moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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WRITER'S LINKS
Absolute Write Paypal donation button:

Absolute Write is one of the leading sites for information on writing and publishing, especially the scam versions thereof. It has a broad, deep online community with an enormous message base going back years. Now it needs help. See the details and discussion here
Preditors and Editors
Everything you wanted to know about literary agents
On the getting of agents
Writer Beware
Miss Snark
Writer's Net

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(and my Wish List)

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A different 9/11 remembrance  
Since the start of this blog, usually on this day, running up to Remembrance/Armistice Day on 11/11, I commemorate the 9/11/1938 Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht), also called the State Pogrom Night. Especially since, not only due remembrance for itself, it has examples of political and propaganda uses, twisted mendacity in language, an interlocking step-by-step spiral of violence and oppression, and breathtaking fraud (including monetary).

(2008) Crystalline: 9/11 (9th November)
(2007): It's 9/11 (9th November) again – Kristallnacht
(2006): Anniversary: The First 9/11 — Broken Glass & Ashes
(2004): The First 9/11 — Broken Glass & Ashes
(2003): Repeating the Kristallnacht 9/11 entry from 2002
(2002): Remember Kristallnacht – 9/11/38 [In Australia 9/11 is 9th November.]

One year, I remembered another sad incident associated with this date: (2005): 9/11 Returns: Stari Most at Mostar

There's a collection of historic German November 9ths at selenak's LiveJournal, Musings, originally from 2008, in the almost-immediate aftermath of Barack Obama's election as US President. (http://selenak.livejournal.com/429403.html)
(The Yorkshire Ranter added a couple more in comments.)

But this year has happier memories. It's the 20th Anniversary of the 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall. Perched on my grandmother's living room floor watching the B & W television showing coverage of the Building of The Wall in 1961 is one of my earliest datable memories. So reliving those days and nights 28 years after that and 51 after "the start of The Holocaust" — well within a human lifespan — it's good to celebrate its joy.

Here's some quick links to places where thoughts and memories were shared about this: It was twenty years ago today. As well as some in the Musings LJ post mentioned above, this year's 9/11 there is called Freiheit schöner Götterfunken... (a poem later altered to Freude schöner Götterfunken)

Labels: anniversaries, berlin, Germany, history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 4:18 am

 
Yes, the world does revolve around me — Nero  
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus aka Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, only son of Agrippina the Younger, sister of emperor Caligula and daughter of Germanicus, who was grandson to Augustus's wife, Livia, on one side and to Mark Antony and Octavia on the other. Right in the most prominent aristocratic circles of Imperial Rome.

When Caligula and his family were murdered, Claudius became emperor. After executing his third wife, Messalina, he married Agrippina and adopted the 13-year-old Lucius, renaming him Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus. Claudius only survived a few years, and Nero became emperor at 16, the youngest emperor up to that time.

Nero ruled over "interesting times" from AD 54–68 AD. Although generally popular with the lower Roman classes for a number of measures, including laws favouring them, putting down the Britannic Revolt of 60–61 AD, public aid after the fire of 64AD, and cracking down on terrorist-type groups like 'Chresters', he consolidated much power (and wealth) to the emperor through show trials and arbitrary executions of the upper classes and wealthy 'new men', and slowly usurped most of the authority of the Senate, losing him support in the upper classes.

After Nero's suicide in 68, there was a widespread belief (the Nero Redivivus Legend) especially in the eastern provinces, that he was not dead and somehow would return, like Arthur, the Once and Future King, and others over the centuries. Over the next twenty years at least three Nero imposters emerged leading rebellions. The legend lasted as a popular belief for centuries. He was reviled by Christian writers, however, because of his persecution of the 'Chrestians'.

Nero's rotating dining room uncovered (SMH: Pictures? Not a sausage.)

Nero's rotating banquet hall unveiled in Rome (Yahoo, slideshow + video)
news.yahoo.com/ s/ ap/ 20090929/ ap_on_re_eu/ eu_italy_nero_s_dining_room
MARTA FALCONI, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 29
Yahoo! links tend to disappear relatively soon, so here are others with pictures, video & background information.

