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.

---

---

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]

---

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

---

(and my Wish List)

---

 
Burial & other bodily solutions  

BTW, can anyone help, or point me towards help, with information on the usefulness of bodies with metastatic cancer for assorted organ transplants. Would cornea or skin be possible, if nothing else?
Alternatively, should I try contacting various medical schools or anatomy museums to find if they'd be interested in a massively-surgically-altered specimen as an example? Not sure about 'plastination'.

Would have for all these to make sure to, say, shave hair & take some nail clippings for modest burial. Wonder if anyone'd like to try some Victorian-style hair jewellery?

If it appears beforehand no-one wants body or its parts, I'm hoping for a "natural" style burial on a rural hillside I own. There's a polished stone & fossil necklace I also own called 'Drowned in Stone' that's already set aside to wear. We can tuck part of my partner's ashes in too.

(Cunning plan is for a comfy, back-supporting, scoop-seated stone bench on top (local stone is granite), so people can rest & admire the view, with bowl (have a glazed ceramic one might do) on shady side for animals (with climbing ridges for small ones that fall in — seen too many drowned) & water-draining seat, and inscription on back. (E. longiflora decoration wherever — ends?) Also hoping for carefully selected local small shade tree at right position for hottest times. Or *maybe* peppercorn, but needs more distance. For *real* fancy stuff, they could drag a lump of Pyrmont sandstone — there are some in my backyard, or use a rough chunk — up, flatten the top to a slight skillion (water-shedding) & prop it in a convenient spot nearby on the hillside for spreading a small picnic while you're sitting there. Can't work out a place for chunks of the fossil-rich mudstone found under the sandstone layer, it's too soft to leave exposed for more than a few years.

If the council isn't keen, well it'll all have to go up near the rocky summit, tucked into the dry? sclerophyll woodland. Should blend in well, esp. if they do the 'old paint the new stone with milky water' trick to get the granite scungied up.)

Labels: aspirations, mortality, personal, sorrybiz, thoughts, time

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 4:36 am

 
Contemplating yesterday  

Don't really like that word "palliative", when it's used in my direction. "Curative" or "healing" would be much nicer. Doctors say most important thing is to make my quality of life as good on possible for as long as possible.

OTOH, not having something to "make me more comfortable" is an even worse thought. Much medical treatment is a lot like torture with good intentions (even with pain management). I've definitely learnt cowardice, like the burnt child fears the fire.

Should really get on with photo books & "arranging affairs" (@#!&*%*#@!! paperwork). Probably in some kind of denial/ultimate procrastination. Don't appear to have learnt anything important from the last 10 years of "teaching experiences". The stupid must go right to the bone: Cue one of Pris' better-known quotes. Still, market for inspirational books (Above It All: My Spiritual Journey from Cancer to Climbing Mt Everest in a Wheelchair*) must surely be glutted now. So many people are getting to ages of more illness, there'll be more authors than readers.

Feel better after blood for anaemia yesterday (Vampire Mez. Practicing accent: Wampyr.). Charcoal tablets seem to be working, too, unless some other thing is helping reduce gas explosions. Will add to stock for trip. Another landmark: got Nelune car lift to hospital because was scared if I walked same gas blow-out would happen as the other day when I tried to go to pay bill, shops.

Was going to discuss "palliative" with friends — being up at hospital with them, back in Rehab (separate room, with openable window, own toilet, relative peace and quiet), after treatment and appointments — but got distracted talking and dealing with odd problems that popped up.

Hope your Black Friday went well.

* Note: Not entirely a joke. There's a new one out about a couple of Aboriginal(?) footballers(?) travelling out in the desert, one of whom is in chemo/radio therapy at the time. (So either it's a short trip or they've spaced out treatments longer round the trip or it's actually just after treatment.)

