"My dear young friend," said Mustapha Mond, "civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have got to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise. Where there are wars, where there are divided allegiances, where there are temptations to be resisted, objects of love to be fought for or defended–there, obviously, nobility and heroism have some sense. But there aren't any wars nowadays. The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much. There's no such thing as a divided allegiance; you're so conditioned that you can't help doing what you ought to do. And what you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren't any temptations to resist...."
Maybe it's just me, but this is the first time I've read Brave New World, and yet I sometimes feel as if I'm living in it.
Jane Fonda: I've finally found love at 69 Friday, August 17, 2007 With three ex-husbands behind her, the acting legend thought her love-life was over — until she met a handsome stranger in a bookstore …
Jane Fonda is almost 70, but you'd never know it. There is a sparkle in her vivid green eyes and a spring in her step. The star is positively glowing, but her youthful energy is not the result of plastic surgery, dieting or fanatical exercise — she is madly in love.
The thrice-married actress had given up on romance until handsome businessman Lynden Gillis, 75, attended one of her book signings, asked for an autograph — and got a date instead.
"It's so exciting to be in love. I am having the best sex of my life," declares Jane, who hasn't ruled out marriage number four.
Now — when most people would be looking forward to taking life a little easier, the tireless activist is on another mission. She wants the world to know that ageing can be enjoyable, passionate and thrilling.
You look so happy — it must be romance? I am in love and I am so happy because I really thought that part of my life was over. Life was fulfilling before, but now it is very exciting. He's totally different from any man I've been with. He's not an alpha male; he is a very nice, lovely guy who is capable of cherishing me. It just feels fabulous. Who knows if it's forever? But I know I'm in love with him. I am sure that's why I look younger [laughs]. I go cycling and hiking, but sex helps a lot. After six years I thought that part of my life was over and I think sex really keeps you young. Tmi on the sex, Jane. We really don't need to know that.
He's not famous — do you think it will be hard for him living with a huge star? It's not a problem for him, he admires me a lot but he's very sure of himself. He is a strong man.
You've been in many relationships which have not worked, how is this one different? It just feels fabulous. It feels fantastic not to be dependant on a man — I can be who I am with him. I'm not needy. I don't need him to validate me. In the past, even with Ted Turner, I needed somebody bigger than life. I've done a lot of work on myself and when I was ready, the right guy came along. Like a lot of women, all of my life I never felt that I could really hold my own space. I always thought I had to be with an alpha male who would validate me. I never felt I was enough on my own. But I don't need that kind of man anymore. Finally I can just be with a really nice guy who is capable of just showing up and loving me. And unlike some of my other husbands, who will remain nameless, he does not suck all of the oxygen in the room. Translation: Yay! I've got a mangina!
Okay, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on Mr. Gillis, but I don't really have the highest opinion of Miz Fonda, and her predilection for alpha males in the past has perhaps been somewhat oedipal considering how often she bleats about her father. Mr. Gillis could, of course, be so over all the "alpha male" stuff that he's actually a post-alpha male and gets mucho amusement out of his lady friend's antics.
Was it instant attraction? It was. He turned up at a book signing in New York and I looked up and saw this man walking to me and I said, 'You look like a movie star.' He gave me his card and it went on from there. He's older then me, 75, but that doesn't matter at all. It doesn't hurt that he's fabulous looking, like my father and Clint Eastwood. He was actually married to my college roommate. I knew about him but never met him before she died. He is wonderful, a very creative person who is exciting to be with. Wow. Five years older than her makes him and "older man". Whoda thunk it? For goodness' sake, woman, you're pushing 70 yourself. You're not Barbarella any more - haven't been for bloody near 50 years! If he were 10 or 12 years I might agree to the "older" tag, but not half a decade.
Is love as passionate and romantic at this stage of life? It's wonderful. I will be 70 in December, and I have the wisdom now to know that after a certain age you can have a really fulsome, sexy, loving relationship. Hey — I'm here to prove it and it can only get better. Translation: Will this stuff sell more books? *gushes* Absolutely, I never knew what an orgasm was before now! It only took me half a sentry century to realise what lurv was all about.
