Arundhati Roy defines Mumbai

This is copied from The Guardian, Roy’s piece is entitled Mumbai was not our 9/11. It’s 5000 words of essential reading, so grab coffee/yerba/chai and strap in. All that follows is a powerful op ed from one of the world’s most valuable living writers.

Mumbai was not our 9/11

by Arundhati Roy

We’ve forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching “India’s 9/11”. Like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we’re expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it’s all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn’t act fast to arrest the “Bad Guys” he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India’s 9/11.

But November isn’t September, 2008 isn’t 2001, Pakistan isn’t Afghanistan and India isn’t America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

It’s odd how in the last week of November thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India’s richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara – one of Kashmir’s most ravaged districts.

The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all Indian nationals, it obviously indicates that something’s going very badly wrong in this country.

Advertisement

Sea Shepherd – latest on hostage situation

The following is the latest blog entry posted by Sea Shepherd on their MySpaz page.

Japanese Whaling Fleet On the Run With Two Sea Shepherd Hostages

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ship Steve Irwin is in full pursuit of five vessels of the Japanese whaling fleet including the Japanese supply vessel Oriental Bluebird.The Japanese harpoon vessel Yushin Maru No. 2 has taken two Sea Shepherd volunteer crew members hostage. Benjamin Potts 28, an Australian citizen and Giles Lane, 35, a citizen of Great Britain are being held hostage onboard the whaling vessel. Both men were assaulted and then tied to the railings of the whaler.

Bob Brown & endangered species broadsided by overturned Federal Court finding

This is a particularly important matter in the development of national environmental law in Australia. Having only just got word of this decision handed down 4 days ago (my bad…. grr), here is the press release on Bob Brown’s site.

Forest absurdity – appeal to Rudd, Garrett certain, High Court likely

30th Nov 07

Greens leader Bob Brown has called on the Rudd government and Environment Minister Peter Garrett to read and take action to rectify the absurdity of today’s Federal Appeal Court’s decision on Tasmania’s Wielangta forest and to nullify the Regional Forest Agreement.
While the appeal bench ruled 3-0 that section 38 of the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act exempts logging from environmental law, it left intact Justice Marshall’s finding that logging had a significant and unacceptable impact on the endangered species.

“It’s a case of the law intends to protect endangered wildlife but if Canberra and Hobart ignore logging which endangers their existence, they can,” Senator Brown said.

“I will ask both Prime Minister Rudd and Peter Garrett to put the Howard years of indifference behind and insist these habitats be protected as the law intends. I have also asked my barristers to weigh up the obvious grounds for an appeal to the High Court – this nation’s natural heritage depends on us taking action,” Senator Brown said.

With all the changing of the government and Kyoto-ing and promises of apologies to the Stolen Generations, this decision slipped straight through and I should think it was also neglected by most major newspapers – which is a huge mistake. The overturning of Justice Marshall’s interpretation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in the first Wielangta Case is a significant setback for checks and balances needed to prevent monopolistic forestry departments running amok in the most irreparable manner possible.

More on this in the next few days – definitely.

How they do business at The Australian?

Check out this story – a senior journalist at The Austra-lyin’ wrote emails to independent Wentworth candidate Dani Ecuyer urging her to preference Malcolm Turnbull – her rival, and one of the key people for Australia’s sabotage of climate change action and for the approval of Gunns’ pulp mill project in Tassie. Turnbull is essentially the antithesis of everything Ecuyer is running in support of, and yet,

She has released an email exchange with The Australian newspaper journalist Caroline Overington, in which the reporter writes “Please preference Malcolm. It would be such a good front page story.”

Even on Star Trek where oversexed humans zapped around space at light speed with photon torpedoes and influenza, the crew knew they weren’t meant to influence the paths of other cultures. Here’s a senior writer for a paper which funds massive advertising b.s. about how awesome it is, asking a pro-environment candidate in what has become a very marginal seat to help return the Liberal anti-environment candidate.