[UPDATE] Kurt Fearnley, who normally uses a wheelchair because he was born with the lower part of his spine missing, went back to his childhood form of locomotion — pulling himself along by his arms while his much-shrunken legs trail along after his body — to crawl along the entire Kokoda Track because the steep slopes & muddy ground made using a wheelchair impractical. (Up & Down Stories – Kokoda & Me) While I have to drop my shopping and lay down for quite some time just after going around the block and climbing the 57 steps back to my flat, and he's an athlete. (See news.smh.com.au/ breaking-news-world/ exhausted-fearnley-finishes-kokoda-crawl-20091118-ilga.html)

Labels: cancer, medical, medicine, quotidian, stroke, thoughts, treatment, words

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 5:00 pm

 
Man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams  
Between ANZAC Day and Mother's Day, as April turns over into May, Sydney feels the breath of winter approaching. There are birthdays and anniversaries important to me in the first week of May, immovably connected with the memory of walking out in the chill of dawn, watching puffs of breath mist out into the air. Daylight saving's ended; dark closes in earlier & earlier; thoughts can turn towards larger themes.
From Bartleby, an excellent & useful site:
Modern Essays, 1921. (Christopher Morley, ed.) 30. Beyond Life by James Branch Cabell:

… romance tricks him, but not to his harm. For, be it remembered that man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams. Romance it is undoubtedly who whispers to every man that life is not a blind and aimless business, not all a hopeless waste and confusion; and that his existence is a pageant (appreciatively observed by divine spectators), and that he is strong and excellent and wise: and to romance he listens, willing and thrice willing to be cheated by the honeyed fiction. The things of which romance assures him are very far from true: yet it is solely by believing himself a creature but little lower than the cherubim that man has by interminable small degrees become, upon the whole, distinctly superior to the chimpanzee …
And it is this will that stirs in us to have the creatures of earth and the affairs of earth, not as they are, but “as they ought to be,” which we call romance …

Labels: annual cycle, aspirations, literature, quotes, thoughts

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:30 pm

 
On QueryFAIL: Responding to part of the discussion  
[This is still too long, but I can't get blogger's code to use "expanding posts", so you only see the full entry if you go to its separate page, to work on my blogs.]
From Making Light: On QueryFAIL
nielsenhayden.com/ makinglight/ archives/ 011160.html
A summarised summary by Jim Macdonald, Making Light moderator

Apparently a group of agents designated Thursday, the 5th of March, 2009, as official Queryfail day. Throughout the day they’d Twitter those little 140-character descriptions of the worst queries they read (either that day, or had ever gotten in their careers).

"A group of online agents, book editors and periodicals acquisition editors are posting about their queries in real time. The idea is to educate people about what exactly it is in a query that made us stop reading and say “Not for me.” We’re being very careful not to include personal identifiers of any kind. The idea isn’t to mock or be intentionally cruel, but to educate."

To what should have been no one’s surprise, authors who found out about it got upset ... Amid stories of authors planning to boycott the agents who took part in the first Queryfail, a second Queryfail is apparently being planned for the end of the month.

"Last week, literary agents blogged about failed queries on Twitter—generating a query fail feed, an agent fail thread, a GalleyCat post, and an emotional debate."

and

"after hearing from several writers who were upset by the event, I have removed the specific entries. Instead, I’ll focus on what I learned by following QueryFail.

I apologize to those writers who felt disrespected. My intention in reposting was to share what I thought was good information. I still think it’s good information. But if you know me personally, you know I’m an empathetic soul and I don’t wish to cause another writer distress."

See also: AgentFail, WriterFail.

My comment (#103) on one aspect of this discussion:

Cat Meadors (#93) "Don't be crazy" isn't at all useful, and seems to be what 99% of the "advice" boils down to. Crazy people won't listen, and non-crazy people don't need to.)

Help with defining or examples of crazy and non-crazy, and how one thing can be seen as both in different circumstances could be very useful, though Miss Snark (misssnark.blogspot.com) could be a better source.

Now I think I'm 98-99% non-crazy; feedback says maybe only 90-95%. So I've had to, with much struggle and still not always successfully, modify my (identifiable) public behaviour, writing and media output to make it more acceptable. I am rather angry and bitter about that, still sensitive on certain points — another bit that needs to be controlled (so I can understand, if not accept, some reactions). Honest feedback, even overhearing you being criticised between two other people, can be useful, if hurtful.

Many times I've heard people being mocked, called crazy, weird or otherwise unacceptable for expressing thoughts or behaving in ways I've found truthful or very understandable. It hurts, but it does show how I need to mask and modify to be acceptable (and perhaps try to argue or express those thoughts in ways the 'mainstream', 'normal' (mundane?) culture can digest); and, sometimes, consider the rightness of my thoughts <g>.

