll all be rooned.” His explanations as to the unavailability of commercial or RAAF craft sounding somewhat thin and self-serving. 

Then his boss Rabid the Hun, kitted out in his best “Top-Gun” Cos-play gear probably spent another $12,000.00 for a flight from Brisbane to Darwin in a RAAF chopper.

Apparently for “a number of official briefings with our armed forces.” 

This unpublicised event also included visiting a Party Fundraiser for 30-40 attendees.

The deliberate blurring of the lines between official and unofficial business where the taxpayer is footing the bill for Party-Political purposes is plainly dishonest. It shows that a disdain for ethical behaviour can be the only outcome from the pursuit of power and a lack of real leadership.

When pretend Treasurer, Joe Eleventy Hockey visits his farm (in the Far North, again) 13 times and claims it as “official business” on top of paying $270.00 per night living-away-allowance “rent” to his wife for her home in Canberra you know clearly, things are rotten.

These people are incapable of leadership: they are compromised, mired in a morass, a deceitful swill of their own making and their only defence is, “Look over there…it could be quota for more women in Parliament…” or “How dare Labor steal back a policy we stole from them …”

Labor, playing the game of Lowest-Common-Denominator looks as if they will maintain the Refugee Concentration Camps that are disgracing our nation and have also decided not to have a Federal Independent Commission Against Corruption, a move that many in the community see as absolutely necessary and well overdue.

The further breakdown of this country is evident in the racist treatment of Adam Goodes an Indigenous football player who is now routinely booed by racist opposition crowds. This behaviour has been aided and abetted by, guess who?  All the shock jocks and right-wing journo’s like Blot-on-the-Landscape, Bolt the Dolt!

One, Toilet-boy Jones even went so far as to ludicrously claim that Goodes was “playing the victim!”

It’s interesting that amongst these unctuous ravings about Goodes being a “sook” for shaming a girl in the crowd who called him a black Ape during a game some 12 months ago nothing is said of those sport “stars” who have bashed their wives or G/F’s, had adulterous liaisons with team mates wives, raped, taken drugs, were thugs on the field and generally just been Bogans.

Let’s bash the minorities, the disadvantaged, the poor and needy… targets that can’t answer back against the power of the Ugly American’s press.

I said years ago, this is the Age of the Aspirational Bogan where the Free-Market values of the right wing IPA rule.

Poor fellah, my Country.

Hooroo Possums,

Shane

having a dip at Wells

Shane at Wells

G'day Possums.. just a short one this week.

I've been having a gander at some English medieval architecture... interesting stuff it is too.

 The one in the pic is Wells Cathedral  might be worth a look I reckon.

More later...




Then there are some more from Atelier Paul Stewart...

Atelier Paul Stewart..125 Auburn Rd Hawthorn.

Wombat Droppings

or the chronicle of the demise of a Egalitarian Nation 

Saturn Devouring his Children

Well, Rabid-the-Hun, in his first act of consultative collegiality has sacked his "whip" and "Father of the House" Phillip Ruddock. Seems Rabid wants to hear more from his revolting back-benchers before the Ides of March.  Ruddock was a good Liarbril.   He was not what one would call a "good-bloke." Amnesty International asked him not to wear his Amnesty badge whilst on government business because of his treatment of Asylum seekers and he was investigated for alleged bribery on an immigration matter.... Ya gotta hand it to the Liarbrils, when loyalty needs showing it's often in very short supply.... 

It's been a week since "Good Government" allegedly has returned to Oz and Joe "Cereal-Toyota-Killer" Hockey after dropping his bottom lip at a tough interview with Sarah Henderson and getting her slapped on the wrist by ABC management has gone off sulking because no-one appreciated the genius of his first budget... and now he's got another one to do.... which sort of depends on the first.There is much speculation that Joe might soon  be a victim of another "Night of The Long Knives"episode.