Would you have plastic surgery again — you have talked about having breast implants and a face lift? I had it years ago, but I'm done with all that. I want to give a face to an ageing woman. I take care of myself and I look good for my age but if I change it won't be real. Women have to own their power and not feel they need to be perfect. I would never live in LA again. Everybody's perfect here and they start having plastic surgery at 16. It's very difficult bringing up children in LA. My first thought on reading this particular bit was: You want to give a face to an ageing woman? Which one?
Seriously, Jane, you had surgery and now you're too old to get away with any more of it. I have no idea what plastic surgery at 70 has to do with bringing up kids in LA, either. Maybe it's got something to do with KRAFT's disease*?
After all you have been through and your openness in the past about your eating disorder, do you have a healthy approach to eating these days? You know I grew up feeling fat and insecure. But eating and dealing with food has been much easier for me as I've grown older. I actually enjoy cooking now. I eat healthy food, not a lot of sugar. I don't exercise as much as I used to, I'm not in the limelight as much so the pressure to be bone-thin isn't there. Healthy eating sells more books than sticking your fingers down your throat or scarfing down ipecac.
Nice little mention about the limelight and the pressure it places upon you. That would be the pressure you were happy to participate in, right? All in the name of empowerment, of course.
Looking back, do you regret those exercise videos? Did they make women obsessed, do you think? No, not at all. I still think my workouts were very positive. I was setting out to give other women what I had discovered, which was that we can have some control over a part of ourselves that we felt was out of control. And over the years the letters I would get were amazing, there was an understanding that empowerment can start in the muscles. When you begin to realise you have parameters, you can say, 'I am here, man, and don't you forget it', you stand up to your boss, you start to own your space. Is it just me? I've been exercising lately as I'm tired of feeling frumpy, but I don't have a problem with feeling out of control in my life. Any turnings I've taken over the course of my life have been mine. Nobody else's. If people control your decisions, it's because you allow them to. Is that so difficult to comprehend?
Do you have any regrets — or have you come to terms with everything that has happened in your life? My biggest regret is that I would like to have been a better mother to my daughter — I was not a good mother at all. It wasn't that I was working. I know a lot of good mothers who work. But even when I wasn't working, I just wasn't really there to see her and listen to her and reflect her back with loving eyes. I didn't know how to do that. I would drive her to school and go to the parent teachers' meetings and everything, but I didn't really know who she was because I never took the time for her, she was not my priority. My priority was activism. And I'm sure she appreciates that you are happy to tell the world that your daughter wasn't important enough for you to be properly involved in her life.
Do you think in retrospect you should have been a stay-at-home mum to Troy, now 34, and Vanessa, 38? No, there is nothing wrong with working. The thing is it is easy to say what I am doing is important, but it comes back to haunt you later if you don't put in the time with your children early on. You can be an activist and a movie star and a working woman and do it right, but I didn't know how to do it right, because I didn't have role models. My parents were wonderful people and good people, they weren't mean, but they didn't know how to be real parents and so I didn't know. I've studied it now — I teach young girls and that's why I can be good to my grandkids. You weren't interested in being a mother. You were interested in being a traitor an activist, right. It was more important for you to agitate against your country in the name of communism than to raise your young daughter. At 2 years younger than I am, she would have been rather young for you to drag all over Vietnam, don't you think? At that age, children need continuity of care. I'm guessing she got that with the nannies. And, yes, I'm sure I'm talking out of turn, but this is so much self-serving twaddle.
As for it not being your fault because your parents didn't teach you? Bullshite. You learn by example. You take what worked for you from your own upbringing, and discard that which doesn't work. It's not rocket science and with all those experts from Dr Spock onwards...... no excuse Miz Fonda.
Do you see them a lot? All the time, they live five minutes away from me in Georgia. They come over for a lot of sleepovers. I play with them and ask them questions like, 'Why is Max your best friend, why do you like him? Why do you like horses more than dolls right now?' It's me and the two of them and my dog Tulea and the cat Mouse, named by my granddaughter. translation:I love my grandkids because there is no real responsibility. I can hand them back whenever I want and I don't get into trouble if they do.