OTOH: Lotsa crude, rude, stupid vapidity (IMO) in lotsa comments (and blogs) in lotsa places. Lotsa baaad writing. Sturgeon's Law? It's wearying to get to the good bits

[Disclaimer: I make no claim to be a good writer, and have little authorial ambition. I do like to read.]

Labels: personal, sanity, society, thoughts

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 4:20 pm

 
Connexions  

thinking on the traveling life

elisem.livejournal.com/ 1426047.html
(I'm not sure where this is going to go, but I have to write it right now. Guess we'll find out when we get there.)
...
Part of being suited to it is something I love, and part was something I feared for a long time. The part I loved is something I got to enjoy years later when I took my Great North American Railroad Expotition. Thirty days and more than thirteen thousand kilometers is a bit of a journey. I did it all with a purse and a carryon bag …
The part that I feared was how easy it was to let go and move on. … I started to worry that I wasn't capable of sustaining any kind of close friendship. I wondered if maybe I was just one of those rootless people who was supposed to wander the earth....…
Anyway, I'm still not entirely sure exactly what it was I was setting out to tell you here, but it seemed important to write it down. …
I'll be pondering this some more. Thanks for listening.

"I'm not sure where this is going to go"
Kind of says it all.

Working on a lot of issues about connections, roots, memories & my own posterity. Am I building myself into my own pyramid before I'm dead?

But a lot of the world's problems are from people losing wise memories, lessons from pain. Except a lot of the world's problems are from people hanging onto memories of pain & bitterness & hate …

Working on a lot of issues …

Labels: thoughts, travel

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:26 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

 
Time: slow, slow, quick, quick, slow?  
Have been thinking again — dangerous, that — Chris and I were together some 6 years (after knowing each other about a year); he's been dead a bit more than 6 years now. (I'll be coming up to being 'widowed' longer than knowing him pretty soon.) He's been one of the most important things in much of my life for coming up to 13 years. It seems a long time, getting close to a quarter of my life.

And it's a quarterday — six months to Christmas is St John's Day, the traditional midsummer celebrations in Europe. Here we're just past the shortest day/longest night, heading into the depths of cold, but looking forward to light gradually incrementing.

Labels: feelings, memory, mourning, thoughts, time

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:33 pm

 
Budget 2005: Tax Cuts - Squandering our Future  

Tax Cuts - Squandering our Future

Australia is living off two great sources of capital laid down earlier, but we are not renewing or building them up - a bad sign for the future. The bulk of any surplus should be re-invested in these, to help tide us over future difficulties.

One is our natural resources: fertile topsoil, clean fresh water, fisheries & so forth. Only recently I think there was an estimate of $10 Billion to restore them to function on a long-term, sustainable basis after the damage done over a couple of centuries.

The other is the massive public (& private) investment in our infrastructure: water & sewerage systems, transport (not just roads) for goods & people, energy generation & distribution, as well as health systems, education & other vital parts of our society's structure. Many were developed from mid-to-late Victorian times into the first half of the 20th Century, & have barely been maintained since.

Now we have a chance to repair & improve these, learning from earlier mistakes. This is what will give a good foundation for our descendants to improve their lives, instead of scraping by, regretting lost opportunity.

Like the mutual building sculpture above Martin Place showing how a man can't break the bundle of sticks bound together, though each could be broken with ease one-by-one, the point of government is to bundle together our money and effort to do the things that singly are very difficult (how many of us can buy or build a new train or hospital?). And private companies are run for profit, not to provide a service.

For instance, a well-built sustainable water collection, distribution & purification system will take some maintenance over time, but will last without huge extra investment. The same for improving energy or transport systems (eg fixing/rebuilding bridges or taking freight off roads, which reduces road damage bills). A big push into reforming (in the genuine use of the word) agricultural practices & land-use, or ways of building cities can lay a good foundation for centuries of advance instead of continuing decline.

An educated person might be lost to their particular profession, but it's not likely they'll lose all their skills, they may return to it, otherwise they'll probably go to a different, but still skilled & worthwhile job. I've lost my skills as a biologist & medical researcher over the last 20 years, but work in a useful skilled job in a different field (though I'd prefer to feel I was contributing more to society &/or the world).

