Showing posts with label Kroger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kroger. Show all posts

Tuesday, 27 November 2018

The First Wave…




  Shane with election results
Shane with election results

G’day Petals,

“Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves, with periods ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called "internal wave train".”… (Wicki)


I believe Victorians have this past weekend, just experienced “the first wave.” and unless an unlikely turnaround occurs very quickly in the culture of The Ruling Rabble a Tsunami on a scale rarely seen is likely to swamp the entire nation next May.

Has a Ruling Rabble campaign ever been so sloppy, so full of gaffes, faux pas, misstatements, dirty pool and outright lies and dodgy robo-calls?
Shadow ministers failing to “front” media opportunities, candidates not understanding their supposed policy's, unseemly point-scoring, inappropriate politicisation of tragedy, dog-whistling and race-baiting and the now standard right-wing religious assaults on gender issues it was apparent that things were not well in the ruling rabble cabal.
 
Entrance
Entrance
It has been alleged that The Ruling rabble were so desperate for people to hand out “how-to-vote” cards at pre-poll stations that students were being offered $20.00 p.h. “brown-envelope-cash-in-hand” to cover what volunteers normally assist with and that students in Indonesia were employed to produce “attack-ad” videos, all of which which gives a flavour of a 1945 Fuhrer-Bunker mentality prevailing.
Party President Mick, Bruiser Kroger managed to set off brush fires whenever his pugnacious presence ventured too far from his native tribal areas of a merchant bank or Toorak and he was the butt of some very entertaining television when Ruling Rabble ex-premier, Bully-Boy , Foot-in-Mouth Kennett publicly told him on election night to resign by midnight over the electoral debacle unfolding.
I might add Petals, that it is Kennett’s disastrous reign and wholesale selling off of the state from1992-99 from which Victorian infrastructure is still recovering and which makes his call on Kroger all the more piquant.
 
Entrance
Entrance
Kroger for his part is unrepentant of his divisive presidency, the fiscal malfunctions and his promotion of ultra right-wing religious nutters to control essential committees at the expense of a more balanced centrist policy. He also arrogantly thinks that Victorian voters “got-it-wrong” on election day and in the company of some of his deluded federal colleagues sees nothing wrong in the direction his party is travelling in.
Federal Ruling Rabble Money-lender, Fictions Frydenberg oddly, and perversely persisted that there was nothing in the federal Ruling Rabble civil war that had an effect on the Victorian result and that Potato-Head Dutton’s race-baiting wasn’t a factor, that neither was the loss of Truffles to the factional assassin’s knives or that his replacement turning into a Trump-Lite fake in the incompetent Scummo Morrison was not a problem either.
And of course, a Ruling Rabble branch in NSW wanting Truffles ritually de-frocked is an indication of sanity prevailing, isn’t it?
Sarah Henderson (federal, Corangamite) opining on the fact that only five women remain in the state parliamentary branch said that if people wanted more women in the Ruling Rabble then Labor members should vote for her!
This quaintly bizarre political notion was possibly induced by her utter distraction at her parlous electoral margin of 0.3% ....meaning she is “gone” as soon as the polling booths open!


Tommy Silly-Boy, Switzer (Centre for Independent Studies, right-wing echo chamber) and Danny Pussy, Wild (IPA propagandist) both ranted their penny worth on the shellacking and of course deliberately missed the whole point. A point being, that implemetation of their theories have caused this  reversal.
People rejected trickle down economics. People rejected race-baiting. People rejected Matty Thug Guy’s appropriation of their right wing cant of rampant individualism and “market forces” which have  in the energy market as in education and services, shown not to be in the community interest but against it. That cutting wages, penalty rates and medical services creates dissension not stability.

This is perhaps a seminal moment when people realised that acting in building a positive future for the majority, developing broad based inclusive programs and providing essential infrastructure across the state is preferable to carping criticism, jobs for the boys and wholesale rorting by a select few bankers. That building is better than tearing down, that owning is better than renting, that looking forward is better than seeking the past, acceptance  better than rejection and collegiality is more productive than divisive fear-mongering.


Some zoologists think that some animal species have an ability to sense subsonic Rayleigh waves from an earthquake or a tsunami heralding its arrival. …. it is fairly apparent that the Federal Ruling Rabble lack this capacity and talent, too!

Hoo-roo, Possums,
Shane

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Ballarat International Foto Biennale Fringe 2


Ballarat International Foto Biennale Fringe 2013  No:2

G’day Possums,

BIFB '13
Shane reporting

last Sunday Darron Davies and I met up to wander the BIFB’s Fringe circuit  for the day. 
Darron’s stuff “Immingle” is at Venue 59, Blue Artz Gallery about half way along the Howitt St block from Burnbank St.

