Monday 24 November 2014

With Galahs, Ning-Nongs and the Fascist Poltroons

With Galahs, Ning-Nongs and the Fascist Poltroons all running amok it might be time to gird for the forthcoming havoc.

Shane at John Curtin Hotel
Shane at John Curtin Hotel




G’day, you three…

Been for a bit of a wander around the  town...  and today it's all Wombat Droppings (or the chronicle of a  once Egalitarian nation sliding inexorably into Fascism).







We’ve had the G20…..  all $500,000,000.00 of it.
Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spiked “Rabid the-Hun’s,” We-will-not-mention-the-Weather” cannon by announcing a climate change deal and Australia announcing that that our territorial sovereignty is up for sale particularly for Chinese workers. 
Andrew “Reboxetine” Robb, Minister for Trading Off the Nation, denied that paying Chinese wages to Australians was also part of the deal and that Chinese investment in industry probably would not override O H and S, and environmental standards. “Look how we are caring for the Barrier Reef “ he said, “Besides you can’t make Popiah and not break eggs….I think.”
Rabid–the-Hun then enthralled the assembled 36 of the G20 (gate-crashers?) by bemoaning just how recalcitrant we all were in not wanting to fund private medical research out of our own pockets, or wanting to retire at 95, or not  turning the ABC into another Media psychological Basket Case like Foxtel or let his Pretend Education Minister Chwissie “The Whyne and Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect” Pyne charge $100,000.00 for a degree in barista-ology.
Busker with Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
Busker with Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
Which shows about as much sense as this picture.... 
How do you get a Busking Licence to have a bird spread it's wings?
I mean, that's all it did.
The mural is by Mirka Mora: born in France she arrived in Australia as a young woman and the French Romanesque influence is very apparent in her work.
 Lordy... if this government were a horse you'd have to put it down.... but at least “Rabid-the-Hun” came close for the first time, to admitting to the "free-market" agenda they never want to discuss publicly...and was forestalled in repeating that ”…. Climate-Change is crap.” 

"The Ugly American," Murdoch and his minions, “The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” at the IPA must be apoplectic at his incompetence in "selling" their message and instead, exposing it to the full glare of public ridicule for the selfish anti-social medievalism it is. They even went to the ludicrous extent of allowing Rabid's business advisor and trenchant climate-change denier Maurice "Addled" Newman to quote some wacky American Senator called Inhofe who thinks that the bible refutes climate change.... all together now: Place finger on lips, wobble up and down quickly and blow!
John Curtin
John Curtin

This is John Curtin a Labor Prime Minister who led Australia through WW2.
He took over from the founder of the present day Liarbril Party, R.G.Menzies, one of whose claims to fame were his nick-names: "Pig-Iron-Bob" and "Ming."
The first was because as PM he was trading Iron to the Japanese at the beginning of WW2. Which apocryphal legend has it came back to us as bullets and shells! The second was based on the Flash Gordon Cartoon character "Ming-the Merciless."
See the similarity with the present Liarbril rabble? 
Curtin was born just up the paddock from the Wombat's burrow.