If 12% of Australians are in the current top tax bracket, 88% are lower. The majority of us know that if we strike trouble - like my recent medical & family crises - we will need social support. Not just trustworthy & affordable health care, but someone to help the aged mother I care for, meals on wheels, community nurses who aided my convalescence, etc.

Even if you have help from family or friends, that other support stops the total ruination that you too often see in both the third world & the US when a crisis hits someone. That's why there's community support for spending on services - even if people doubt that spending will go towards what they most value.

There could be a lot more said on this, which I won't go into.

EXCEPT those who say: "You'll spend it all and we won't have anything left when there isn't any surplus."
NO! I wrote about putting the investment into things, both physical & social that will stay.

AND: for the furphy about "Oh, these are State, not Federal issues".
Just where do the States get the majority of their funding? Most of the money is collected by States and by the Commonwealth, put into the "kitty", then split up & distributed, some via State, some via Federal, trickling down to Local government. Remember that fuss last year about NSW's share being cut? There are also several bodies which co-ordinate Commonwealth & States to look after particular issues either nationwide or like the Murray-Darling or Great Barrier Reef.

2004 Budget; same problem (4-May-2004)
A couple of related posts: Uses of Universities (13-May-2004); Annoyingly repetitive tax rate misconception (12-May-2004); Public good; public lands; public service - see my contribution

Labels: information, money, society, tax, Taxation, thoughts

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 8:01 pm

 
Taxes: Building Our Future  
Taxation for the Future
Australia is living off two great sources of capital laid down earlier, but we are not renewing or building them up - a bad sign for the future. These sorts of "public goods" have, in history, been badly served by private investment, and taxes are needed so they can be invested in these, to help tide us over future difficulties.

One type of capital is our natural resources: fertile topsoil, clean fresh water, fisheries, etc, etc, etc. Recently there was an estimate of $10 Billion to restore them to function on a long-term, sustainable basis. (We have only begun to recognise how important some of the unseen supports like this are once we'd knocked a few out, eg, the multiple causes and effects of salination.)

The other is the massive public (& private) investment in our urban and rural infrastructure: water & sewerage systems, transport (not just roads) for goods & people, energy generation & distribution, communications, as well as health systems, education, firefighting services, etc, etc. Many were developed over the century from mid-Victorian times to the middle of the 20th Century, & haven't been maintained much since.

Now we have a chance to repair and, indeed, *improve* these, learning from earlier mistakes and using more efficient, less toxic methods. This will give a good basis for our descendants to improve their lives, instead of scraping by, slowly getting worse, regretting lost opportunity.

Most of these projects, public or private will need some sort of support from public funds, either directly or through rebates or deductions. Now every tax rebate or deduction has to be made up from somewhere; either cutting someone elses' services or raising their tax (that's why I don't claim my charitable donations). Thus anything attracting such support should be really making a contribution outweighing that if you use "triple bottom line" accounting which takes into account the usually-hidden impacts on those two capital resources, and on the social structure.

A skilled population, whether it's tradespeople, engineers, doctors or nurses, is a valuable resource in itself, and an investment for the future. Yet the present PM, reported in Hansard introducing a training bill, actually described the training part of a person's time as not "productive". Doesn't bode well for his government's support of improving our workforce.

A well-built sustainable water collection, distribution & purification system will take some maintenance over time, but will last without huge extra investment. The same for energy or transport systems (eg fixing/rebuilding bridges or taking freight off roads, thereby reducing road damage bills). A big push into reforming (in the genuine use of the word) agricultural practices & land-use, or ways of building cities can lay a good foundation for centuries of advance instead of continuing decline.

Labels: money, politics, society, tax, Taxation, thoughts

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 3:37 am

 
Barefoot Doctors & Bush Lawyers  
Uses of Universities - some kind of tunnel vision?
I hear a few people, and see letters to the paper, say: "I never went to Uni, but my taxes are subsidizing these students". Maybe they've taken Maggie Thatcher's "There's no such thing as society" just a bit too literally. We are all interdependent on many others.

Would these persons (or their young children or aged parents) be happy to
be treated by nurses & doctors & pharmacists who did a quick 3-month course by correspondence, like the barefoot doctors?