Nero's rotating banquet hall unveiled in Rome (NPR. pix with captions + map)
www.npr.org/ templates/ story/ story.php?storyId=113302798

VIDEO: Emperor Nero's Rotating Dining Room Unearthed (Post Chronicle. a video report and images of the ancient dining area)
www.postchronicle.com/ news/ strange/ article_212259312.shtml

NERO`S ROTATING DINING ROOM FOUND (Italy Online in English, only 1 picture, but more history and background)
www.lifeinitaly.com/ node/ 7955

And a typical Daily Mail treatment (their headline for the new hominid fossil discovery, 'Ardi', is "First ape woman suggests human ancestors may have started walking in pursuit of sex"), slavering at length over Nero's reportrd sex-and-sadism excesses before concluding with "We can only hope that this time it is not the setting for such unbridled horrors".
Wine, women and slaughter: The truth behind Emperor Nero's pleasure palace
(www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/ article-1217587/ Wine-women-slaughter-The-truth-Emperor-Neros-pleasure-palace.html)

Another Roman excavation - an old port near Rome with some surprising features
Face in the sand: British team unearths Roman amphitheatre at ancient port
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1217353/Face-sand-Roman-amphitheatre-unearthed-ancient-port.html
OR
tinyurl.com/y92v37b

Y'know despite their relentless "UK! UK! UK!, Oi! Oi! Oi!" and tabloid sex, violence & sentiment slant, the Daily Mail at least seems to cover a fair bit of science with reasonable length & depth. By comparison with what I see in Australia & the glimpses of popular press in the USA I get, anyway.

Labels: heritage, history, links, Roman, Rome

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 10:47 am

 
Science & Technology, destroying Wonder, Beauty, Art & History  

Religion & History through Science

Have you seen the new comprehensive interactive three-dimensional image/model of the Saint Domitilla catacombs, made using laser scanners & digital images by a team lead by Dr Norbert Zimmerman of the Vienna Academy of Sciences (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften — ÖAW on Totenstadt )? (BBC story; START-Projekt site. I find Fig. 9 particularly impressive.) Google may have made an offer already (Google UnderEarth? Google AncientEarth?).

Local Hero: They're using 3DM Analyst from ADAM Technology in Perth, Western Australia, to generate high-resolution 3D photo models. It sounds like great fun: "the same camera and software can be used for the smallest projects, in the order of 30 microns (over 1,000 points per square millimetre), up to large projects spanning several kilometres." My optimist senses wonderful and amazing possibilities; my cynic sees baby-sized Hello Kitty dolls personalized with your daughter's face; my pessimist foresees even darker and dirtier uses.

Art through Science

A video of an installation, 9 was 6 if (by Swedish artist Christian Andersson), from the "it's not a blog" of Mattias Rickardsson - nu även digital at www.analogue.org/ mr

A kinetic sculpture at the BMW Museum, recorded on the ART+COM site. It is made from "714 metal spheres, hanging from thin steel wires attached to individually-controlled stepper motors, and covers an area of six square metres".

Labels: 3D, art, history, Roman, Rome, technology

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 8:06 pm

 
One of my favourite book titles:  
Things you see when you haven't got a gun by Harry (Henry Arthur) Hooton | National Library of Australia catalogue entry for this 1943 self-published poetry book by one of Oz's turbulent poets.

Things you see when you haven't got a gun by Harry (Henry Arthur) Hooton | National Library of Australia catalogue entry for this 1943 self-published poetry book by one of Oz's turbulent poets.
Review in 'Southerly' magazine (www.archive.org/ stream/ southerlymagass05howarich/ southerlymagass05howarich_djvu.txt)

(See also King's Cross)

Labels: Australia, history, language, literature, poetry, రైటర్స్

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:58 pm

 
History Continues  
From Making Light:

The true history of the Bush years
nielsenhayden.com/ makinglight/ archives/ 010952.html
"There will be histories written about the Bush administration. They’ll be privy to information we don’t have yet, because the future is like that. On the other hand, we have our own privileged knowledge: We know how the story looked like to people who didn’t know how it was going to come out.

Labels: history, thoughts

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 6:19 pm

 
Influence, plagiarism: myths, legends, folk stories, ఓరల్ history  
I think I've mentioned my theory/feeling about myths & folk stories & such traditions being mostly what we'd now call 'fanfic'. Here are two people dealing with some of the ideas in that. (Most of Jonathon's Harper's article isn't so sesquipedalian <ahem>)
The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism,
by Jonathan Lethem
Harper's Magazine, February 2007:

www.harpers.org/ archive/ 2007/ 02/ 0081387LOVE AND THEFT …
consider the remarkable series of “plagiarisms” that links Ovid's “Pyramus and Thisbe” with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, or Shakespeare's description of Cleopatra, copied nearly verbatim from Plutarch's life of Mark Antony and also later nicked by T. S. Eliot for The Waste Land. If these are examples of plagiarism, then we want more plagiarism.

Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any artist knows these truths, no matter how deeply he or she submerges that knowing.

Bellatrys at Nothing New Under the Sun started discussing a set of examples at the turn of 2008/2009 with the post A Quest that begins in a Tavern...

bellatrys.livejournal.com/ 413660.html
a) an example of "PC gone mad™" in the fantasy genre today;

b) the sort of insane mish-mash of cliches, anachronisms, mythology rip-offs and proper nouns improperly used that gives gaming a bad name;

c) taken directly from an internationally-bestselling work of serio-comic epic fantasy itself derived from earlier popular fantasy tales, which the author reworked and polished for decades, that was first published under the d'Estes in Renaissance Italy and ripped off subsequently by everybody from Edmund Spenser to Georg Friedrich Händel.

and continues with two more entries so far, with quite a bit of interesting discussion in the comments to them all.

Labels: art, history, literature, writing

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 12:56 pm

 
Crystalline: ౯/౧౧ (9th November)  
Crystal Night, 1938

www.thelooniverse.com/ books/ kastner.html

When, on November 10 1938 at 3 o'clock in the morning, I drove up the Berlin Tauentzien in a taxi, I heard glass tinkling on both sides of the street. It sounded as if dozens of wagons full of glass were being turned over. I looked out and saw, on the left and right, a man standing in front of about every fifth house, each using an iron rod to smash store windows with mighty blows. The job done, he walked over to the next shop with a measured pace and, with powerful calmth, dedicated himself to that one's still intact window-pane.
Except for these men, wearing black breeches, riding boots and civil jackets, there was no human being in sight. The taxi turned into the Kurfürstendamm. Here, too, men were standing at regular distances and with long bars smashed "Jewish" show windows. Each one seemed to have some five to ten windows for a job. Cascades of glass fell down, crushing on the concrete. It sounded as if the entire town existed of nothing but crashing glass. It was a drive right through a madman's dream.
Between Uhlandstraße and Knesebeckstraße I asked to stop, opened the door and was just putting my right foot on the street, when a man emerged from the nearest tree and softly and energetically told me: "Don't get out! Drive on at once!" It was a man in hat and cloak. "But listen", I started, "I just wanted to…" "No", he interrupted threateningly. "Getting out is forbidden! Get on your way at once!" He pushed me back into the car, beckoned the driver, threw the door shut, and the driver obeyed. On we went through the ghostly "splinter night".

Labels: anniversaries, Germany, history, writing, జర్మనీ

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 7:55 pm

 
33-Year-Old Memories of an Australian November  
What is happening in Canada, from Yarn Harlot (3-Dec-2008)
www.yarnharlot.ca/ blog/ archives/ 2008/ 12/ 03/ what_is_happening_in_canada.html

There is confusion over what's happening in Canada's government. This is a primer for non-Canadians (and some Canadians) about this mess

I may, someday, put up some links about 'The Dismissal' of November 11, 1975, Gough Whitlam, Sir John Kerr, Malcolm Fraser, et al. There's a shedload of material on't, including at least one television mini-series.

But we tend to forget it's not completely sui generis in Australian history, there were incidents in 1932 and 1808, for instance. I'm grateful to Epacris putting links to some material about these over at Making Light. Here 'tis.

From Australian Dictionary of Biography site:
Lang, John Thomas (Jack) (1876 - 1975)
Game, Sir Philip Woolcott (1876 - 1961)

Dismissal of a Premier - The Role of Governor Game (Dept of Education & Training)
Dismissal of Jack Lang (Interactive schooling, Year 10)

Dismissed From Office Lang Government (Original newspaper report, The Age, 14-May-1932)
Microphone, Reiss (Reisz) carbon granule, 1925 (not FDR's cigarette lighter … from Powerhouse Museum collection, explained on that page)

The Story of J T Lang by R. Dixon (1943) (somewhat partisan publication, from an interesting resource)
The Australian Republic Issue (Other Relevant Papers)
Library Catalogue record (1) Dismissal of a Premier - the Philip Game papers by Bethia Foott [sic]
Dismissal of a Premier: the Philip Game papers by Bethia Foote [sic] Library Catalogue record (2)

and the 'Rum Rebellion' of 1808

Captain Bligh's other mutiny (newspaper article)

'The Rum Rebellion' (same paper, multimedia piece with links elsewhere)

The Significance Of The Integrity System (Acessible by this page with link to PDF versions of speeches. Transcript also here or here) Or compare The coup of 1808 and the rule of law, an edited combination of two related speeches.