Two mares from “The Ugly American’s” stables, Janet Albrechtson and Amanda Devine were showing an unusual lack of confidence in their ability to stir an audience by refusing to be panellists on Q and A. which was a pity.  Granted, it may only inspire people to throwing rotten eggs, tomatoes, cow-pats and such like but it still is a genuine response. Perhaps if these women could only come across as intelligently civilised as Ms Wong or Ms Plibersek do and of whom, they feel they can’t compete, things might be different. But then, spitting vitriol from the Murdoch Bunkers and paddling in the bile of those who share their one-dimensional view of the world like Andrew ”Blot-on-the-Landscape” Bolt is far safer. 
In their opinion anything other than their view is “left,” and wrong. And like “The-Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-From-a-Parallel-Universe” at the IPA who falsely espouse free-speech and libertarian views; speech is only free when it agrees with them. Everything else is biased … and bias is wrong unless it’s their bias. These Neanderthal thinkers from the IPA have yet to discover the value of a pluralist society
8 Hour Day monument
Memorial to a notion that is sooooo C19th.
Although pluralism and fairness is what Senators Jackie “Bogan” Lambie and Ricky “Diff” Muir have been practising. 
 With other cross bench Senators they voted to repeal legislation thought up by the partially disgraced Arfur ”Da Spiv” Sinodinas and Matty “Atwerp-Horse-Shite” Coormann.
 It was bad legislation made for corrupt people but at least there are some in Parliament who are thinking of “The People!”
People assisting refugee kids in Oz Concentration Camps
People assisting refugee kids in Oz Concentration Camps
This is another interesting read as the ABC’s budget is being cut to ribbons and comes under quite furious attack from many sides for being impartial and pluralist thinking.  
One of the funniest criticisms was one bloke on radio bemoaning how the ABC wasn’t “…lateral thinking enough” and …“we should all listen to Macca!”  
For you three overseas readers, Macca is a quite Right–Wing Bumpkin who travels by phone to rural areas to let them vent their hatred of anything smelling vaguely socialist. 
Except of course for Farm subsidies, Fuel Subsidies, and other agrarian socialisms. I’m not sure the caller had any real idea of what lateral thinking really means… perhaps he could ring Foxtel  or" Le Jongleur" Roskam and ask them for a definition.
 "Le Jongleur"  doesn't think the Government should fund the ABC  as not all use its considerable services.  But when a caller suggested reimbursement for the "Tax" he pays in advertising fees on the products he buys which fund commercial stations he doesn't use ... "Le Jongleur" went a bit quiet for once.
David Wilson Sculptures
David Wilson Sculptures
These are sculpture by David Wilson in the grounds of the old Melbourne Jail. (DW was my tutor at Art School)
His "Romantic Brut"works look rather good in this setting.




Bar, Curtin Hotel
Bar, Curtin Hotel

And this is the bar at the John Curtin Hotel, now known as just "The Curtin" and not really a place for Unionists from Trades Hall, opposite, any more but a live music venue...



seagull

Hoo-Roo Possums,
Shane.

PS, before we go one more graphic to put our conservative, right-wing government in its real perspective...

Australian

Wednesday 12 November 2014

..perchance to Dream..

a Budget..... for in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause...

but more of that later in Wombat Droppings.


Shane and New Bio.



G’day Possums,

We’ve been to a book signing.

Dame Margaret Scott (Maggie) has had her biography written by Michelle Potter.
A Life in Dance…. one of the most important people in the history of Australian ballet, Maggie was in good form, starting with ” I’ve nothing to say… It’s all in the book.” But then proceeded for another twenty minutes with “thank-you’s”, anecdotes and observations which were wry, funny, pointed and as always, on the mark.



Maggie commented that she was always being asked what was her vision for the ballet school?  “I had none” she said, “I just got on with it and did what I had to do.” 

Graeme Murphy was there and as with others of his innovative talent and success was the evidence of Maggie’s perspicacity for evaluating capability and potential.



I have some very early photos in the book and it was good to meet Graeme again and others from early ballet school days, all of us there celebrating this publication and thanking Maggie for her intelligent forward thinking in her development of “The School” and the important part she played in our careers and our “..chance to dream.”

Michelle Potter and Maggie Scott


and to finish some more recent shots of rehearsal from Ballet Theatre Australia…











Wombat Droppings
or
the chronicle of the demise of Australia’s egalitarianism and descent into Fascism


The long awaited “shirt-fronting” bout between Rabid-the-Hun and Vlad Putin was like all Liarbril policy action, a “Fizzer!” 

“I’m not talking to him when he comes to the G20” our Prime Miniature sulked after his 15 minutes of “confrontation.”

Pathetic.

Y’know Petals, we’ve never had a leader in this country who walks like he’s recently pooped his pants, claps like he has a intellectual disability, is always poking his tongue out and who keeps channelling Mrs. Malaprop!
It’s now being said to excuse his “shirt-front” gaff that he mis-understood the Aussie Rules Football connotation.
Hmmm like he didn’t think he was “….the suppository of all wisdom.”

Pathetic

Illo: Peter Grace C/O Facebook


Perchance to Dream a Budget, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause...

Poor old Joe “Cereal/Toyota Killer”Hockey…. Looks like we have a budget emergency after all: and unsurprisingly it’s not Labor’s fault but another of the Liarbril’s malign projections manifesting itself as a wrathful reality from Joe’s ideologically fuelled incompetence.