BIFB '13
Darron Davies

 From here we drove to Venue 57 for Alison Spence and Denise Regan  “Square Route” at Eclectic Tastes in Burnbank St

 
BIFB '13
“Square Route” at Eclectic Tastes
Alison Spence is also exhibiting at Venue 47 (see last post) 


BIFB '13
Anthony Baxter
Anthony Baxter’s “Old Boys” is at Venue 56 The Lakeview Hotel, a short walk from Bob Munro’s “A Traveller’s Eye” at Racers Bar and CafĂ© at Venue 54.

BIFB '13
Bob Munro
 A walk around the Lake took us to Sails on the Lake and Ross Thompson’s “The Pooling of our Coastline” at Venue 55.
BIFB '13
Ross Thompson
 We then crossed the city to see Cheney/Hart/Dennett et al at Venue 67 The Ballarat Observatory.


BIFB '13
Ballarat Observatory


BIFB '13


 
BIFB '13
Ballarat Observatory
Peter Ward’s “Tonal Reality” was seen next at Her Majesty’s Theatre (upstairs) at Venue 15 

BIFB '13
Peter Ward’s “Tonal Reality”

 
BIFB '13
Her Majesty's

Then over the road to The Known World Bookshop, Venue 11 and  Lucie Akers “Heidelberg – a Tribute to the Heidelberg School”.

BIFB '13
The Known World Bookshop
 
BIFB '13
“Heidelberg – a Tribute to the Heidelberg School”.
Venue 7, Phoenix Brewery was the site for Bec Walton’s “Jewel of Lights”.
 
BIFB '13
Bec Walton’s

The Forge Pizzeria, Venue 39 is showing John Smallman and Aldona Kmiec. 

BIFB '13
The Forge Pizzeria


There was some very good work in amongst these shows and even though some were too small for the ideas presented, the opposite was also true.
BIFB '13
Footpath by Shane W
 Interesting landscape work where you can see that line between the literal and the sublime. 

BIFB '13
Art Nouveau, Her Majesty's Theatre
Some required more rigour and less use of twee irritating photoshop “edges” and when your brochure is more interesting than the show …..hmmmmm.
Ways of seeing?
I commented in the last post of not liking HDR very much but Peter Ward’s are really worth a look as I think he uses it really subject-appropriately.  The stuff at Venue 57 was a fun presentation and Venue 56’s “Old Boys” was a heartfelt documentation that needed a quieter more reflective space.

BIFB '13
BFAG
I particularly like “Immingle” and the poetic terrarium abstracts at venue 59 and must add Sandra Elms from the “Adelaide Photographic Artists” which I missed the last post.

Four of my works are being re-printed and re-mounted as they are delaminating and are full of bubbles as they separate from the background…. should be ready Monday or Tuesday…as “Effie” would say, “How embarrassment!”

More in a few days, another mid-week wander to catch those Biennale Fringe shows not open on Sunday. 



Wombat Droppings or Politics in Oz


Rooty Hill is a perfectly named place for a debate between the main contenders in this election campaign.
All the commentators have been saying it was an even debate…Hmmmm, I think not.
“Rabbott” under-performed and under-delivered except for his three line slogans and looking curiously gray-green in pallor made me wonder if he really is Voldemort but it was his haltingly poor answers to specific questions, the pathological reliance on pushing the “message” and allied with a frightening inability to answer in detail showed the inherent and devious weakness in his arguments. For all his waffle about "Pillars and Plans" there was no vision and no engagement with the audience and even though Kev 07 +6, I think had more probing questions, his ability to answer with detail, seemed to receive more positive audience response.
An over-strident, bullying Michael Kroger in later interview was a fine example of  “they-protest-too-much” to be believed … they don’t like close and detailed scrutiny and lash out when cornered.
This makes me wonder if the wheels are beginning to fall off the Liarbril rabble’s cart. They are being almost Stalinist-Revisionist in their versions of recent history and insanely funny in blaming Labor for negative and bullying tactics. Ex-Independent Tony Windsor noted in interview their strategic policy to destroy Gillard and said that he couldn’t support “Rabbott’ as leader in the minority government because of ”Rabbott’s” lack of a stable personality.
The conservatives have also made much of just how angry Windsor’s constituents were with his support for the Labor minority government. Windsor said with a smile, “I had 14 actual complaints in three years”.
Sophie “Pit-Bull” Mirabella is preferencing first, a candidate who believes that the last tragic bushfires were god’s punishment for women having abortions!  Mirabella has managed to take a safe Liarbril seat to one that an independent might wrest from her clammy grip.
10 days to go before the Age of The Aspirational Bogan putridly flowers.

Cheers,
Shane


The Australian Index

Friday, 11 May 2012

....celebrating.


