heliopausa

Phew!  What a few hours that was! Today I went voting. 

The Australian electoral system, which I love and staunchly believe is one of the best in the world, demands a lot of the voter, and I spent quite a while this morning going through the dozens of candidates for the Senate in my state. 
The House of Reps is easier, just a handful to sort through, and not too tactical a vote needed, but for the Senate I printed out the lot, and checked them all out - parties and policies and past associations - and then sorted them into three lots:
 - those who were never, ever going to get any kind of vote from me, and
- those whom I really wanted to get in, who were getting a high-ranking preference vote that will actual count, and
- those who were pretty much getting a preference just to make up the numbers. 
(For the Senate, those who vote "below the line", that is to say deciding not to let a party preference deal decide how the vote falls, must vote for at least twelve candidates - hence I needed to vote for some to make up the numbers, even if I didn't think they'd be brilliant members of the Senate.) 

And then I took myself and my carefully annotated form guide to the Embassy, and voted.  Job done!  :)

***
This person's not in my electorate, and as an Independent his chance of getting in is vanishingly small, but I was very taken indeed by his campaign video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO-TleNQCfM  (just under a minute, and worth a look, if you enjoy politics!)

Sorry to anyone perplexed by my putting up the wrong link about politics yesterday; I've gone back and fixed it now.  :)

Also about yesterday's post:  the move I mentioned to sell off public land in the US, which stank to high heaven, has apparently seemed too bad even for the current climate there - or was it that hunters and shooters threw their voice into the protests?  I don't care - it's been stopped, as reported by twistedchick  here.  and I'm glad. 

As for today:  it's World Wetlands Day, and people are celebrating the glorious world of places which aren't safe, steady land, and aren't clear open water - fens and swamps and marshes and bogs and quagmires.  (What a gorgeous word, by the way! - quag-mire.  Is it that the ground quakes, do you think, or does quag refer to its sticky, sucking character?).  
But leaving the words, lovely as they are, and just thinking about the wetlands themselves - places betwixt and between, and so which feel mysterious and not quite in our ken - and thus in turn have given us so much, much wonderful literature: desperate freedom fighters holding out against the Normans, and the Swamp Creature, and a gigantic hound with dripping phosphorescent jaws, lolloping towards to an island in the fog, and the Black Lagoon, and bells ringing out from a huge church rising from the flood, and mangroves which are a story in themselves, and strange girl butterfly hunters, and Puddleglum and all Marshwiggles, ever.  

Lovely to read of so much exhilaration and hope on the many marches.  I'd been anxious - about communications systems, amongst other things - and it was so good to find that it wasn't necessary at all, in the event!  :)    (But it was interesting to see it confirmed by some people involved, that mobile phone/cell phone coverage does indeed falter in large crowds - something to be aware of, going forward.)

In more local news:

The Tet goldfish have all been released into waterways, to become celestial dragons for the three kitchen gods to ride back to heaven.  I mentioned last year that student groups and other young volunteers were asking people not to toss their fish-carrying plastic bags in when they released their fish - this year that's become a campaign, with posters and more volunteers and council workers, stationed at the likely places (where there are steps down into the water, mostly).  



The poster says: Let loose the fish, hold onto the plastic bag!  

I have new glasses, and the world is crystal-clear.  (Or as close to it as my eyes allow, anyway.)   I am being amazingly conscientious about putting them back in their case, but I expect it won't be terribly long before they're being slung around casually, and ending up as battered as all previous pairs of glasses have been.

Yesterday I made crumpets from scratch!   I used this recipe, which weirdly doesn't reveal that the crumpet so made should be toasted later - i.e. that it's not intended to be eaten in its flabby original first-cooked state.  The dough/batter was really strange - very gloopy and gluey - but the result on cooking was instantly recognisable as crumpets, though not exactly round due to my not having the poaching rings to make them in.  They toasted up well this morning, but were regrettably doughy inside.  :(  If I do it again, I'll cook them longer at lower heat, in the first cooking.