"The Governor's Man", a book by JHM Abbott ~1919 – historic fiction.

And this is one of the historic documents you can have a look at online — part of an exhibition IRL at the British Library: King Charles I's Death Warrant.

Labels: Australia, Canada, history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:16 am

 
In the Spiral of History  
From Lawyers, Guns & Money, on Israel, the USA and the Roman Republic:
Simply because something must happen does not mean that it will happen.
Settlements, Bailouts, and the Roman Republic
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
lefarkins.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 09/ simply-because-something-must-happen.html

The Roman Republic faced a series of internal crises that were evident to all and that desperately required political solution; moreover, the contours of such solution were evident to most of the relevant political players, and in the abstract were achievable ... The institutions of the Roman Republic, solid enough for five hundred years, were insufficient to actually achieving the necessary solutions. In the face of crises that demanded solution, the Roman Republic crumbled, because the institutional structure created vested interests and veto points that prevented the achievement of any solution. The Republic could not save itself because its very structure prevented it from doing the things that were necessary to reform. Almost no one wanted this outcome, but no one could stop it from happening. It's not that people are stupid (although many are) or dishonest (although many are); its that the institutions make certain outcomes difficult to achieve.

and in the comments

Rob good post and good summation of the political situation in the Roman Republic in its last years. One interpretation of Julius Caesar's motives for bringing down the Republic, was that he didn't believe the existing political system could continue administering the Roman provinces. A good part of his career was spent in various postings in different provinces, in Bithnyia, Spain, northern Italy, and of course Gaul. So he had a better grasp of what the situation was like in the provinces than his political opponents, many of whom (like Cicero) hardly ever set foot outside of Rome their whole lives.
Henry | 09.30.08 - 11:49 pm | #

You might also make an analogy to August 1914. The Great Men of Europe certainly knew what should have happened and they knew how to make it happen. But it did not happen.

James E. Powell | 10.01.08 - 12:25 am

Labels: history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:25 pm

 
Premier Iemma, the Member for Lakemba  
I always liked saying that little tongue-twister, whether or not I agreed with the man's policies. Won't apply from today.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma resigns
"Alexandra Smith and Brian Robins
September 5, 2008 - 11:45AM
www.smh.com.au/ axrticles/ 2008/ 09/ 05/ 1220121483704.html

Morris Iemma has resigned as NSW Premier.
It is understood Water Minister Nathan Rees will take over.

Mr Iemma faced a caucus revolt this morning and Mr Rees had the numbers to overthrow Mr Iemma.

It is understood that there is so much division within the dominant Right faction that Mr Iemma appeared to have lost a significant amount of support from once-loyal backers.

Iemma rolled amid Labor turmoil
www.abc.net.au/ news/ stories/ 2008/ 09/ 05/2356267.htm

Morris Iemma has been forced to resign as New South Wales Premier after sacking his colourful Treasurer Michael Costa.

News that Mr Iemma was gone came in the wake of a press conference by Mr Costa, who said he did not consider that he had been sacked until the decision was ratified by a Caucus meeting.

Mr Iemma left a meeting of his Right faction without speaking to reporters, but is believed to have lost the support of the faction.

Labor heavyweight John Della Bosca confirmed Mr Iemma's resignation.

Quite a big day politically, as we are also acquiring our first female Governor-General today, Her name is Quentin Bryce. Some have wondered if her usually-male name confused the people appointing her.

Meanwhile, one of my cousins is going to the polls tomorrow, and sometime later as well. He's living in a place in New South Wales which currently doesn't have a Federal representative — Mark Vaile resigned and the by-election is tomorrow; a State representative — Ron Oakshott is contesting the Federal seat, and so had to resign as the State member; nor a local Council — they were sacked by the State government and replaced by administrators. Some have called this situation "paradise". The rest of NSW has local government elections the weekend after, on Saturday 13th September.

