Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

This story nearly made me bite my pen in half this morning when I read it:

Senators take aim at ABC and SBS from The Age.

So Liberal senators have attacked SBS because they think it has a "pro-Arab" bias, shows smut (oh hello, like it's not affectionately called "Soccer Before Sex" for a reason, you fools! It's ALWAYS been like this) and doesn't label terrorist organisations clearly. Because the viewers in Australia obviously have no brains and can't identify terrorist organisations unless there's a huge sign next to them with a pointy arrow and flashing neon letters that say "Here Be Terrorists."

Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells from New South Wales also claims George Negus expressed "pro-Arab" sentiments and that SBS sides with David Hicks. Personally, I can't say that I've noticed this in my years of SBS watching, but maybe I'm such a frightful Leftie greenie-fondling pinko commie that it's all totally shot over my head.

Diversity of thought and opinions and the expressions thereof is a vital part of democracy and democratic process. Not allowing others to express their opinions, even if they differ from our own, is disgusting. Sharing these opinions allows us to learn, debate, discuss, explore or expose.

People watch SBS and ABC because they know that they'll receive a far more intelligent presentation with far greater depth about matters of national and international significance than the absolute tripe paraded around as "current affairs" on other channels (unless you truly consider Trev shirking his childcare payments or cellulite-curing koala-skin gloves to be internationally vital).

I'm scared by the Liberal party's constant efforts to shut up whoever disagrees with them. Sure we're not Iran or whatever where expressing an opinion is likely to make things rather unpleasant for you, but these sort of things are truly not steps in the right direction. Unless these same senators are calling up Channel 7, 9 and 10 directors to face questioning over their handling of matters that has been less than objective, we have something to worry about, because it would appear to not be something based on fairness within the media.

Everything that appears in EVERY media has a bias of some kind, because as humans we lack the ability to be entirely objective about things, no matter how hard we try. People can agree or disagree with the thoughts presented by others and make up their own minds about matters, though.

It's bad enough with the "new editorial policies" being placed on the ABC, whose board has been stacked, which I'm sure makes Gerrad Henderson smile and make languid cyclic motions as he sleeps and has such happy dreams about it. I know we don't have freedom of speach as part of our constitution here in Australia, but by not allowing alternative views, we diminish ourselves as a nation.

Sunrise, sunset, sviftly fly ze years, seedlings turn overnight to suuuunflowers... oy vey!

Friday night sunset from the other weekend.

Annnnnd in other thoughts, I'm not a fan of the beginning of daylight savings, although I generally love it once it gets going. Just the beginning bit makes the first few mornings a challenge. You feel like you've emerged from Satan's armpit. But it'll get better...

I mean, he's got to start using deoderant sometime, right?

Della's Hitchcock Non-Blonde Mystery

(c) Della, 28th and 29th October, 2006.

More of the parrot. Cheeky little minx that he is!

Parroting

The parrot's getting surprisingly friendly - he's started to sit down on the verandah railings and chatter away at me like I understand what he's talking about or asking. I just pretend that I do...

The magpies are also getting much more friendly, although in a bossy kind of way. They're some of the most amazingly un-shy birds around, strutting around the yard after you and warbling away in their bird talk. Might be time to give up wearing so much black, if they're starting to think I'm one of them :-p

Let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised

My Fake French Love Doctor schtick about romantic songs got me actually thinking more about the whole romance song thing, particularly after the Forum thoughts (even the FFLD is entirely satirical).

Plain and simple: I don't like pop romance songs.

This doesn't mean I don't appreciate songs about love - you don't get much better than opera for songs about love, passion and loss. If I want something that explores or expresses love, that's more of the kind of thing that I'll search out and listen to.

I just do not have time for $2 no-thought pop pap parading as romance. Love, to me, is not expressed by the Backstreet Boys clutching their shirts and falling to their knees in the rain, attempting to look soulful. That's the sort of thing that makes me gag.

It's mass-produced, souless, just a marketing thing rather than something that comes from deep down from someone's heart, written by some old dudes who sit around in offices wanting to tug at the bank accounts of teenagers, rather than their heart-strings. Get some moderately good-looking, non-threatening guys to croon it and voila, you've got a hit.

Okies, going off into music snobbery there. Not to say I don't mind some pop music, but mostly avoid it, because yes, it annoys me. But then most music I consider to be inane annoys me. If others like the pop romance, more power to 'em. But I'm not about to start.

As Australian educationalists Jane Caro and Lyndsay Connors pointed out this week, it's depressingly common for people to brand others' opinions as insidious ideologies while insisting their own views are values. Actual evidence to back up such positions is usually seen as an optional extra.

Well, far be it for a lowly, brainwashed student to suggest that Australian politicians lack intellectual rigour, but I reckon a little more research is required before the cold warriors of education do any more screaming about all these alleged reds under the texts.

-From How public education failed me with no mention of Mao by Emma Tom.

Grrr! Rant!

Ethnic leaders condemn Muslim cleric from The Age.

I'm glad the Ethnic Communities Council has done so.