I know you have had difficult relationships with your children, is that behind you now? Are you close? My relationship with my son has always been pretty easy, because I was older and wiser when I had him. But I had a difficult relationship with my daughter, although it has changed considerably since she became a mother. Having grandkids is like being given a second chance.
A whole four years difference... wow! I'd expect 4 years to make a difference at primary school, but an adult woman? Spare me the bleating. Now that your daughter it a mother herself it's all okay and you get along fine. Is that because you've changed or because she understands, as a parent, that there is a sense of rootedness that comes from acknowledging and celebrating your elder family members?
In your latest film you actually play a grandmother, was that strange? I carried a photograph of Barbarella in my rear pocket [laughs]. Well, this was my first grandma role and you don't get to kiss a lot of handsome men, although you can hug a lot of tearful women. But I like being a grandma in my own life, so it was fun.
What was it like working with Lindsay Lohan on Georgia Rule? Did you have any advice for her? I didn't give her advice because she didn't ask, so it was hard, she wasn't ready for that — she's a kid. But my heart goes out to her. My life has been a breeze compared to hers, you have no idea. I had a family, I had a father who had real values and gave me structure and expectations and integrity. He was solid. She doesn't have that and never had that, and then you lay over the kind of celebrity she's had from the time she was 12. It is understandable that she has problems. If she'd wanted advice, I would have tried to impress on her that this isn't a rehearsal, this is it, the only life we have as far as we know and you have to decide what it is you want to make of your life. Is she going to come through? I don't know, I don't know.
Your own childhood was painful in many ways — your mother Frances Seymour Brokaw committed suicide. Can you ever fully recover from that kind of tragedy? It got easier when I discovered the truth, doing research for my book. She suffered from mental illness; she was bipolar and had been sexually abused as a child. I have studied sexual abuse because of the work I do in Georgia with my organisation, and the moment I read that I knew everything I needed to know about how that had shattered her psyche. She had nine abortions before 1937, she had breast implants as a young woman, she hated her body, she had plastic surgery and she felt guilty that she was promiscuous and I knew all these things resulted from that sexual abuse. I felt so sad for her and yet so relieved and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
And your dad? He wasn't there for me a lot of the time. He was never directly critical, but he would always get a wife to come to me and say, 'You shouldn't wear short skirts', and, 'That bikini's too small', or 'You should lose weight', because he never could tell me himself and I would overhear upsetting conversations. It was very traumatic and I can't completely heal from it. I would say I'm 90 percent healed, but it's taken a lot of intentional work on my own and with a therapist. But researching my father, I realised that he suffered from depression — it was undiagnosed because men aren't allowed to be depressed, they just drink or gamble or have sex to cover it up, but I just saw that it ran in the family. You know Prozac probably would have made the whole thing very different. Jane, maybe you should just Get Over It. Your life has been made up of a series of situations and happenings - some good, some bad. It's not your parents' fault you made the choices you did. They may have laid some foundations that weren't the best around, but you chose to live the way you did.
I get so tired of people bleating on about how their parents did this or that and how they were so hard done by growing up. Well, guess what? Every child thinks they were hard done by, including yours truly at times. It's just that most of us don't get wrapped in a coccoon of celebrity and yes-people. We don't have the opportunity to sit around gazing at our navels and bemoaning the universal truth that Life Isn't Fair.
Never was, never will be.
At your age you should grow up already.
You have discussed many of your experiences in your book, but looking back, why do you think you allowed other women in your bed during your first marriage to Roger Vadim — and why did you decide to reveal that? He'd been married to Brigitte Bardot before me and I never thought I could say, 'I want to be enough for you without other women.' So, if I sensed he wanted more I would arrange it. Now why does a girl agree to have other women in her bed? She doesn't necessarily want it and yet it's not all that uncommon. But when a woman tells her truth like I did in my book, it's revolutionary because we're not supposed to do that. And I think telling your own truth can help others. This is probably about the only thing I can agree with in this article. You are relatively inexperienced, and think that you have a particular role to play. You do, but you don't realise it is not what you think, and you damage yourself and others around you. It is not about love, it is about lack of self-love.