How would they feel driving on roads, freeways & bridges constructed by engineers who learnt it all from a book & by talking to a council worker who'd worked on some roads?

Wouldn't it be fun using the water supply & sewerage system (or living downstream of a dam) if those designers & engineers were self-taught too? Or being near a factory, refinery or similar complex dealing with toxic chemicals, high temperature & pressure not designed & checked by someone qualified to?

What about walking through the city with its skyscrapers if none of the architects had been certified for anything larger than a 3-storey walk-up that they'd learnt about by being a builder's labourer?

Check with the inhabitants of some of the cities where sudden collapses of blocks of flats happen every year (tho' much of that devastation is said to be because of poor inspection & enforcement of those naughty bureaucratic regulations).

And if you did want to sue for injury caused by faults with these, you'd
have to settle for a Bush Lawyer, I guess.

Labels: money, society, tax, Taxation, thoughts, యెద్యుకెశన్

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 5:26 pm

 
Tax Cuts - Squandering our Future?  

Tax Cuts - Squandering our Future?

My entry in a guestbook asking for comments on recent speculation that this Budget will spend a large expected surplus on giving large tax cuts - which would mostly benefit higher-income people. There could be a lot more said on this, which I won't go into.

EXCEPT for the furphy about "Oh, these are State, not Federal issues".
And just where do the States get the majority of their funding? Most of the money is collected by States and by the Commonwealth & put into the "kitty", then split up & distributed, some via State, some via Federal government, trickling down to Local. Remember that fuss just recently about NSW's share being cut? There are also several bodies which combine Commonwealth & States to look after particular issues either nationwide or like the Murray-Darling or Great Barrier Reef.

AND: "You'll spend it all and we won't have anything left when there isn't any surplus." First, note that I wrote below about putting the investment into things, both physical & social that will stay.

A person educated as an engineer or doctor or nurse or teacher might be lost to that profession, but it's not likely they'll lose all their skills immediately, they'd probably return if they have to change for a short while, otherwise they'd probably - if the government-controlled circumstances allow - go to a different, but still skilled & worthwhile job.

I've lost my skills as a biologist & medical researcher over the last 20 years, but work in a fairly skilled (if averagely-paid) job (though I'd prefer to feel I was contributing more to the world).

A well-built sustainable water collection, distribution & purification system will take some maintenance over time, but will last without huge extra investment. The same for energy or transport systems (eg fixing/rebuilding bridges or taking freight off roads, thereby reducing road damage bills). A big push into reforming (in the genuine use of the word) agricultural practices & land-use, or ways of building cities can lay a good foundation for centuries of advance instead of continuing decline.

---

Australia is living off two great sources of capital laid down earlier, but we are not renewing or building them up - a bad sign for the future. The bulk of any surplus should be re-invested in these, to help tide us over future difficulties.

One is our natural resources: fertile topsoil, clean fresh water, fisheries & so forth. Only recently I think there was an estimate of $10 Billion to restore them to function on a long-term, sustainable basis after the damage done to them.

The other is the massive public (& private) investment in our infrastructure: water & sewerage systems, transport (not just roads) for goods & people, energy generation & distribution, as well as health systems & education. Many were developed in late Victorian times, into the first half of the 20th Century, & haven't been maintained.

Now we have a chance to repair & *improve* these, learning from earlier mistakes. This will give a good basis for our descendants to improve their lives, instead of scraping by, regretting lost opportunity.

Like the mutual building sculpture above Martin Place showing how a man can't break the bundle of sticks bound together, though each could be broken with ease one-by-one, the point of government is to bundle together our money and effort to do the things that singly are very difficult (how many of us can buy or build a new train or hospital?). And private companies are run for profit, not to provide a service.

If 12% of Australians are in the top tax bracket, 88% are lower. The majority of us know that if we strike trouble - like my recent medical crises - we will need social support. Not just trustworthy & affordable health care, but, say, someone for the aged mother I care for, community nurses who aided my convalescence, meals on wheels, etc.
Even when you have help from family or friends, that support stops the total ruination that you too often see in both the third world & the US when a crisis hits someone. That's why there's support for services - even if there's doubt that spending will go towards what you most want.

Labels: money, society, tax, Taxation, thoughts

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 12:57 pm