Gillian Triggs, Human Rights Commissioner has handed down a damning report on child abuse in the Asylum Seeker concentration camps. Both sides of politics got hammered in the report but Rabid-the-Hun and some of his feral media lackeys decided that the best way to deal with child abuse was to viciously abuse the report's author.
Triggs' fellow Commissioner, Timmy"Twat-Freedom-Man" Wilson the ex IPA and Liarbril Libertarian who would have had a hand in producing the report for his $390,000.00 wage, has been unheard and unseen in defense of his boss. It would seem that not only does freedom of speech  not extend to raising concerns about child safety in concentration camps but neither is impartial advice needed.

The Libertarian

Hallmarks of "Good Governance" for this Liarbril rabble seem to be brutish bullying and bully-boy intimidation.

Then there was "Von Ribbentrop" Turnbull play-acting the "good liarbril" on QandA last night. All soothing words and waffle... I nearly threw-up when he said that as a country we need research and innovation when he's wholeheartedly supported stripping funding from CSIRO research and he's responsible for bowdlerising the NBN that will cost the country big-time in the not too distant future.This pretend patrician, this shallow faker... Different Dunny..same shit.

So this is Orstraya! 

The Aspirational Bogan Paradise. 

Where mindless selfishness is applauded and anti-intellectualism celebrated, bully-boy behaviour practised and misogyny is humourous.

In their finest embodiment, characteristics found in abundance in our holy owned office-boys club, the Larbril Party.

Leadership…. Pffffft! 

Rule, that is strength

Hooroo, Petals.

Shane

PS ..and if you enjoy your sea-food please consider the ramifications of this, care of Fukashima Nuclear.

Radio-Active Contamination plume from Fukashima. 

And just remember, like Coal, Capitalism is good for you!

..as the Sharks circle

The Sharks are circling

G’day Possums,

And… just when you thought it safe to go back in the water this IPA led loopy rabble are having another attempt at destroying one of the most effective and affordable health systems in the world.

That this obscene, mongrel lot are determined to make Australia a fully “Free-Market” Gulag is now beyond all doubt. 
Their first 500 Days has seemed like 500 years....

Troubling times ahead, Petals.

But first some more Ballet stuff...

Ballet Theatre Australia, 2014 Performance

Wombat Droppings

....or the chronicle of Australia's inexorable slide into Fascism.

A new report finds exploration by coal and energy companies is subsidised by Australian taxpayers by as much as $US3.5 billion ($4 billion) every year in the form of direct spending and tax breaks…..

…..but we have to pay more to see the Doctor

$45 billion a year just on superannuation tax breaks. Who gets the bulk of that? The wealthy. (And it certainly makes the $7.5 billion spent on Newstart look paltry in comparison)….

But we can’t afford Medicare.

Medicare, will this year cost us $20 billion

$18 billion in lost revenue over the next four years from the abolition of the ‘mining tax’,        $1.6 billion of that was “purely a gift from Mr Abbott to the miners”.                                Scrapping the mining tax cost us $5.3 billion and who gets that? It will go mainly to the biggest mining companies:

Then there’s the $2.4 billion a year the government gives back to property investors

But we can’t afford a Public Health system  ….….because Joe “Cereal-Toyota-Killer” Hockey thinks that we will soon all live to be 150 and how can we pay for that?

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/joe-hockey-raises-prospect-of-australians-living-until-150-to-justify-budget-cuts-20150119-12t3m1.html

That Hockey is the country’s Treasurer is more than a little perturbing.

Free Speech Is Brandised  again with Mandy ”Il Patrone” Vanstone lauding the efforts of “Blot-on-the-Landscape” Bolt and “Bookshelves-for-Bogon-Bigots” Brandis to repeal 18C and lower everyone’s public speaking standards to the levels of that of the Liarbril Party.

Apropos this; John Lord (AIM) asked,
“Why is it then that the likes of Abbott, Bolt, Jones, Brandis,  Bernardi and others need to go beyond common decency, and defend others who cannot express themselves without degenerating into hate speech?”

The answer is simple really. 

Because hate is all they have.

They are cruel because they lack courage.

They are not progressive as that implies creative thinking.

They are not builders as that implies constructive thought.

And they are not Democrats as that implies an acceptance of others.