I know you are still interested in social and political change. Who would you like to see as the next president? I think Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are all really good candidates. I'd like to see the war ending and the damage that Bush has done repaired internationally. I'd like us to begin to pay attention to international law and really live as a nation according to the values that we hold dear, which we haven't been doing. Heh. No comment.
You became a Christian recently, how has that changed your life? I was raised an atheist, so I'm trying to make up for lost time by trying to understand what it all means. I don't know how to describe it, but I realised that in order to open up to God or Buddha or whatever you want to call it, there's a humility that has to take place in the core of your being. I think when you get older you do tend to be drawn to the metaphysical because death looms, but the coming to faith for me was a very slow process over the course of a decade and it feels organic. I don't go to church. I'm a feminist progressive Christian which seems like an oxymoron, but I kind of feel Christianity has been betrayed by this notion that God is a Republican — and a man. Read the bible, Jane. Where in the Book does it say that God is a Republican? As for being a man, He's not. Jesus, as one part of the triune God is a Man. He is God in human aspect with all the human frailties.
A feminist progressive Christian actually is an oxymoron. I have no idea which version of the bible you are reading, but it's not like any I have here.
I am the first to admit to being a poor excuse for a christian. I try very hard not to be judgemental, but I get so offended by idiotic crap like this. I can understand to a small degree what may be going through her mind, as I got my kick up the bum from God in my early 20s, but never sat down to study the bible and read it properly until the last few years. It's an ongoing eye-opener, and has shown me that a lot of what I thought and felt over the last couple of decades may have been somewhat skewwhiff.
What is next for you do you think? I want to do a movie that's a sexy, erotic love story about people over 70. It probably won't appeal to young people — except if they are looking ahead and want to be hopeful! They will watch my film and realize there's something to look forward to and that life doesn't end at 40. I think there's a big audience of people who are yearning for this kind of film, and believe me, it will improve their sex lives.
Don't do it, Jane, please. I can assure you that the younger movie-going crowd will not be interested in seeing a couple of old wrinklies bumping uglies, and the older movie-going crowd will most likely have a bit more taste and dignity about themselves. Get over yourself and try to enjoy your age like you are pretending to.
Apologies for the lengthy post, but I've still not learned how to put jumps in. Knowing me, I'd break the template and lose my blogroll again.
From the Sunday Hun last weekend comes this little beauty:
Private and state schools pushed to share resources Article from: Sunday Herald Sun
Steve Connolly
January 20, 2008 12:00am
PRIVATE schools will be pushed towards sharing resources with nearby state schools under a Rudd Government plan.
Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said the Government would use a nationwide audit of schools to find where resources could be shared.
The audit is assessing schools in the greatest need of computers as part of the Government's pledge to provide all students in Years 9 to 12 with access to laptops and broadband.
Ms Gillard said the audit would help the Government in its bid to encourage resource-rich private schools to help non-government schools.
"It may be the schools want a music hall for specialist teaching, with rehearsal rooms and a performance space," Ms Gillard said.
"Now they wouldn't be able to finance the development themselves, but they would be able to do it together and to share it."
This is the whole article, and I figure it's best to copy the whole thing before it disappears down the memory hole forever.
Further utterances from Ms Gillard via her media centre:
PRESENTER: Now you also said on the weekend that private schools should open their doors up to kids that don’t go to private schools. Have you got any ideas on how that could work?
JULIA GILLARD: What we talked about on the weekend was sharing facilities. Often State schools and private schools are located very near to each other – sometimes they’re basically on the same big block and what is separating them is a fence. We want to be talking to those schools about working together to share facilities because it might be that if they worked together they can get both the music rehearsal room that they’ve been dying to get as well as the improved gymnasium. Whereas if they’re working separately, then it wouldn’t be possible for them to, you know, get everything that they want. So I think it’s just a better way of using resources.
PRESENTER: So if it’s a hot day and the kids are at the public school and they want to have a swim - they just you know, bring their towel and just hop across to the private school, that type of thing?
JULIA GILLARD: [Laugh] Well, I wouldn’t be advocating climbing the fence with your towel in hand and just turning up at the private school. But I would be saying that if the principals of those two schools could have a conversation and work out what’s the best way of sharing the facilities and meeting the needs of all of the children in those schools, that’d be tremendous.
