Aussie Values as a Dog-Whistle

G'day Petals,

Mrs Wombat and I had a little waddle around Melbourne t'other day through the delightful  arcades and also to see the photography shows at the NGV, particularly the William

Shane Flagging Aussie Values

Egglestone and the Bill Henson ones.

I had the feeling there was too much in the WE show which weakened its overall appeal but they certainly expressed the peculiarities of "The South" and its personality. The Henson nudes though not as in-your-face as usual, were lovely but ultimately, I felt, pointless. The landscapes on the other hand were riveting.

The NGV in contexualizing  its collections is a much more interesting place to wander around.

 

The Causeway

 I'm not so sure if it's all an Augustinian method of defining Australian values by demonstrating what they are not ....or if Truffles is suffering from early onset dementia but he has decided that "Australian Values" are just what immigrants to this country need to aspire to. Traits like, not beating your wife senseless, speaking only good English, joining the CWA or CFA, polishing the backs of your shoes  and probably, only voting for the ruling rabble; otherwise you'll get deported. Which, given the rates of domestic violence perpetrated by "Dinky-di's  who are barely literate;  we should see the place emptied in no time.

Block Arcade

Trying on the Mc Carthy-ist, "I know something you don't," line on "Insiders", Anti-Immigration Minster, Dodo Dutton obfuscated around the truth of the latest riot on the refugee concentration camp at Manus Island, conflating events in an attempt to muddy the waters and rejecting any suggestion that his version of events was the gospel one even as it was being pooh-poohed by the Manus Island police and a PNG minister.  

Later, Dodo in a Kafkaesque  performance of Australian Values demanded an apology from ABC for letting himself be exposed again, as a liar.

This ruling rabble Mk2 are the most corrupt, lying, incompetent cabal ever to set foot in a parliament having no integrity or ethics (other than a lack of them), and no credibility whatsoever. These mongrels have trashed any semblance of truth and transparency in this country and have, by their actions and Un-Australian Values lost all authority and need to be sacked en masse!

Centre Place

"From our perspective we see the scheme as punitive, as demonising the unemployed and as being an expensive failure." intoned the St Vincent de Paul Society in commenting about the Work for the Dole scheme, a favourite idea of Rabid-the-Hun  which has been, like his tenure as Prime Miniature, an expensive "demonstrable failure" that does nothing to lessen the nation's unemployment burden and which St.V.de P's also says, is at risk of creating "a class of working poor" whilst doing nothing to create sustained employment and furthering Australian Values.

Photography NGV

The Harpy and Minister for un-employment, Michaelia Cash was no-where to be seen again, no doubt off inspecting more million+ investment properties whilst the list of businesses being exposed for ripping-off their staff  by underpayment and poor work conditions grows each week.

NGV, Egglestone

Jobson Growth seems to have disappeared with Australian Values, too.

Isn't it funny seeing the RWNJ's getting their knickers in a knot when freedom of speech is  exercised?

Yassmin Abdel-Magied posted a FB opinion which suggested that as well as not forgetting the ANZAC's we might do well to remember the refugees on Manus and Christmas Islands and the tragedies being enacted in Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Yemen that brought them there. This was so against Australian Values  that it  ignited a torrent of abuse from those who are right, like Blot-on-the-Landscape, Bolt and Toilet-Boy, Jones and others who see  humanitarian expressions as a direct assault on their unalloyed patriotism and narrow-minded nationalism. A petition was started demanding her removal from any work on the ABC and so far has around 30,000 signatures.

NGV Henson

Timmy The-Twat, ex-Freedom-Man, Wilson the IPA apparatchik now part of the ruling rabble, joined in the fray conveniently forgetting that only two weeks before he was arguing that 18C be repealed  in order that we have more Australian Values like "free-speech!"

Ahhhh... "Australian Values!"  Now, here was a real display of them.

NGV Henson

It seems that the only true values to be enunciated are right-wing ones, the only way to view Anzac Day is as "The Birth of the Nation", as the defining moment of our country's adulthood and egalitarianism.  Not as a small unsuccessful event within a much bigger one, an invasion of another country that cost 60,000 young lives in attempting the perpetuate the economics of an empire that was about to disintegrate paving the way for the totalitarian regimes now so admired by "the right" and who caused so much destruction twenty years further on.

NGV 

Australian Values... bullshit, it's just blinkered jingoism and a nasty simplistic nationalism fed to dull minds.