G’day Possums,
Time for celebrations…. 
 
The Wombat’s No:1 daughter has arrived home after another year in France and a surprise gathering was organised for her close friends by daughter No:2 and one of the friends. Unbeknown to daughter No:2: she had been deliberately misinformed as to the correct time of No:1's arrival and was thus and duly happily surprised herself.

 
So the surprise was completed at Collingwoodworld    ta’s to  Layla for helping organise things.



  Second celebration was daughters No:1 tale that Wilde’s tomb at Pere Lachaise had not only been cleaned up but also protected from his “admirers”. I was quite appalled at its condition and the mentality behind the state of this stele when we saw it last year. 


 
I found this recent sample of the new “look” at

The sculpture is made from Hoptonwood stone, a good architectural limestone that fairly well can absorb oils, inks and vegetation stains.   If you examine the image of the surface of the newly cleaned sculpture you will see that the “love-damage” is still apparent.
Each time this type of stone is cleaned the detail is abraded away, ultimately till nought is left.
I can more readily understand the raison d’etre of the Taliban dynamiting the ancient Buddhas in Afghanistan than I can the slow destruction of a memorial by you, of someone you allegedly like and admire.  Perhaps it’s a childishly plaintive cry in seeking identity or recognition?

 Politics 

Mr Rabbit gave his reply to the federal budget...... fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

He was defended by one Right Winger (“Boris” Kroger, power maker with a sweet tooth [whose "ex" btw has just been dumped from the Federal No1 place on the Senate ticket] ) as “…a Rhodes Scholar in economics..” to which a talk-back caller quipped,  “You mean roads, dontcha?” (Mr Rabbit is a keen cyclist). Jon Faine ABC.774
Same RW is also in a spat with a former colleague Peter Costello, but said Costello was “Aus’s greatest treasurer..) Uuuumm…. I know he spent like fury before every election and funded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of $20 billion whilst refusing to acknowledge infrastructure, educational, medical, environment and development needs.
Allegedly a poll of business types when he first got the job suggested they thought him an idiot.
Costello’s timing (as noted in a prior post) of this latest infantile dummy spit is……. superb! Virtually wiped Mr Rabbit’s reply speech away…. Which is probably a good thing as he fired shots that were blanks.
(Another talk-back quip, “We need an Abbott and Costello in parliament!”)
Costello's seen walking from a plotting session with Kelly O Dwyer…..I want to know who was giving Bitchy lessons to whom?
Mr Rabbit says he wants Aussie kids to have better foreign language skills, whilst saying he’ll vote down a Labor budget initiative, “School Kids” bonus. Perhaps he’ll have a chat with Mr Kennett ( ex Liarbril premier, Victoria) and see where all the language teachers went after they were made redundant some 12 years ago?
Mr Rabbit also wants to abolish the mining tax  “ … will make Australia a better place to invest and let the world know that we don’t punish success”.
Hmmmmm… “….a better place to invest…”  Invest in?  or Invade? 
Hope I quoted a “typo”.
So, the world’s richest woman along with the biggest Queensland miner (6 billion-dollar-man) need tax breaks?
Mr Rabbit thinks that the Labor budget was… “…an ignoble piece of work ….. that will offend the intelligence of the Australian people”.
I rather think that the Liarbril Party is by design offensive; that their pre-selections catfights are the really ignoble things in the best of middle class, aspirational bad taste and that they seem conflicted as to their own meagre policy positions.

In the Tardis STATE of Victoria where everything goes backward, the Minister for Anti Corruption Andrew McIntosh….. looks, in a meeting, like he really shouldn’t be there ‘cause he’s really not interested and why should you be …oohhh this is boring….  But thinks the new guidelines for anti-corruption are fantastic.
Law Council and opposition  think they are Byzantine and designed to obfuscate!
He is also “unavailable” to discuss this matter with the redoubtable and attractive Josie Taylor on ABC “Victoria”.
Hello Mr Baillieu.
Poor Ms Josie T. then gets to interview the Baillieu appointed Governor of the Tardis State…….
Daughter No:1 could have opined … “at least Sarkozy had panache…” Mrs Wombat begins to snore…
so I’ll leave you Possums with these quotes from “The Age”…..
 “Mr Chernov replaces a man not afraid to speak out. Professor de Kretser used his own migrant experience to criticise the Howard government's citizenship test, and passionately warned of the consequences of climate change”.
 “But it is clear Mr Chernov will not be an activist. Asked if there were issues he would pursue, Mr Chernov said: ''I'll leave those things to the Premier. He decides the issues.''

And because we're talking of dead things….. another  image from Pere Lachaise......


 and one from the beautiful Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay

cheers Petals,
Shane.