Men saying absolute rubbish like the variety Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali was spouting forth deserve to have their opinions publicly crapped upon.

It's infuriating that there are men who think like this, regardless of whether they're into Allah or God or no gods at all, and dare to say that women who are raped or abused deserve it because of what they wear. To compare it to cats eating meat because it's left out merely indicates how little this guy understands and also that he doesn't seem to think that men are at all accountable for their actions, either.

Comparing a human being to meat truly shows how little respect he gives to women, regardless of what religion they're from or what kind of clothes they've got on.

Somehow women for years have managed to restrain themselves from randomly sexually assaulting men who walk around on hot days with no shirts on. So how can it be that there are still men out there who think that women are "asking for it" based on what they wear?

Apparently he "clarified" his statement to The Australian to say that he only meant prostitutes, but for goodness's sake... It's disgusting to suggest that anyone at all deserves abuse for how they dress.

"Anyone who is foolish enough to believe that there is a relationship between rape or unwelcome sexual interference and the failure to wear a hijab, clearly has no understanding of the nature of sexual crime" - Waleed Ali, Islamic Council of Victoria.

Update: Cleric apologises for 'meat' sermon from The Australian.

Curiouser and curiouser!

Google searching your own blog brings odd results!

My Blog "shares", according to Fantasy Blog Share Market.

Ze lurve advice num-nums viz ze Fake French Lurve Doctor

Ze love song.

Ahhh, ze love song. Zis es somezing zat makes me want to be sick ento my own scorn, no? Ze long drawn out varbling of ze tight-panted metrosexual Rod Stewarts of ze world do not please me.

And yet, zey seem to please so many more people 'oo buy Bryan Addams albums, clutching ze tissues as zey sob into zeir pillows in boring suburban bedrooms zat 'ave never seen ze passion of ze lurve num-nums!

Ven you break up viz someone, DO NOT LISTEN TO ZE LOVE SONGS! Zey turn you into a sobbing wreck, which is about as attractif as strappink a large Persian chatte to your 'ead and wearing ze last season's Versace. No-one vill lurve you in zis way, so it es better zat you put on zomething loud and shouty, no?

And ef you are a couple, zen please do not 'ave ze cutesy leettle "Zis es our romance song zat no-one else en ze world 'as ever thought of eevan 'aving to h'express zier lurve for one anozzer vizout ripping our clothes orf en a romantic vay and scaring ze world!" Maybe try somezing original, no? I find nozzing works like ze Rein/Raus by Rammstein in zese moments.

Et saves you from wailing, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND AAAAAA
AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII weeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeiiiillll allllllllllways luuuuuuuuuuurve yoooooooooooo-ooooooooooou" drunkenly at ze karaoke after ze breakup.

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr Seuss

I think we can trust the man who wrote about Green Eggs and Ham (one of my favourite books when I was lil') on this kind of thing. And let's not forget about Great Day For Up! either!

I *heart* Dr Seuss.

Schlechten Zeiten macht für die größten Witze?

Watching Hammer and Tickle, a documentary about jokes under Communism, and the jokes are great, but it's scary how people were jailed for five years or more for telling jokes against the Communist regiems.

Jailing people for joking ended in the 1950s as a general rule, but it's still a bit scary that that happened. I think I'd probably have been jailed under Communist rule! Although that probably would have been more for something like sedition...

However, it was interesting in the documentary how they linked an increase in people's freedom to joke about the regiems running their countries to the way those who allowed it were also the first to relinquish the Communist rule. But if you live somewhere where the country's leader thinks mis-spelling his name is some kind of sign of treason (something that would have been easy to do with a name like Nicolae Ceausescu), I guess you would have to be somewhat careful regardless!

Two East German soldiers are standing at their post on the Berlin Wall. One soldier says to the other, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" The other soldier replies, "Why do you ask?" The first says, "Well, if you are, I'll have to arrest you..."

This is the IKEA sofa called "Kramfors," which I absolutely love, because it makes it sound like you'd cram four people onto it, particularly because it's described as a "three-seater sofa."

Furniture that makes me laugh is good furniture indeed. Plus I LOVE that IKEA has a bathroom mirror called "Frack," because that's often what I'm tempted to say when I look in the mirror in the morning when my hair looks like it has independently been to Mars and back.

Tack for the happy browsing, IKEA :)

Bet you never thought you'd see Alan Jones here...

Mm'k, I'm going to admit that I'm surprised that Alan Jones is gay. Mainly surprised because I pay no attention to him, although if you ever see him on TV or whatever, there's the background angry noise that is his voice flogging whatever particularly dead and decaying horse he's on for the day with his eyes tightly squeezed shut, not realising the gates have been open for a long time. But I believe there was some buddying up to anti-gay pollies in the past. Or something. And also how he comes across as being strongly against "minority groups" in general.

I don't know, shock-jock radio never appealed to me (plus I think I always associated the "Golden Tonsils" of John Laws with the concept of "golden showers" and was wondering in a traumatised way about just how that may occur were the meanings at all related) (I is proud of me public school edjumucation) (although I think Cleo or Cosmo at an early age thanks to a friend's older sister is probably where that really came from), so I don't pay attention to it.