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane

Eleventy's Dreaming

Citizen Shane

G’day Possums,

Now that the dust in the burrow has settled on “the trip” and even though much less was shot than last time, I'm well into what seems an interminable “post-process” and able to reflect on what are becoming the salient memories of those six weeks.

Jardin de Plantes, Paris The Inspiration for Saint Sa'ens', "Carnival of the Animals"

The Cathedrals seen in Britain; Wells, Exeter, Southwark and the local churches all had a liveliness probably because they are used extensively and are not dank, damp spaces. Also the fact that the architecture being a century or so later in most cases and “English Perpendicular” has found its soaring, full formal restraint which is so different from the “Flamboyant” of French Gothic.

Wells Cathedral Chapter House Stairs

At Wells Cathedral I was hard pressed not to attempt to channel the spirit of Frederick Evans when confronted with the stairs going up to the Chapter House and had a twinge of regret that I wasn't lugging around a Field Camera with tilt and shift movements. It was only a twinge, as the gear I had bagged weighed in at 7 Kg and most was often left in the car for discretions sake. I had wrist straps for both cameras and they proved very useful in that the camera was always “at hand” and not flailing around your neck or protruding a lens in front like some priapic tourist in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita.”

Scotney Castle

The gardenswere beautiful: Sissinghurst, Scotney, Trebah and the delightfully warm Lacock Abbey and even the walk to Petworth House but then nearly every French Village is a picture in itself and Versailles (apart from the selfie-hordes) has that expansive dignity and a singular charm in the Petit Trianon.

Versaille

Sissinghurst, Petworth, the Wallace collection, now administered by the State were all from immense private wealth, whereas wandering through the castle at Vitre or the ramparts of Dinan you’re conscious of a formidable awareness of Nation and region and even though The Victoria and Albert in London has a large Artwork Neon sign in its foyer telling the masses “This belongs to You” the Opera Garnier in Paris seems more publicly owned.

Petworth

Perhaps it was because the British renounced their Commonwealth, returning to a forelock tugging monarchical system whereas the French embraced Republican Liberty, Egalite’ and Fraternity that restaurant food and service is generally so much better in France?

Sissinghurst

Jardin des Plantes, Staircase

Wombat Droppings

A chronicle of the demise of Egalitarian Oz and its embrace of Fascism.

Rabid-the-Hun, leader of the ruling rabble, this week refused to deny that when he said, “…we are open for business,…” he meant the business of people smuggling.

It has come to light that in the free enterprise spirit some refugee boats have returned to Indonesia after thousands of dollars have been given by Oz Immigration to the captains of those vessels. This is irritating to those Military and Police in Indonesia who are complicit with this trade, as it will force them to lower the prices for the asylum seekers and pay their captains more. A real win-win for people smugglers.. ahhh, the talent of the ruling rabble.

Coming at the same time as Rabid was floating the idea of sending more troops to the hell-holes from where many of these refugees originate and mounting another four pronged assault on the Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs for suggesting that the Indonesians might stop listening to us on other matters if we continue violating their territory, his Treasurer Joe “Eleventy-Toyota-Killer” Hockey had us all “in the aisles” with his profoundly original observation that we will all need a good job if we wish to buy a house.

Eleventy ignored the fact that there are five people for every job at the moment and that self-employed and contract workers are not welcomed by the banks for home mortgages and that $100,000.00 university debts and a privatised health system and lower wages were not really a recipe for community building.

Pryor Cartoon, The Saturday Paper 13-6-2015

The $390,000.00 a year Free Speech Commissioner and ex Liarbril, ex “Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” (aka IPA), Timmy “Twat-Freedom-Man” Wilson popped his head up this week, too. At the Sydney Geriatric Institute he apparently opined that the judiciary should not be the ones dealing with human rights as this could be left to his mentor George “Bookshelves” Brandis or even “Dodo” Dutton but only after they’ve finished assaulting his boss, Gillian Triggs. Timmy didn’t see much use for any thing like a Magna Carta either… other than as a tourist attraction for lefty wimps.

It has yet to be ascertained what proportion of his $390,000.00 remuneration this thought- bubble was worth.

Peta "Bloody-Idiot" Credlin

Full of this spirit of Democracy, Rabid-the-Hun’s advisor, Peta ”Bloody-Idiot” Credlin was reported as telling a press photographer to delete the files she had shot of her. Having of late been less visible monstering her ruling rabble colleagues, this was a welcome return to form that we have missed appreciating in person; although if Rabid’s pronouncements on housing prices, wind farms, marriage equality, security and environmental matters are anything to go by, she is still showing equivalent acumen in her advisory role.