PRESENTER: What about improving the facilities in public schools?
JULIA GILLARD: Well we’ve got a big investment program for all schools. We’re going to spend $1 billion making sure that students in years 9 to twelve have a computer that they can use. That is going to start rolling out very soon. Schools in the greatest need will be able to apply as early as March and we’ve got $100 million to invest this year.
We’re also going to invest in trade training centres in every secondary school in the country, so children can have an experience of what it’s going to be like if they choose to be a tradesperson…
Freedom of choice is what you want, Freedom from choice is what you get.
I'm sure all those parents paying for private schools will be more than happy that their contributions towards their child's education will also help those children whose parents either can't or won't pay for private school facilities.
I can't afford to send Magilla to the private school I want, but you know what? That's my choice. I could work in an office 5 days a week from 8-5 and make a bucketload of money, but I don't want to.
I have a job where I can work 5 days a week around her school hours, and I think it's more important that I am there to take her to school and collect her from same.
It all comes back to responsibility and accountability.
She is my responsibility to get educated.
I am the one who will be held accountable if she goes off the rails down the track - irespective of where she goes to school and how much it cost.
When will these mongrels in the government let me do my job in peace?
Add that to the latest news that if you're pregnant you'll get the zealots on your case about coffee, it's enough to make me wonder when the agenda to completely usurp my role will be publicly declared.
My dad and I used to have political discussions, where I'd play devil's advocate and he'd quite lucidly explain his disagreement with this policy or that, and that coloured a lot of my thinking and development.
One thing that used to get him seriously ranty was this idea that the prevailing attitudes of the pollies and edumacators (my word, not his) were working on painting us all a shade of mediocre grey.
I'm in complete agreement with him on that.
Please excuse the profanity, but this stuff just shits me to tears no end - you'll no doubt get sick of my spouting off about it, but better out than in where I could develop another ulcer.
For the record, I actually saw Craig Ferguson in the late 80s at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and he was a cack! I even have his one and only album around somewhere.
As for the legal team of scientologists out there who are scouring the net even as we speak, I may get a cease and desist notice for posting this stuff, even though it's well and truly in the public domain, and as a highly visible and extremely active scientologist, Tom Cruise is also in the public domain.
It's not illegal to take the mickey out of religions yet, although if the UN gets its way, then that's not far off.
Until then, for the viewing pleasure of people who've not had a humourectomy, I'll leave these up.
The guys (non-gender-specific usage of this word, of course) are getting better and better with every show, and this latest one is the best yet.
Well, in my opinion, at least.
The regular cast of Tom Paine, Brian of London, Meryl Yourish and Damian Penny are now joined also by Evan Sayet.
Go listen. It'll take around half an hour out of your day, but it's more than worth it.
Meryl's piece on Sderot is incredibly powerful and she has a message that should be heard more than it is (ie barely at all).
Plus, you want to catch up on the back podcasts if you've not heard the Shire Network News before. There's a lot of good stuff coming up in the next few weeks, from the whispers I'm hearing.
Please report back with your review.
(lol if I have any readers left apart from MK and Grimmy and Kae! Hi, guys!)
Well, it's been longer than seven days since I emailed Stephen Conroy and I've had no love.
To assuage my feelings of utter emptiness at this lack of a response, here is my email.
Seriously, though, I do believe that this idea of the government deciding what's offensive to me is offensive in the extreme anyway.
Does this mean that all the Fed Government sites will be blocked for me?
Dear Senator,
I am writing to express my deep affront at your proposal to remove the responsibility for my child from myself.
It probably sounds a bit of a stretch, but as a 40-year old parent, I was sure that I was more than capable of deciding what sort of sites were appropriate on my computer.
I currently have a firewall and two anti-virus programs. I also have ad-blockers.
Until now, I was unaware that your department was in charge of what I access.
Foolishly, I believed that since I am paying a hefty amount each month for top level ADSL access, I had the freedom to visit whichever sites I deemed worthy of my attention.
Obviously, I was wrong. Pardon my ignorance.