Media Watch, the unique Australian show which guarantees the host a very limited number of journalistic career options for at least five years, has provided a deadly bit of coverage here chronicling the entire sage of communications to and about Ecuyer by the dark forces of  News Limited.

Hilariously, both Caroline Overington – the ‘journalist’ in question – and Chris Mitchell – editor-in-chief at The Australian – are claiming that the whole thing was just part of a friendly joke between girls. Seems like the same kind of contempt which they express for the nation’s collective intelligence each and every day.

deadly new video – Johnny Howard 101

time to go

time to go

praise the lord

it’s time to go.

great vid from bigbobfrombronte, belongs in the new Australian history syllabus for sure.

Stephen Colbert (coal Bear) to run for President!!!

Why? Well, in his own words, “it’s clear that the voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.”

Good luck Stephen – go hard. And take comfort from our experience in Australia, where a candidate satirising the right-wing incumbent is proving consistently and reassuringly popular. I know that it must have come as a blow when The Convenientest Truth missed both the Oscar and the Nobel prizes but hey – the Presidency? As third prizes go, that’s better than what you picked up in the egg-and-spoon race for ‘special children’ at home economics day. You remember.

But hang on a minute. A fork in the road? Capitalized? So that it’s A Fork in the Road? You jammy bastard Coal Bear!? You’ve already pilfered the Australian campaign!

Australian Department of Immigration – Kevin Andrews clarifies position on human rights

videos like this remind me why i made a whole category of “too good not to”

So glad this vid got pointed out to me. Creator, Dan Ilic, has a bunch of creatively deviated sproutlings just here.

<a href=”https://typingisnotactivism.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/australian-department-of-immigration-kevin-andrews-clarifies-position-on-human-rights/”><img src=”http://tinyurl.com/23828h&#8221; border=”0″/> <strong>Scoopit!</strong></a>

Forget terrorism – fear democracy. . .

It’s a simple message. Any media-savvy Australian will understand: a Kevin Rudd led Labor government is an even greater threat to Australian bus stops than Islamic evildoers.

How do we infer this? Because the voice in the scarey anti-Labor ad is a full semi-octave lower than the voice in the scarey “if you see something, send the AFP round to your co-worker’s house” ad.

Wow. That’s scarey. They didn’t even mention that Julia Gillard’s a woman but I’m really convinced I don’t want her driving Australia. It is hard to know which to be more convinced by: manic depressive anti-democracy advertising or Mal Brough’s concern for Aborigines, Kevin Andrew’s concern for refugees, Malcolm Turnbull’s concern for the environment, Peter Costello’s concerns about climate change, or John Howard’s newfound concern for refugees, Aborigines, the environment and climate change.

Either way, this election I too shall be scared into voting for more of the same. And then I shall go skiing in Hell.

thank the lord that Penny Stephens took this photo. David Vincent is my new hero.

wwworldwide John Howard caption contest!!!

John Howard’s beloved Liberal Party had their website hacked by some freedom-loving web ninjas. EXCELLENT!!! The story’s here in Rupert’s always-aptly-titled News Limited, who have of course censored the ‘lewd’ message.

I’m guessing that John Howard says:

“I like to suck dick”. It would be cooler if it said “I like to suck dicks this big”, or “I once stuck my fist this far up a refugee,” or, best of all “I don’t care if a bloke sucks dicks this big, he and his partner should still have the same legal standing as everybody else”.

 

 

There are so many possible messages that would fit here. Please make your suggestions in the comments section and I promise to do something amazing with the best ones in the lead-up to our federal election.

Scoopit!

Bennelong Time (since I was ahead in the polls)

John Howard and his lead balloon – a deadly Ledly, um… ‘tribute’ . . ? . . . ! skewering from Cyrius01 on YouTube. Very rock, very funny, very replayable loud for housemates and co-workers.

I love that under ‘interests & hobbies’ Cyrius says he’s into “preventing Armageddon-believing Christians from creating self-fulfilling prophecies and ruining the planet.”

