Raining on Truffles' Parade

Shane and Rain

G'day possums,

It's been raining a lot and although it was nowhere near as bad as the '98 falls' all the fields were flooded and creeks running where they've never usually been before.

Everything being very wet is also a metaphor for the times.

It is Truffles Turnbull's first anniversary as Prime Miniature and he is now further behind in the polls than Rabid-the-Hun was when Truffles knifed him for not being popular and not handling the economy very well.

 It is passing strange then that the economy is worse and it is Rabid's IPA agenda still being implemented.

Peter I-Had-a-Baton Costello has re-joined the comedy circuit again by telling the mining industry it had been shabbily treated!  Notwithstanding the billions of dollars in tax breaks it filches and the environmental damage it leaves for others to clean up and pay for, Petey said, "The Resources Super Profits Tax was the weirdest tax ever conceived by a government in this country. In the end it collected nothing of substance," conveniently ignoring the Norwegian example of how to future proof your country rather than selling everything off to the nearest bidder. He also thought that the real values of the mining industry should be taught in schools.  A sort of Reverse-Ethics study.

Petey is also the Treasurer who wasted the biggest mining boom in the nation's history by failing to develop any significant infrastructure and providing the middle and business classes with tax cuts that now are costing the country very dear.

 

Ballan Rain

The Ruling Rabble are so "good" that they ran out of legislation to debate in the senate which allowed their senators to waffle on about anything they wanted for a few hours.

One, Brigitte McKenzie (National Party) couldn't remember the name or town of a colleague she was droning on about which was probably more entertaining than her interminable dreary conservative platitudes on QandA a night or two later.  Another, Linda Reynolds, decided that the repeal of 18C (Racial Discrimination Act) was her essay topic, flying in the face of Truffles diminishing authority and his assertions that the Ruling Rabble will leave 18C alone.

 

Ballan Rain

Truffles' "Iron Clad" guarantee that the superannuation legislation would not be altered turned into a sort of soft Lead material after Nationals back-bencher, Blubber Christensen said he would spit his dummy if they didn't change it adding further to the actuality that the Ruling Rabble couldn't run a Chook raffle in a pub!

But staying "on-song," their strident repetitive cries of, "...what a successful week..' and "...how well and widely we consult..." it all seemed less of a positive note but more akin to the feeble screeches of drowning rats... and just when you think the Ruling Rabble can't go any lower or get any worse, off flatulates Bookshelves Brandis on how as important to the country Truffles will be compared to the war-mongers Ming Menzies and Little Johnny Howard.

But the one thing that is utterly fascinating about this rancid collective of cronyism. 
They're totally and universally incompetent and divided and everyone is raining on Truffles' parade. An incoherent latter-day, Much Ado About Nothing?

 

Australian Metaphor

It's come to light that the Army's Dress uniforms are being made in China 'cause they're cheaper. The boots certainly are ...they fall apart!

 

Ballan Rain

What future does this sad country have? Not much it seems; perhaps it's a bit like a pimple or a boil reaching its potential and it is then squeezed or lanced and the poison dribbles out and you then get better.

Hoo-Roo petals,

Shane

...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

....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

www.soundlandscapes.wordpress.com

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.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/our-new-governor-was-quite-the-wag-in-his-day-20110221-1b2hh.html#ixzz1uYRHeC7e

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.