I am not a viewer of pornography, but that is irrelevant. If I did happen across a site with obscene content, I'm more than able to survive without the mental and emotional scarring that seems to affect so many sheltered people these days.
Is porn offensive? Yes.
Would I like less porn in the world? Absolutely.
But......
Not at the expense of my freedom to roam the world wide web.
I hope your plan is some sort of joke, because I find it difficult to believe that a government elected to serve the people serves up offal such as this.
Australia is supposedly a representative democracy. It is supposedly a free country.
Controlling what access I have to a service that I pay for is not freedom, and certainly does not represent me.
I have yet to see any sort of definition of what constitutes "unacceptable" with respect to this incoming regulation, which does leave me to wonder if this will be an elastic field.
In any case, please refrain from doing more for my child.
She is MY responsibility, not yours, and I am more than certain if she were to get into any sort of difficulty because of yet another nanny-state regulation then I will be the one to be held liable, and not you or your government.
Please allow me to raise my child as I see fit, and that most definitely involves what she sees on the internet.
And I would like to take my place at the head of the "opt-out" list just on principle.
I can introduce you to many other people - some even parents! - who feel the same way as I do.
In any case, please reconsider this regulation, as it makes a mockery of our country and your government.
Please note that like many others, I have a blog. My standard correspondence policy is that I allow a seven-day period for a response.
If you prefer this to remain in confidence, please reply within that timeframe.
After seven days, if I do not receive a reply, then I consider that as an agreement to post and I will post this letter to my blog: http://rightwingdeathbogan.blogspot.com
7 Human rights—what they are and when they may be limited s. 7 (1) This Part sets out the human rights that Parliament specifically seeks to protect and promote. (2) A human right may be subject under law only to such reasonable limits as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, and taking into account all relevant factors including— (a) the nature of the right; and (b) the importance of the purpose of the limitation; and (c) the nature and extent of the limitation; and (d) the relationship between the limitation and its purpose; and (e) any less restrictive means reasonably available to achieve the purpose that the limitation seeks to achieve.
Since we're not living in a free and democratic society this all becomes null and void. Victorians did not vote for this charter, we took part in no referenda.
(3) Nothing in this Charter gives a person, entity or public authority a right to limit (to a greater extent than is provided for in this Charter) or destroy the human rights of any person.
Unless, of course, you are an eeeeevil oppressor, in which case you have less rights than everyone else who is not you.
8 Recognition and equality before the law (1) Every person has the right to recognition as a person before the law. (2) Every person has the right to enjoy his or her human rights without discrimination. (3) Every person is equal before the law and is entitled to the equal protection of the law without discrimination and has the right to equal and effective protection against discrimination. (4) Measures taken for the purpose of assisting or advancing persons or groups of persons disadvantaged because of discrimination do not constitute discrimination.
Aaaah. Good to see that discrimination will still actually exist. They'll just call it affirmative action again, I guess.
9 Right to life s. 9 Every person has the right to life and has the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of life.
Except for the unborn, of course, because their right to life may detract from the right to life of their host.
10 Protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment A person must not be— (a) subjected to torture; or (b) treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way; or (c) subjected to medical or scientific experimentation or treatment without his or her full, free and informed consent.
Yay! No more ABC TV or radio, no more reality tv, no more pictures of the unwashed massesconcerned citizens protesting against the society they live off in.
11 Freedom from forced work (1) A person must not be held in slavery or servitude. (2) A person must not be made to perform forced or compulsory labour. (3) For the purposes of subsection (2) forced or compulsory labour does not include— (a) work or service normally required of a person who is under detention because of a lawful court order or who, under a lawful court order, has been conditionally released from detention or ordered to perform work in the community; or (b) work or service required because of an emergency threatening the Victorian community or a part of the Victorian community; or (c) work or service that forms part of normal civil obligations. (4) In this section court order includes an order made by a court of another jurisdiction.
12 Freedom of movement s. 12 Every person lawfully within Victoria has the right to move freely within Victoria and to enter and leave it and has the freedom to choose where to live.
And here I thought I could live anywhere I chose already. Thank you, masters, for graciously allowing me that which I already owned.