“Dodo” Dutton was at his rollicking charming best, too when the bullying Sydney radio noise Ray Hadley played him a song about Green’s Senator Sarah Hansen-Young’s adventures of being spied on by Wilson Security when she visited the refugee concentration camp on Manus Island.  Hadley has to be congratulated in getting a laugh from the dour faced Dodo even if it was, as another of Hansen-Young’s colleagues Larissa Waters said, “Sexist claptrap!”

It is interesting to note that with all the expensive Royal Commissions going on and nothing of import coming from them that in Queensland and Victoria the new governments are uncovering some very interesting messes that were allowed or were fostered by the previous Liarbril regimes in transport, education, sport and law… and I suspect that the vicious attacks on Gillian Triggs or anyone else who contradicts or opposes this ruling rabble will have similar treatment meted out like that of Hansen-Young; after all, look at the way Gillard was treated by these “adults”.

Much as I said there was a stench in Victoria which is now emerging…. this federal rabble are so  “on-the-nose” in so many areas and the corrupt stink is coming from the very top.

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

Versailles, Petit Trianon

Watts Chapel

Nous sommes des hypocrites…

Shane in solidarity...

World-wise, probably a worse week than usual...

…but more of that later in Wombat Droppings…

Here we have some more images from the last performance from BTA.

 “Espirit de la Danse”

They’re all rehearsal shots and it made an interesting variation of approach to a performance shoot to think about the movement sequence and not just the “key” moment or jump.

I think they are very expressive of the choreography 

other than being just visually interesting.

A book of the images from this performance will be available in early February.

Wombat Droppings 

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

Millions march in Paris and in other countries around the world in a demonstration of solidarity with those from the satirical paper Charlie Hebdo.

World leaders turned up too and had a PR photoshoot ….and if you care to look at this link  

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/11/the-free-speech-hypocrisy-of-some-world-leaders-marching-in-paris/?tid=sm_fb   you will understand this weeks’  title.

The amount of “press” the Boko Haram  massacre of 2000 in Nigeria received in comparison to the Charlie Hebdo killings was a perfect example our hypocrisy.

It is likely that the Charlie Hebdo “Free-Speech” banner will be taken up with renewed gusto by the likes of Andrew ”Blot-On-The-Landscape” Bolt and Timmy “Twat-Freedom-Man” Wilson, (ex-Liarbril and “Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” apparatchik) in their eagerness to have 18C repealed.
And not two hours after this was posted, right on cue, up popped Timmy"Twat" saying that 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. He must be back from hols and someone was silly enough to wind him up. There's an intellect that is definitely not worth $390,000.00 P.A.of taxpayers money. 

Hypocrites.

Prime Miniature, Rabid–The-Hun then prattled his hypocritical rhetoric about freedom of the press and being free to criticize… except of course if you’re the ABC and you don’t tow the “IPA Party-Line” and join “Toim Ozstraya,” you’ll have your funding cut, get closed down…silenced.

Hypocrite

Mercifully for all, he’s been quiet of late; his own side are relieved he’s not making more of a fool of himself and the majority of the country are relieved too, not to be constantly throwing up at his appearances and mindless speech.

But his minions have been flying around prattling about increasing the GST and for food, education and health to be included in its inequitable mix.

Cory Bernardi

Hypocrites

 That this country is fast becoming the shambles that it was repeatedly told it was by Rabid-the-Hun and his rabble when in opposition is because of the “Free-Market” ideology that they are implementing for their immediate bosses, the IPA.

Some like Joseph Stieglitz disagree:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/nobel-prizewinning-economist-joseph-stiglitz-says-abbott-government-budget-changes-are-a-crime-20140702-3b8vb.html

but it is hard to see how the country as we know it can survive their ideological madness.

Hypocrites

They are destroying everything that has made Australia a civil society.

They are not a Government for the people. They are the lackey-lickspittles for Multi-nationals and other big business interests.

We have a crisis? I have a feeling that this is a large part of the problem…

Lifters or Leaners?

Hypocrites

 … when you are paying off a $100,000.00 University Degree, cant find a job because it’s been given to a foreign 457 visa workers, can’t get unemployment benefits for six months, can’t afford medical care, and when you finally find Part-Time work and find that the wage (without penalties) is not enough to live on…then we’ve become un-Australian.

This Petals, because of hypocrites, is becoming an un-civil society.

There will be trouble ahead.

Hoo-roo,

Shane.