The dude is definitely onto something. I’d say ‘kudos’ but that’s been MurdochSpaced, so I’ll just say siiiiiick!

Spotted at the always worthwhile Homepage Daily

Scoopit!

Indigenous activist Adam Hill walks his chalk…

Pretty bloody impressive. . . even moreso for a first-timer. Here is Ausfailure National Tantrum by Adam Hill. Better still – read his story.

Ladies and Gentlemen… the 2007 Chalk the Walk ‘Ausfailure National Tantrum’.

by Adam Hill

A dear friend and ex University mate (Andi Meher) has been running this amazing street art competition for a couple of years now called ‘Chalk the Walk‘. I was persuaded to enter this year, and I must admit, having never created a ‘chalk’ pavement artwork before, was a little reluctant.

Hot new video – MC George Dubya: Sunday Bloody Sunday

Wow!! He may not be able to pronounce difficult words like ‘APEC‘ or ‘nuclear’ but he does bring at least as much integrity to a U2 war protest as Bono brings to globalized designer consumables. Awesome mashup – sound and vision fully deserve each other.

George Bush; Portrait of a Fuckhead

This picture and story are too great not to repost. Good one, Korova. The full story is here in SpiegelOnline. British artist Jonathan Yeo got fed up with the Bush University in Texas repeatedly booking then cancelling his services to come and do a portrait of George Bush.

So he did one for free – by making a collage out of cutup pornos. Right ear – right now.

Alanis Morissette sings a dark emo hiphop anthem to her ass – srsly awesome.

brilliantly interpreted black eye for some peas – My Humps.

Further instructions for evolution….and a touch of culture jam.

OH MY GOD!! Sometimes the internet just thoroughly exceeds expectation.

Thanks to Stendhalismo who always digs up the most unlikely bits of webris, here is some seriously great greatness.

Click on the image to hit Drasolt’s weblog and check out the full instructional ‘back to work’ pamphlet. It was created by Packard Jennings and the Anti Ad Agency Centennial Society Fight Club Invocationist Collective.  Definitely worth checking out, click the image below to visit.

The site is full of great things to make and do, including downloadable prank brochures, warning stickers for Bibles, and great Mussolini dolls that feature in the Fascist Dictator series along with both George Bushes.

‘Man on a Horse, 2002’

(you can see where this is going, right?)

Video Party to Celebrate 10 000th hit – bring popcorn!!

The last thing we need to do is revalidate the obsession with decimal milestones. . . but I also figure 666 666 hits is a pipedream so please enjoy this passing moment in blogging hysteri-er-history.

It’s a good excuse to share one of the most beautiful bits of longform music video I’ve ever seen. Although you no doubt share my disdain for decimophilia, please oblige your ears, eyes, brain and soul with this little celebration feast.

Turn the lights right down, turn the volume way up, and set faces to stunned.

This is “We”.

Tasmanian Pulp Mill – Raverty dishes on Lennon’s dirt unit.

This is a response by Warwick Raverty to a fantastic article in Tasmanian Times. It’s too good not to reprint – I particularly enjoyed his forward-looking nitrogen re-dispersal projection.

Response to Lindsay Tuffin’s “We Are Watching You“, by Dr. Warwick Raverty.

I have been defamed by the Lenningrad dirt unit and I wear it as a badge of honour. I am happy to be called ‘a rabbit’ and ‘a clown’ by Doug Parkinson MLC, someone full of shit by Jim Cox MHA, a mere cardboard boxmaker by John Gay and Terry Edwards if it means a chance of preventing the environmental and social defilement of one of the most beautiful valleys in Australia.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the parliamentary ALP and Liberal parties, Launceston and Hobart are small places and everyone is watching YOU and your debauched and improprietous acts. History will judge you and when you are dead and buried, men and women of goodwill will take their granchildren to the cemeteries in which you are buried to piss on your graves for the entire life of this pulp mill if it is built in the Tamar.