Labels: Australia, history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:07 pm

 
PZ Myers: Darwin Year begins now  
Pharyngula The Darwin year begins…NOW!:

It was on 1 July 1858, 150 years ago today, that the idea of natural selection was first presented to the public in a joint reading of Darwin's and Wallace's papers at the Linnean Society of London

Some Darwin-related Links

Darwin Today - a joint initiative of Research Councils UK aimed at educating the public about evolution
The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online; free, includes items not in public domain
Works by Charles Darwin at Project Gutenberg; public domain
Darwin Correspondence Project: Text and notes for most of his letters
The Darwin Digital Library of Evolution
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Free LibriVox Audiobook
Digitized titles by Charles Darwin in Botanicus.org
Charles Darwin at the Open Directory Project
Works by or about Charles Darwin in libraries (WorldCat catalogue)
Institut Charles Darwin International
A Pictorial Biography of Charles Darwin
Twelve different portraits of Charles Darwin, National Portrait Gallery, U.K.
Mis-portrayal of Darwin as a Racist

Labels: anniversaries, history, links, nature, science

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:54 pm

 
A Century of Tunguska  
Monday, June 30, 2008 — One hundred years ago today, something exploded over Siberia

At a little after seven in the morning, settlers near the north end of Lake Baikal saw something bright appear in the sky, crossing to the northwest leaving a trail behind it. As it touched the horizon, it was transformed into a column of black smoke in which flames could be seen. Soon after, they felt a thump in the ground and heard a series of bangs that they compared to artillery in the distance. Other villagers to the west of them gave similar descriptions. Later scientific expeditions would locate the ground zero of the explosion in a remote area among the tributaries of the Podkamennaya (Stony or Lower) Tunguska River. Seismic stations around the world recorded the ground movement and set the time at precisely 07:17:11 AM.

(An excellent telling of the history in the 'Archy' blog)

Labels: anniversaries, astronomy, history, nature

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:55 pm

 
Failure and Persistence of Memory  
[NB: If I could make Blogger's "expandable posts" work like LJ-cuts, I'd tuck this & other long posts away. Any advice?]
Looking for something about the Gray Order of anti-Nazi liberal Catholics ..., mentioned in the Making Light thread 'Winning Hearts and Minds' (September 27, 2005, 12:19 AM:) by bellatrys

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A few weeks? months? back [see below] I posted the link on my blog to an "On This Day" from the BBC (a feature where they post what was on their broadcasts 10, 20, 50 years ago) - a lengthy diatribe against the genocidal actions of the Nazis against the Jews, by a British cabinet official, from 1942 or 43. So those who say that the Allies didn't know, or couldn't have known, are just wrong. The truth *was* out there. And around the same time I posted a lot of the leaflets of the White Rose, with background information on the membership, and how they found out about the atrocities in Poland and Russia - some of these kids were in the German Army, remember, and working as medics because that was the closest they could get to CO status - some of the guys saw things themselves, and came home on leave, or heard about them from buddies who *committed* them. They were *adamant* in their reproaches, directed towards their fellow German citizens, that only those who chose not to know as hard as they could, who made the mental choice to disregard the testimony of atrocity as "unreliable" compared to the assurances of their government that they were behaving honorably towards the Poles and Russians, who were themselves barbarians - only willful ignorance among adults was possible. (Remember that many of them were teens, had been resisting since they were *young* teens some of them, and none of them very old at all, except for the professor they recruited eventually.)

... The only hard stuff was tracking down about the Gray Order, the extinct liberal Catholic youth group, which has been almost totally memoryholed and required a lot of translating of German source matter.

In short, "none so deaf as will not hear, none so blind as will not see." As ever. Why? Because knowledge requires change of belief; change of belief requires action, or change of action, or cessation of action.

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who refers to an earlier entry, which I'm excerpting here.

5th subhead of You just can't get away from it, it's like the humidity (July 26th, 2005)

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Collective Failures of Memory, Part I
The "mythtery" that is commonly taught and accepted, which is not even part of the "history is written by the victors" problem but the unacknowledged "apparently, history is written by the same people who come up with urban legends" problem, is all around us. How often have you "learned" that "they" thought the earth was flat in the middle ages, and Columbus challenged Church and State to prove his radical new idea that the world is round, after all? 100% false, apparently first concoted by Washington Irving of Headless Horseman fame, to spice up a children's textbook that he was writing over a hundred years ago. Easily debunkable, too. But who cares about textual provenance and first hand sources?