James Paterson (Dep. Dir. “Coots-With-Queer-Ideas-from-a-Parallel-Universe,” aka IPA) then popped up on Q and A .
Paterson, role playing.
I’m not sure whether he was there as a stiff, arrogant repeater of ideological business cant or perhaps as a target for the intellectual disdain of the bubbling and intelligent loquaciousness of Baroness Susan Greenfield or then again, just as an added embarrassment to our pretend Environment Minister, “Ozone-Hole” Hunt (he of Wiki research fame) who did such a good job himself of making the case for Carbon Pricing and climate change, eloquently real, and consequently a shambles of his ruling rabble’s environment policy.
Somewhat disturbingly I kept seeing “Unterscharfuhrer” Paterson in SS costume… and more disturbingly… secretly, I don’t think he would mind dressing like that.


The election in “The Tardis State” “Where-All-Goes-Backward” is not going at all well for Pretend Premier “Do-do” (Genus: Inutilus Rusticus) Naptime. 
Seems his much vaunted "Tunnel to Nowhere" is going to cost 3 times what he’s telling us, that is: $15,000,000,000,000.00 which caused his Piggy-Bank minder “Boggles” O’Brien to froth at the mouth about CFMEU, leftish plots and Academics with Agendas.
Well let me tell you something Michael-me-lad…. Not everyone likes either Dodo's or your agenda; particularly the one where the taxpayer does the $3,000,000,000.00 refurbishment of National park infrastructure and your lot to lease it off for business development. Stinks that does.. almost as much as Matty “What’s-a-Green-Wedge” Guy’s  costly folly at Ventnor.
But it is good the see that “Dodo” can hold to a script and train of thought ….…repeatedly…repeatedly… repeatedly, about the zillions and zillions of trains we can import for Cranbourne.

A prognostication Petals: in about five days ( around two weeks from polling day) the Public Prosecutor will bring down a finding that based on the Police evidence submitted, certain Labor Party members close to leader Dan Andrews will be charged with the theft of a reporters tape machine.
A molehill that will have the proportions in all the Ugly American, Murdoch's press of a Krakatoa!
Where’s Geoff ”Fiddles” Shaw in all this… off scot free and running as an independent!


Ohh Petals ….Perchance to Dream of people of Maggie’s quality and not dismal apparatchiks with very limited imagination.

Hoo-roo,
Shane



























Wednesday 5 November 2014

…viewing the absence of good.

Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.
What good has Abbott done?

Shane with ballet Archive
Shane with ballet Archive

But more later in Wombat Droppings.


G’day Possums,

There was a get-together recently for those who were students at The Australian Ballet School celebrating its 50th Anniversary.
I was contacted by one woman who interested in the photographs on display wanted to know if I had any more. We met and I did, which I scanned for her. Then there was another contact expressing similar interest…. and then another. 
As there seems to be sufficient interest in the archive I have made over the years I have decided to scan the lot so people can view them like proof sheets.

Ballet Archive
As there are around 750 rolls of film, it will take some time.
More later….

I recently had occasion to visit a friend who has moved into Mt Macedon. It is a lovely place.

MT Macedon

MT Macedon

MT Macedon

MT Macedon

MT Macedon

MT Macedon
Wombat Droppings  or a small chronicle of the demise of egalitarian Australia and its descent into Fascism.

As I attempt write this I am listening to the eulogies for the memorial service of Australia’s greatest Prime Minister Edward Gough Whitlam.

There were standing ovations in the Sydney Town Hall when past Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Julia Gillard entered…. and some applause for the present Prime Miniature, Rabid-the-Hun.

…..all I can do is to repeat the Anthony Burgess quote from “Clockwork Orange”, “Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”

What good has Abbott done?

Perhaps the standing ovations symbolically represent the beginning of the end of this present dishonest, corrupt, venal , vicious and destructive  Liarbril rabble?

Vale Gough Whitlam, you made Australia great.
and this pretty much sums it all up:   http://bit.ly/1EgFBd6
 Pyne "The Whyne-and-Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect" has been bitching and tut-tutting on morning TV about the bad manners of booing "Rabid-the-Hun" and "Little Johnnie"Howard as they entered the service. It strike me Petals that what really hurt the Liarbrils is that the eulogies comprehensively demonstrated that they have not the intellect, passion or conceptual base to match Labor at its best. The booing was a primal expression of that understanding and of just how bereft of vision these faux tea-party minnows are.

Hoo-Roo Petals,
Shane.

P.S. This is worth the read