In the meantime all those of us who can still lie straight in bed at nights should perhaps get tee-shirts printed – ‘Vilified by John-Paul and Proud of It – 75,000 Tasmanians Can’t be Wrong’. Ms Neales, McCann, Nettelfold, Jackson and Buckfield and Messers Denholm, Bevilacqua, Stedman and Tuffin can all wear gold bars on their tee-shirts as far as I’m concerned, for they are the bullwarks against ‘BULL’ in Tasmania.

All fair-minded Australians should be proud of them.

As Rudyard Kipling said, ‘If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools…..’

On Monday I am going to apply to the ACCC to force the Tasmanian Department of Premier and Cabinet to rename itself the ‘Department of Knaves and Fools’ under the misleading advertising provisions of the Federal Consumer Protection Act. Anyone want to join me?

Adam Hill – Indigenous Freak Activartistusician; the man, the legend, the world premiere documentary in Sydney next Monday.

Documentary World Premiere at Carriageworks

Between the Lines: The Initiation of Adam Hill

Monday August 6 at 7:00pm

After two years following Aboriginal urban artist Adam Hill, Spanish film-makers Esther Lozano & Monica Garriga premiere their long awaited documentary which will be presented by Performance Space at Carriageworks next Monday 6 August.

Defined by a mixed indigenous and white origin, Adam Hill goes on an artistic and personal journey of identity through his music, paintings and political activism.

In what is a unique and intimate glimpse into Australia’s identity through the critical eyes of the art activist, this documentary shows Hill confronting his frustrations and his commitment towards his own Aboriginality while struggling with the views held by the society around him and the people closest to him.

“By exploring Adam’s personal history, this documentary highlights the controversy around Australian identity and suggests it is an open concept,” says film-maker Esther Lozano. “It is not defined by the place where one comes from but by what one identifies most strongly with. Adam’s contradictions and frustrations are not unique to him, or to Aboriginal Australians, or to Australians. They are universal.”

Bob his father, was brought up with his white cousins after his mother died, never having any contact with his aboriginal family. The stark contrast between Adam and his father’s social identity is a moving insight into the individual’s search for meaning in a world dictated by imagery and stereotypes. It is a documentary that hits a raw nerve for us all.

About the film-makers:

Monica Garriga is the foreign correspondent for the Spanish News Agency EFE in Australia and has a post-graduate degree in Australian Studies from RMIT.

Esther Lozano, prior to starting this documentary worked for the Spanish TV network Localia where she was a director of current affairs.

Performance Space @ CarriageWorks 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh

7pm Monday 6^th August, 2007 – FREE

Funniest under-7-second WTF ever EVER!!

Highly metadiverse OCD playhouse Metafilter brought this to webly attention. Play over and over until things just stop making sense. You’ll see.

A piece of work too good to miss

from “An Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey” by Saul Williams

You see, Ms. Winfrey, at it’s worst; Hip Hop is simply a reflection of the society that birthed it. Our love affair with gangsterism and the denigration of women is not rooted in Hip Hop; rather it is rooted in the very core of our personal faith and religions. The gangsters that rule Hip Hop are the same gangsters that rule our nation. 50 Cent and George Bush have the same birthday (July 6th)…

full rhyme here

I started reading thinking “oh no, he’s lost it” but by the end had tingling spine and goosebumps – seriously worth checking out. Saul Williams is a SpeakFreak.

Kurt Vonnegut 1922 – 2007 RIP.

The only specifically American inventions that have made this a better world are Alcoholics Anonymous and jazz, and jazz has no bad side effects. But one piece of AA’s advice to recovering addicts, that they live one day at a time, so infects the brains of those who are wrecking the planet as a life-support system nowadays, recovering addicts or not, that it might as well be Hong Kong chicken flu or mad-cow disease. To have gotten through Tuesday, say, with an atmosphere still breathable and water still potable at bedtime is for those so afflicted to be as happy as pigs in shit, so to speak.

Vonnegut from The Work to be Done, Rolling Stone May 28, 1998