13 Privacy and reputation A person has the right— (a) not to have his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence unlawfully or arbitrarily interfered with; and (b) not to have his or her reputation unlawfully attacked.
Since we no longer have any privacy anyway, this is irrelevant. Children/teenagers and young adults have no concept of privacy so again, it's moot. Just check out myspace. Watch Big Brother on the teev, or one of those 'talent' shows where people humiliate themselves in front of millions of people in the hope of gaining something lacking within themselves.
14 Freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief (1) Every person has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, including— (a) the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his or her choice; and (b) the freedom to demonstrate his or her religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching, either individually or as part of a community, in public or in private. (2) A person must not be coerced or restrained in a way that limits his or her freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief in worship, observance, practice or teaching.
Okay, there is so much I could say to this which will land me in breach of the human rights of whomever is reading this and decides to be offended.
When do rights in this bloody fascist utopia come with responsibilities?
There are some religious practices/beliefs that I find offensive, but I'm sure I will get in trouble if I say so.
15 Freedom of expression s. 15 (1) Every person has the right to hold an opinion without interference. (2) Every person has the right to freedom of expression which includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, whether within or outside Victoria and whether— (a) orally; or (b) in writing; or (c) in print; or (d) by way of art; or (e) in another medium chosen by him or her. (3) Special duties and responsibilities are attached to the right of freedom of expression and the right may be subject to lawful restrictions reasonably necessary— (a) to respect the rights and reputation of other persons; or (b) for the protection of national security, public order, public health or public morality.
This means you can say anything you would like, however you would like, so long as we let you.
16 Peaceful assembly and freedom of association (1) Every person has the right of peaceful assembly. (2) Every person has the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions.
Hmmmm. So we can join trade unions. What if we want to join clown classes? Is that considered acceptable?
This is merely a part of the latest atrocity forced upon us here in Melbournistan. The notes in italics are mine.
Apparently there was some sort of community consultation process, which took a whopping SIX MONTHS!
There was even a committee with highly educated and decorated people a part of it.
Colour me stupid, and nothing personal, Andrew, but since when does making a living playing basketball enable you to have a say in what the hell I may think, feel, say or associate with?
Damned if I know, and damned if I try to speak my mind.
In case you've missed it, basically, our freely elected government is freely electing to remove our freedom to move as we choose around the interwebs.
We, apparently, are free to suck it up, or just opt-out if we so desire.
It is, of course, for the children.
Now that just won't work in this household, since Magilla isn't allowed anywhere near my computer. Or the Godmother's computers, or YR's laptop.
She knows that if she wants to play on Boohbah then she has to have been very good, and she is also supervised by me.
She doesn't get time alone with the computer, even if it is running all day.
It's just another stick of furniture, so to speak.
Anyway, I'm digressing yet again.
Some of my longsufferingtime readers may remember that I do occasionally post letters I've sent.
I send more than I post, because I do have a confidentiality clause. Just because I'm writing to someone, it doesn't mean they want our dialogue plastered all over the world's monitors.
Some of us still have an idea of what privacy actually means.
For those not in the know (ie that'll be my readers), basically when I write someone, I have a seven-day turnaround. If I hear nothing after seven days, then I may post my letter. I may not, of course; it depends on the subject and my fancy at the time.
And sometimes the moment just passes.
If I do hear back and my co-respondent prefers that I not post, then I don't.
It can mean that some priceless commentary goes forever unseen, but that's life and I can live with that.
I take my own privacy semi-seriously, and that of Magilla and the rest of the household moreso. That is why I don't post pics of her or others I may talk about.
I don't have the right to plaster her/their likeness out for strangers to see.
In a week's time, I figure my blog will be listed as a hate-site, I'll be labelled some sort of pornwhizfreakazoid and disappeared into the bowels of Our Your Their The ABC to watch endless reruns of Sea Change, or I'll just have a nice response saying.... "suck it up and opt out, pornwhizfreakazoid."
All I need to decide now is whether I should write my goodbyes now or next week!
Please leave your Political Correctness at the door. Freedom of speech and thought are mandatory.
Good grammar will be rewarded (although posting and drinking may impact upon this at times).