Now, here's another one you've probably all heard: nobody knew about the genocides during WWII, until after the death camps were taken by Allied troops. Recited as dogma, over and over again. Who of those who recite it has ever gone and looked at old newspapers or other contemporary records? Obviously, none. That people in Germany didn't know, couldn't have known (unless of course they were a) being rounded up, b) doing the rounding) is also frequently recited, and yet as I showed by finding the text of the White Rose's press releases not long ago, this was false.

Equally, so was the rest of it. People may have chosen not to believe it back then, the way people in America are choosing to believe that no real torture has been committed by us upon our prisoners - but the truth was out there.

BBC "On this day" - December 17, 1942
The British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, has told the House of Commons about mass executions of Jews by Germans in occupied Europe…

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You just can't get away from it, it's like the humidity - Collective Failures of Memory, Part I
08:54 pm July 26th, 2005
http://bellatrys.livejournal.com/137966.html

BBC "On this day" - December 17, 1942
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/17/newsid_3547000/3547151.stm
1942: Britain condemns massacre of Jews
The British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, has told the House of Commons about mass executions of Jews by Germans in occupied Europe... Four days ago, synagogues all over Britain held a day of mourning as a mark of concern for the massacre of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe …

Labels: BBC, history, memory

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 10:06 pm

 
Rootedness & connection: where to లైవ్  
At the end of the block behind my house is a site that used to be, in the late 1920s, an orange juice bottling factory. My mother was born on the kitchen table, either of the house I'm in or one in the block behind which was demolished for a warehouse, since demolished while I lived here for a block of flats.

She had to leave school at the age of 13 because she was the eldest girl and her mother had just had twins (One is the only survivor of that generation now). She was needed to help look after the other 3 children and the house. Underage, she had to go to night school, until aged 15 when she could legally leave, or a bit after, as The Great Depression hit in 1929. That juice factory so close to home was her first job. (Later, older, she would walk to another workplace in Glebe around where the Max Factor building is or was. (She walked to save tram fare. I caught the 459 bus when I worked in the area, but now you have to walk again because of the success of the Public Transport Prevention Group.)

For many years the 1920s-style building was almost unchanged, I knew it as a tubing wholesaler (tho' you could also go in & get the odd length of conduit or whatever if you needed it). As the City West development went ahead, & fancied up the place a bit (& put in rental incentives) they moved or closed and DCC (ECC?) Electrical(?) opened up, full of unaffordable & sometimes beautiful light fittings and related objects. Some years later they moved to the Eastern Suburbs, like DeCeCe and that Gallery whose name I've forgotten, which was in the top floor of the City West Building behind the park on Gipps/Harris/Pyrmont Bridge. In the moving sale I could afford the light fitting that will go into the upstairs back room if/when all the work is done.

Empty for a while, it became the Liberal Party HQ for the election that Kerry Chikarovski was leader. Lord, I was tempted to write out a screed of criticism and suggestions for them, make a hundred copies, post a few to them, scatter them around inside, tape them on the windows and power poles, etc.

Now it's been demolished and a bigger block of flats built there. It would have made a nice small block just rejigged, but that wasn't enough profit.


This is the sort of thing that makes me feel connected and rooted in a place, even though I grew up in a different suburb, and reluctant to move away. I could move back to where I grew up, which has fairly good transport. facilities and 'amenity', but is considerably further from the hospital and its services. It may have good local government social services, but I believe the local health area is having problems. Property is very expensive there, I'd go back to my parents' flat unless I could afford my grandmother's semi-detached cottage, single story with a garden (what I'd prefer).
Another possibility is a nice place I stayed on Wigram Rd in Glebe, single story with a garden but close to transport and shops. Now the 459 bus is gone, getting to the city & on to hospital is worse, even with Light Rail added, but it's on the same side of the Harbour.

Labels: family, health, history, Pyrmont, Sydney

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 10:46 pm

 
Federal Election 2007  
It was a wonderful, wonderful night. Started out watching SkyNews at gym, listened to radio coverage on the way home, almost crying with hope on the bus, surfed around the TV coverage while cooking 'n' stuff at home, then watched the concession & victory speeches "jointly" by phone with some nearly-hysterical friends. Greatly enjoyed the different stations' approaches. Did anyone else boggle at Jeff Kennett's mo, or find the Potplant of Destiny fascinating, or watching Kerry O'Brien's body language, &c, &c?