They hate, destroy and wreck because they are limited in real intelligence and talent and jealously despise those with that humanity.

They do not understand the complexity of humanity, hence their world is reduced to slogans and pre-pubescent “Libertarianism.”

Timmy “Twat-$7,500.00-Freedom-Man” Wilson says he is going to “….advance the Government’s freedom agenda…”

I wonder where he found it?

Ohh, that right, it was in the “How to Govern” handbook written by the “Coot’s-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” (aka IPA), Timmy's old employer.

Then there was this nice essay on Class….

http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/december/1385816400/tim-winton/c-word

Rabid-the-Hun

And then this on how this shambolic Government has made Oz at 44^th in the world rankings for internet speeds. The mess they have made with the NBN is not only going to cost Australia intellectually and productively but also financially when it has to be upgraded at huge cost in 10 years time. That these mongrels did this to satisfy The Ugly American, “Phone-Hacker” Murdoch’s interests rather than further the capacity of the nation speaks worlds of their real but small-minded agenda.

http://sortius.net.au/no-it-really-is-turnbulls-fault/

Not a pretty picture is it?

I'll leave the last word to Samuel Clemens

Hoo-roo, Possums,
Shane.

Tilting like Don Quixote

At the imaginary evil of alternative energy windmills with our cognitive dissonance cruelling the future.

Shane at Waubra....

G’day Petals,

I suppose the following is all Wombat Droppings again; my little chronicle of Australia’s slide from egalitarian democracy to  fascist state.

Went to a meeting t’other night in Lal-Lal … it was a meeting to  “inform” the public about Wind-Farms and alternative energy.

In reality it was a veritable lecture on the horrors of wind energy, it’s destruction/ Industrialisation of the landscape, the health issues, (it’s worse that Ebola) its costs and infrastructure non-viability and also a very, very, very big push for the conservative National Party in the forthcoming election in the “Tardis State” (Where-All-Goes-Backward).

Anti Wind-farm Meeting, Lal-Lal.

As an exercise in fear mongering it took some beating.  
A Mixture of fact, myth, suppositions, appeals to sentiment and downright misleading projections all coddled together to reinforce in a largely negative rural audience the idea that change is bad!

The same hoary old myths of “potential” health issues when…
 “A study carried out by the research institute DK Teknik, in Denmark indicates that perception of the noise generated by a wind turbine has more to do with the individuals attitude to the wind turbines, than the actual noise itself.”

And similar studies done here show that the psychosomatic illnesses exhibited by some are exacerbated by fear campaigns alone. And that newer designs in machinery and blades actually reduce noise is never mentioned.

Always answer with a ½ truth; it’s harder to refute.

Where's the Windmill, Not where's a Wally?

Then there was the costs of  “replacing-the–Turbines” every 25 years… will they have the millions and millions of dollars to do it?  And who wears the cost?  A fear-monger 1/2 truth, neatly stepping around the fact that “…replacement of rotor blades, gearbox and generator (IF REQUIRED) is about 15%-20% of the price of a new turbine and that estimated maintenance costs are in the range of 1.5% to 2% of the original investment per annum a day over the same two decades.”

When this “well-informed” speaker was asked by an audience member, ”What are the cost comparisons between wind and coal?” He said he didn’t know the answer.

But the answer is, coal is cheaper, only if you allow for its subsidies. On a production level, alternatives are really now cheaper than coal and gas.

Presently around $27.00 /KWH for alternatives, $23-24.00 /KWH for subsidised coal and gas and in Queensland with its greater use of solar, power is about $20.00/KWH.

“Studies show that electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm at a cost of [$80 per megawatt hour in Australian dollars], compared to [$143 per megawatt hour] from a new coal plant or [$116 per megawatt hour] from a new baseload gas plant, including the cost of emissions under the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme. However even without a carbon price (the most efficient way to reduce economy-wide emissions) wind energy is 14% cheaper than new coal and 18% cheaper than new gas.…”

http://bze.org.au/media/newswire/australia-wind-power-already-cheaper-fossil-fuels-and-solar-right-behind-130211

Then on came the footballer….(and as he once played for Essendon, more than one of us quipped, ”What’s he on?”)
 “I remember," he intoned "when I was a young lad and bought the land for 2/6 and raised millions of cattle and  I’m-salt–of-the-earth-and-you-better-believe-it… blah, blah, blah!