Seeing people of privilege…

Shane at ballet Studio

G’day Petals,

Japanese Photographer Moriyama Daido has said the photographs are memories of light and deposits and traces making up a kind of archaeology and he likes Tennessee Williams' thought “….that worthwhile memories lie somewhere between fact and non-fact.”

Photos taken recently at class and rehearsal for Ballet Theatre Australia... They have a performance soon.. check their facebook page for details... https://www.facebook.com/BalletTheatreAustralia

These are not documentary photographs, yet they are…

They are a fiction but still true.

A dance performance is ephemeral, it is always enjoyed after the event.

 They are not “staged” images but manipulated truth.

Wombat Droppings

Scott “The Drone “ Morrison has used refugee children on the Manus Island concentration camp as bargaining ploys to get legislation passed through the Senate under the pretence that it is “humanitarian.”

Rabid –the-Hun with his usual warped values applauded this a fair and honourable thing to do.

That he has a brain is without doubt.... but it must be very small, hence the repetitive simple three word slogans. They’re repetitive because it’s almost as if he's trying to convince himself of their "rightness" and viability.

What a bastard nation we have become. What a venal, selfish, intolerant and stupid people; a Nation so without a set of moral values that we are going to be easy pickings for the next huckster that comes along.

A young cricketer got hit on the head with a ball during a State match and tragically, died.
A young woman with severe physical disabilities who was a forceful advocate for seeing disability for what it is died, suddenly.
The Australian Cricket Board and its cricketers had the cricketer's funeral televised (politicians of all persuasions attended) and "Milked" at every opportunity the situation.
I don't think the disability advocate will get the same attention.
Advance Australia ...where?

Then there was the rather sad spectacle of our newish taxpayer funded $330,000.00 p.a. ”Freedom from Something” Commissioner, Timmy “Twat/Freedom-Man” (ex-Liarbril, ex-Coot-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe”, aka IPA) bouncing around the set of “The Chasers Media Circus” on the soon to be financially gutted, ABC.

Looking, according to Mrs Wombat’s analysis, like a dippy school–girl invited to a party where she knows no-one and senses she is not liked but is so, so desperate to be involved, Timmy offered little of substance but seemed blithely happy to be a clapping wallflower to everyone else’s contributions.

Perhaps more than a real civil servant working for the betterment of the nation’s civility would do?

Me?   I thought Timmy looked more like a dim-witted Labrador dog happily sniffing new bums in the hope a being accepted by the peer group.

Timmy’s previous employment was with that rancid organization the IPA  which in its paid advocacy role espouses abolishing the very commission for which Timmy is now being paid by the nation to speak for. That is the real problem and his appointment rather, foisting, without tender into the role, by pretend Federal Attorney General, “Bookshelves” Brandis, makes a mockery of Democracy.

He can never be trusted in this role.

 Almost on cue as the wheels begin to fall off their ramshackle government; we are treated to more news “shock, horror, feel afraid”,  70 or so Australian Muslims are fighting with ISIS in Syria & Iraq and Mandy “Il Patrone” Vanstone bounces up to opine how hard-done-by her rabble are being treated by the press and Labor.

Geez, Mandy do you now sympathise with the viciousness your lot meted to Gillard and Rudd in the past few years? Do you think Mandy, that your rabble’s top level infighting is the press’ and Labor’s fault?

The infighting is getting worse as their wholly unfair budget is in a mess, their ludicrous tertiary education dismemberment is stalled in the Senate and Rabid-the-Hun’s popularity deteriorates.

Julie “Death-Stare” Bishop then has a hissy fit when told she can’t go the Climate Change talks in Lima.

They weren’t going to have Australia attend as “Ozone-Hole” Hunt is useless as Environment minister and besides “…climate change is crap…!”

 “Death-Stare” with one look, irradiated a cabinet room of colleagues and gets her way but is further informed (probably by Rabid-the-Hun’s most favoured partner, “Commissar” Credlin) that Andy “Reboxetine” Robb was to chaperone her, lest she swayed from the righteous doctrinal path of  “…climate change is crap…” and not hinder the de-railing of the talks.

It was reported that “Death-Stare, “…went Bananas…” Not, that she was Bananas.

That Julie “Death-Stare Bishop’s star is in the ascendant is not disputed but that is a bit like a flag being run up the mast of the Titanic as it sinks.

“People of privilege,” said the economist JK Galbraith, “will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.”

And so it goes Down-Under.

Hoo-roo Possums,

Shane