Thanks to a tip from puddleshark, I've been looking at and enjoying Nirvana in Fire, a 54-part series (I'm up to part 9) set in eighth-century China.  ( Read more, if you like... )

We're only now facing the terrible damage done by deception decades ago; when no-one can tell any more who to trust, any source of information is as good as any other, which leads to to either erratic knee-jerk responses, or bewildered passivity. 
I can feel both of these in myself, at different times, and I can feel in myself how trust in authorities has eroded
- I don't trust any government and scarcely any politician to tell the truth at any point (note for Australians:  I was fooled by the children overboard story, because I couldn't imagine that the then Prime Minister would flatly lie). 
- I don't trust news sources, other than for the broadest outlines of stories (yes,  Aleppo's being bombed - that's the broad outline; after that, it's murky).   There's moves in Germany to make the deliberate publication of false news a crime - which is not an idea without precedent or problems. 

All of which is hideously dangerous, and not just for any one political system. 

Meanwhile, there are still people trying in good conscience to analyse what's going on (politically, environmentally, economically, socially) and to put their analyses out there - ie sharing what is as close as they can get to the truth.  I was hanging about in a hospital waiting room this week, and read an old article in the Guardian weekly.  It's a long article, but very impressive.  In fact the Guardian is one of several news sources which has seemed to me to nosedive over the last few years, but I was impressed enough by that article - not least because the writer (Kathryn Viner) was honest about how her own paper had colluded gleefully in spreading a not-exactly-true story earlier in the year - that I took out a subscription to it.  Oh, and I've been trying to get my head around writings by the economist Wolfgang Streek. 
Does anyone have any other suggestions, for news sources or particular analysts?

Here - something not at all angsty!  Isn't this a terrific picture?  ( A guess at what it is )

Well, DW just lost another draft post, but this was was very underdeveloped, so no crankiness ensues.

The busy month of October is almost on me, and is casting its busyness before.  I don't expect to be posting much in the next few weeks, and my responses might be slow, and less loquacious than usual, as well, which is probably not a bad thing.  :)

But October busyness doesn't fret me, because I've got my Shakespeare story done and ready to post!  and am very much looking forward to the opening of the collection, because that'll mean I can finally talk about all the things I found while thinking about what story to write, and can ask other people what they think about the plots and characters Shakespeare wrote, and hear about productions people have been to, or what's coming up that I might be able to see.  (There's an Othello I could maybe get to, later this year - but that's one tough night in the theatre.  :( )

I've only just seen that art can be entered as prompts for Yuletide - a revelation!  Because there's no huge amount of backstory which has to be known with a painting (err... generally); you can just take the image and go!.    I don't imagine I'll be in Yuletide - see above about incipient time-stress - but it's a way that would make it more possible for me. 

There's too much sadness and madness going on in the world in the world for me to even want to think about political things at the moment, but I did bestir myself up to asking my local representatives (Senate and House of Reps) to take action about the very dangerous (and depressing) Clause 42D of the Border Security Act in my country.  I'm not in the swim of what's happening on those lines currently - if any other Australians can fill me in, I'd be grateful.
On the more positive side, several very small Pacific nations have spoken out about human rights abuses in West Papua.    Human rights abuses, and also the long-standing trampling over self-determination.  I'm very grateful to them for raising the issues.

It's been a long week, for one reason and another, including personally.

In Australia, the election is still not quite settled. ( Read more... )

Thursday night a couple of us sat up, following with fear and horror #whereisLavishReynolds. ( Read more... )

Oh, heavens. Something by way of relief. It's NAIDOC week in australia - i.e. celebrating indigenous people, culture, heritage. Here's an article from the abc about the billabongs of the Top End, and the people who know them and love them and keep them best. (Comes with a lovely picture of Cherry Daniels with waterlilies. :) Recommended for the picture alone, let alone the rest. and there's lots of other articles linkable from there.)

Well. Saturday morning, and I'd better start the day.

I've finished reading W&P, and was actually full of thoughts about it, but yesterday's news of the UK referendum has overwhelmed that, or made it seem not the time for that post. (If anyone does want to talk W&P, let me know.)