By midnight when they closed down, I was too excited to sleep, so walked up & down Oxford Street (near where I live at the moment) under the glorious full moon watching the celebrating crowds greeting whoever was in a Kevin07 t-shirt before joining my friends in their local club where we spent a couple of very mellow hours smiling, talking, laughing, and raising glasses in many toasts like "to Barnaby Joyce, the new Nowhere Man", "to John Howard's retirement" and so forth.

I'm not happy with the Blair-like far too 'conservative' Rudd style of Labor, but at least there's some hope of steering away from the fear, hate, regression to pre-democratic ways and appeal to all the worst tendencies in people and communities that have depressed me so much for so many years.

Labels: history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 6:52 pm

 
Big Day  
It's Election Day today.

Labels: history, politics

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 10:39 am

 
Firestorm  
William Strutt, artist. Black Thursday, February 6th 1851. Oil on canvas, 106 x 343 cm. H280049. La Trobe Picture Collection - No 75 Autumn 2005 - La Trobe Journal: "William Strutt, artist. Black Thursday, February 6th 1851. Oil on canvas, 106 x 343 cm. H280049. La Trobe Picture Collection"

Labels: history, pix

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 12:29 am

 
Remembrance Day 2007  
Remembering the Great War, 2007
11/11/11 (2006)
Ghosts of the Great War, 2003
Ghosts of the Great War, 2004
Ghosts of the Great War, 2005

Labels: anniversaries, history

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 10:40 am

 
Back to the 'Fifties, again  

The path down which so many of us worry 'WorkChoices' leads — part of a story about working in the USA ('Tales From Kafka Station', below, from the Undulant Fever blog).

This is one of the reasons I get so croggled that there's an idea that one would vote for the Liberal Party (of Australia)'s policies "because I'm worried about my (grand)children". I actually saw someone write this in a printed newspaper during the previous election. His (yes, it was a male) whole argument in his letter led, as I read it, to one point; except the final sentence was the exact opposite of what I thought. The mental sensation was very like being abruptly spun around physically.

Apart from the harmful things that those policies (or sometimes the lack of any policy) do to the environment, which will detrimentally effect those following generations, they affect society in a way that is of detriment to the majority of people in it, in things like working conditions for instance. Again, I'll repeat that it's not the 1950s that John Howard is reviving, it's the 1850s.

undulantfever.blogspot.com/ 2007/ 10/ tales-from-kafka-station.html

Tales From Kafka Station
10/20/2007
But I think the major part of it may be that this is part of a tendency among Big Business (not just the Postal Service) that's been growing for years, to deliver -- subtly or blatantly -- a message to employees that "Your Life Belongs To US!"

Forced overtime. Cancelled days off. Restrictions on use of leave time. And all growing more and more frequent, more and more the "standard" model of a working environment, more and more what American workers expect to find in the workplace, more and more what's considered normal.

What I was told in that office was just a step away from actually being forbidden to see a doctor on my day off, because in the eyes of management, every day of an employee's life belongs to them.

That's not an employee/management situation.

The name for that is slavery.

In Australia, following the British law, most official employment in the nineteenth century, gradually changing through the twentieth, was under the Master & Servant Act. Many of the concepts were very similar to so-called 'modern' work ideas; stripping away the 'playing-field-levelling' and protections built up with so much time & struggle.

"Much of the labour law which has evolved in the 20th century … stems from an experience-based perception that the market constraint is not a sufficient protection." – Keith Hancock, senior deputy president (1992-1997), Australian Industrial Relations Commission

Labels: history, industrial relations, IR, politics, society, USA

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:59 am

 
It's 9/11 (9th November) again – Kristallnacht  


An eyewitness account by Erich Kästner, is included with other memories — look under the heading 'Crystal Night, 1938'
Earlier remembrances on this blog — 2002; 2003; 2004; 2006;

Two of many Historical links
www.remember.org/ fact.fin.kristal.html
www.us-israel.org/ jsource/ Holocaust/ kristallnacht.html

Some of the Consequences of Kristallnacht
A Promise to My Grandfather: A Follow Up
www.dailykos.com/ story/ 2005/ 3/ 4/ 151715/5913
by amprather
Fri Mar 04, 2005 at 04:07:33 PM PST

Labels: anniversaries, history

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 12:02 am