Which was fine, somewhat  irrelevant, till he asked the audience, “How many here would want a Wind–Farm on their Property?” 
About 15- 20 hands went up….” Well, you’ll split the Community, that’s what you’ll do!” He spat out.

We don’t want change, you do, your wrong, we’re right! No discussion, be seen but not heard, speak when spoken to, eat your vegetables and watch you P’s and Q’s!

Bloody old fascist!

I left at that juncture.. musing that ex premier of The Tardis State “Big-Bird” Baillieu (Genus: Silvertail Incompetens) had been tarred as a veritable  Greenie Socialist, as had Pretend Premier, Dennis “Do-Do” (Genus: “Inutilis Rusticus”) Napthine, in their support of wind farms…?

After Baillieu brought in sighting restrictions so severe that 300 jobs went from the turbine plant in Naptime’s (sic) electorate and a further 100 have gone with the slashing of the RET, it’s really pushing the boat out a bit far in asserting that!

The only consistent in this meeting was one of closed minds, lack of imagination and a visceral hatred of anything that looked “Green, Conservation, Climate-Change or actually good sense.”

It's interesting just how visceral the hatred is ... completely unreasoned. It's almost as if they hate their god for not giving them imagination, talent, and vision.

How very conservative! How very unintelligent!

And the “Killer Line” from the night….

“Oh we don’t mind wind farms, we just want them where we can’t see them …besides..” (echoing Joe “Cereal-Toyota-Killer”) Hockey’s line, “..they industrialise the landscape.”

Bush in natural State

Bush Industrialised for Sheep and Cattle

And let's not forget that in NSW in  Gloucester in the Hunter, fracking wells (hydraulic fracturing) will be 
1/   500-600 meters from houses
2/   60 meters from the Avon River
3/      Located on a flood plane
What country are we living in?

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane.

...searching for Fred

G’day all,

Mrs Wombat and I have been to another exhibition ……”Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons”. NGV Ian Potter Centre

Hence, in part, this posts’ title: …..Searching for Fred.

Fred Williams is best known for his iconic treatment of the Australian landscape; a vision and notation as potent as Sidney Nolan’s “mask “ metaphor in his “Kelly” series in developing an icon of landscape that is immediately recognisable and understood.

Whereas the painters of Australian landscape of the 20’s through to the 50’s tended, in the main, to see the bush in a scenic or picturesque manner Williams saw it as a topic to paint, just paint. It was a formal device that he could observe and record (he painted plein-air as well as in the studio) and develop an array of techniques to compliment and realise his conceptualizations

Williams painted in the You-Yangs National Park in the 60’s. A scrubby granite outcrop popping out of the plains south west of Melbourne it’s less than an hour from the Wombat burrow so we decided to investigate the landscape afresh before seeing the exhibition and to photograph it as an exercise in re-realising what Williams had confronted and analysed.

                                                                                                                                   Hillock, 1965-66

                                                                                       View from Big Rock, You-Yangs National Park

The Australian Impressionist painters, Streeton, Roberts and McCubbin hammered their  filberts down flat to emulate the "flats"  seen in French painting of the period and McCubbin's work became increasing planar, "The Lost Child" is worth a look, particularly in the bush foliage and he seems to be approaching what Cezanne was doing with his planes. Williams was influenced by Cezanne and structure and form was enhanced by colour.

He also replicates a feeling for limitless space by flatenning the image and staying true to the picture plane.

                                                                                                                    You-Yangs, East face

 

                                                                                                                                Hanging Rock, 1976

                                                                                                                               Sherbrooke, 1961

                                                                                                                                                                            You-Yangs, Eucalypt Forest

Williams was certainly influenced by some of the aesthetic of Abstract-Expressionism that was swamping Australian art at the time and you can see his understanding of it in that edges tend to be kept clear lest the composition "spill' out of the frame and judicious use (sometimes a half dozen small dabs of vermillion both to enliven the colour balance and concentrate to composition) of colour.