The next bit is about the UK referendum, behind a cut because it's not my country, and I feel I haven't really got the right to comment, other than to reiterate my previously-expressed good wishes for the future of all countries involved. So "read more" means "read more but only if you want to".
( Read more... )

Who does the internet think I am? Why have I been bombarded for weeks with an ad for bunk beds? and one for a military-grade torch? (Should it be banned? the ad asks.) and today, $99 sports shoes. I think the internet thinks I'm running a kids adventure camp, with exciting night activities, which I'm so not!

I don't have any great news stories to link to, but I enjoyed this metafilter discussion about who rules canon, or whose canon rules, beginning with Harry Potter, but taking off from there to discuss more widely.

In other non-news, it's Year of the Pulse! This weekend's celebratory pulse-focused meal at my place: Chickpea patties, served with yoghurt and the mango chutney I made a little while ago, and lettuce etc. Huge success. :)

More about W&P:
It's getting better and better! (Not to say it's flawless, though). ( Read more... )

I'm a little anxious about the coming election at home, especially about how the changes to the Senate voting will play out. (More than a little, actually.) But not to end on a morose note, here's a campaign ad (30-second youtube, not haranguing) put out by the classical music arm of our national broadcaster.

Life is getting busier and busier in the streets around me - everyone's gearing up for Tet, with frantic cleaning and gift-buying and planning to get back home (wherever home is).  Last weekend, though, ( Read more... )

For those interested in the diplomatic side of environmental matters: ( Read more... )

Fandom is bustling,too, with many challenges and fests happening - including halfamoon: 14 days of celebrating women.  I'm thinking hard about what I can contribute.  Recs? Meta? Maybe I'll seize a prompt.  Can't let the chance go by to join the celebration, anyway!

From Ethiopia - the Lion returns.  This, the dark-maned largest lion, is the kind I've preferred to write as aslan in my Narnian fanfic. 

Speaking of Narnia:  over on the NFFR site the Narnia LWW Reread has reached Chapter Twelve, with some very interesting meta, sources, questions, suggestions...

after last week's complex-character exertions ( :P to all those laughing!) it's back to the simple side for this week's character!  天

and in the tiny domestic triumphs department:  the last of the missing socks has revealed itself!  My sock-bag is now only holding pairs!

So... still catching up with things that have been posted over the past little while...

The Pirate Queen is back! Narniafic by autumnia - a gorgeously zesty story (and highly political - including political philosophy - good meaty questions to consider) slotted into the time of Caspian's visit to the Lone Islands in Prince Caspian. I gave myself the pleasure of rereading it from the beginning, and enjoyed every word. :) 


I also took a look at rthstewart 's Tumblr page, and found a lovely round-up of australian birds, which was a delight in itself, and also pleased me much by having as one of its tags the line "they really are dinosaurs, you know" - pleased me very much, because I've only just learned about this fabulous (but not fabulous,however much it seems so - absolutely four-square, solid-as-a-rock real) South american bird, the hoatzin:



(Pic by Thore Noernberg.  I love how wildly mythological the hoatzin looks, like a phoenix.  Its body-shape is rather like a peacock, but with stronger wings and less tail, so a better flyer.)

which has - the juveniles have,anyway - functioning claws on their wings!!  like archaeopteryx.  Yep - they really are dinosaurs. 
Here's a David attenborough clip showing the claws in action.  I was just gasping at how amazing they are - four clawed limbs - and feathers!  and that gorgeously fierce crest!. Hoatzin.  I'd never heard of them, and they are brilliant. 
(I love this world! The surprises just never stop coming. :) )

extra, for no good reason: One of my favourite politicians is the absolutely straight-down-the-line terrific Shadow Trade Minister and Labor Senate Leader Penny Wong, who if all was as it ought to be, would be Prime Minister.  Here she is being interviewed this morning on television  (nine-and-a-bit minute clip - for politics junkies only, probably) about the TPP, amongst other things.   Note how she is calm, humorous, totally across the brief and sane.  (What isn't sane is how the current government is leaving her and her fellow Labor members out of the loop on these important issues.  Not sane because the country can't afford to be without her talents being used to the full.)