One of the wonderful elements of the exhibition is that you do see Williams' superb handling of colour and tone and how a mood is changed from one canvas to the next within a similar subject. 

                                                                                                                            Forest Pond, 1974

                                                                                                                                                         Serendip WildlifeSanctuary, You-Yangs

His later works become much more exuberant and colourful and although expressive of the topic are not "expressionistic" or that bane of present day contemporary art, "whimsical"... he felt that what he had to say was worth saying and not a throw-away-line. 

Great exhibition at NGV;  illustrations presented here of Williams are from "Fred Williams 1927-1982, Patrick McCaughey, Murdoch books, 2008"

Psst, Possums... it was a good exercise, too. I think I'd like an 800mm to flatten things a bit more and it was a good way to re-think colour and tone in the post process...and happily it also convinced Mrs Wombat that I couldn't replicate a Williams in paint. 

I'd also like to add that I didn't look at any of Williams' work before traipsing off to the YouYangs.. as said previously we wanted it to be freshly seen. 

Politics:  Joe Hockey (alternative treasurer, Liarbrils) thinks we have " ....an unrealistic sense of entitlement" and should adopt a more Asian way of social welfare.... this is a man mute in the face of multi million dollar payouts of executive bonuses. Perhaps he's angling for an senior position with Toyota post-politics... they seem to share the same values! And he already comes with the slick car salesman smile. Or does he really want to hasten bloody revolution?

Speaker, Peter Slipper ( Labor... ex Liabril turncoat) is facing allegations of sexual harrassment...liarbrils shying away from saying they covered up similar, during Howard's reign. Gillard's at home probably giving her dog a good kicking over that piece of too-smart politicking.

Martin Ferguson (Labor) reckons ".....Victoria's Latrobe Valley could look like the Pilbara with open cut coal mining." Hang on, did I say Labor? No wonder the party is in a mess!

Peter Costello ( Liarbril,ex treasurer) laudes mining magnate Clive Palmer's opposition to a super mining tax only it is revealed same day, that Palmer has not personally paid tax for three years... Peter always had great timing.

Came across an interesting rant in a local "rag" t'other day and it sounded very similar to the nonsense spouted by the pro mining, anti wind /solar/alternative/common sense about environment fellow I encountered at the Ballan Festival. This time it was a fairly vicious and again factually inaccurate diatribe about Christine Milne ( new Greens Leader)  " ...she grabs the reins..." No she didn't, her party room voted her in. "...... arrested and subsequently jailed". (Fighting against a Pulp mill and the Damming of the Franklin)... so what? Nelson Mandela was in jail a lot longer and was a "terrorist" to boot!. 

"...Adam Brandt (sic) [psst.. it's, Bandt]..with Doctorate in Marxism......"  He has a PHD in Law and Politics and worked as an Industrial Relations Lawyer (trying to assist exploited out-workers I understand).. a nasty piece of work, he is. 

"They ( the Greens) use the convenience of being a minor party to avoid scrutiny"  Whatever that might mean.  ".....the exposure that will force the Greens into creating stories to match their headlines. It's at this point the internal factions of a dysfunctional Party will rise to the surface and their lack of credible depth will be exposed".      This gem was toward the end of the article and I had the sense of a mind spiralling away into its own fantasy world as the saliva dripped from the overworked tongue as the writer maniacally scribbled away....! 
I sense real fear in this writing.. a fear that the world is changing and an incapacity of doing anything except to hang on to the old certitudes. They know we are over-populating, over-exploiting our resources and that time is running out to address the issues. And they know, too well, that the old paradigms will not work this time around and it's their lack of imagination that forces them to rely politically on those who also know the problems but pretend that "she'll-be-right.." and will not spell out their real agenda. (Except for Joe...he lets the cat out of the bag all the time.)

                                                                                                  You-Yangs, Smoke Haze and Gum Trees

Cheers Possums,

Shane