But it's also amusing with the letters to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald the other day written by one John Brennan comparing Jonesy to Jesus (yes, Jesus. Unless the person he was referring to in relation to 2000 years ago was really the local Roman ruler who particularly enjoyed crucifying people publicly, which seems more fitting, somehow... Or the analogy works because they both start with the letter "j").

And then the letters today about it, although it's not lady-like to snort with laughter while at your desk at work.

Still, credit to Jonesy for donating a lot of money to a variety of charities - not many times do people put their money where their mouth is - and it wasn't too bad lobbying to keep the Snowy Mountains Scheme in public hands, either. Wikipedia entry about him is interesting though.

But I'm really tired of shows on TV and radio that run along the lines of Jones-style attacks on immigrants, single parents, ethnic minorities, etc, Today/Tonight being one of the worst offenders. If the government is wanting the ABC to preface shows that contain "opinions" in them with a warning, why can it be that T/T is not prefaced with a warning that says, "Warning: This show is full of absolute soul-destroying poop. Watch at your own risk"??

...and would you like Astro-turf with that?

Being a young homeowner (well, loan owner with the bank kinda technically being the owner of the home) is perhaps a more unique position than I'd realised.

It's getting to be around the time of the month when the bank will send out its statement for how the loan's going, and that got me thinking that of all of the people I know around my own age, not many of them own a home or have been home owners (although there are a few that are/have - typically those who've been in the Navy or Army and get paid a great wage). Even some of my friends in their 30s and 40s don't own their own homes, although they earn good money and would be able to afford it.

Until I became involved in buying a house last year, I never realised how difficult it was. I thought you'd just go somewhere, see a house and go to the real estate agent, "Yep, like that one, I'll take it." But no, you make an offer, it may or may not be accepted by those who are selling and if not, you get to keep on hunting.

You go in with a lot of bluff and bravado and pretend to not be rather overwhelmed by the whole experience, and hide the way your knees are knocking together under the desk at the estate agent's where you're dressed up, knotted up inside and definitely up for flirting with the cute agent.

Housing is pretty expensive these days, too. In the past ten months or so in the area where I bought my house, the entry-level prices have increased significantly. There's also all of the extra costs involved with just getting a loan - bank fees, transfer fees, stamp duty, etc. Thankfully the first home owner's grant here in Victoria is pretty generous (or was at least when I bought a place), but so much of that goes on covering your "extra" expenses involved with paperwork, conveyancing, and of course that stamp duty thing.

Plus you need to have the deposit for the house. You can get loans without it, but generally they have a higher rate of interest on them, because the banks find it harder to insure against you not repaying them. If you want to pay less money to the banks in the long-term, it's so much better to scrimp and save and cobble together the deposit!

Then you become an owner and suddenly it's not as much fun as renting. Even though renting's not that much fun... There are so many responsibilities! If something goes wrong, you have to organise to get it fixed yourself, which means you get to pay for it, too. And let's not forget council rates, which make you scream in a muted fashion when you receive them for the first time.

Oh yes, insurance. Must have that. More money. Income insurance? God I haven't organised that yet and my 13 months of ownership are almost up... What about if you live in an area prone to bushfires? Or other natural disasters? Was it really that great an idea to buy up when what you've got could be turned into a pile of smoking cinders or a collection of wind-swept pieces of rubble by a bushfire or cyclone season?

So the big thing with homeownership when you're young? Responsibility. And loan repayments. And scrimping and saving to pay them off as quickly as possible (so you don't have to pay as much interest). And more responsibility, which leaves you wondering whether you're ready for that kind of thing yet, and surprised to find that you actually are.

It's not easy, nor is it as much fun as those ads with people talking about how they love their home they bought through L J Hooker or the latest faux-lake-oriented development thing make it out to be. But it's worth it. Probably.

As long as you don't think of it as buying into the suburban dream of white picket fences, a sensible car and 2.5 children (assuming you cut one in half and share it with the neighbours).

Renovations are fun, though...

If coffee could talk...

I was talking to Shredder earlier about what it would be like if coffee could talk (because he was saying he likes it because it can't). So far we've come up with:

Cheap coffee: "Drink me! I'm yours! But you won't respect my flavour in the morning!"

Expensive coffee: "Oh, you think you can drink me out of that mug? Please. You have no idea about these things. I'm $5 per 10 grams. PER 10 GRAMS, do you hear me? I deserve better treatment than this. And savour me, dammit!"

Fair trade coffee: "Man, don't let the man get you down and drinking that corporate coffee lord oppression brew, dude!"

Faux-expensive supermarket coffee: "I'm so confused. Am I top-shelf or like the other cheaper ones? Or am I super-cheap like those down there but just dressed in a better packet? I don't understand!"

Commercial coffee: "Blend 43! Have i got the right flavor 4 u!"

Flavoured coffee: "I'm much better than you other coffees in your little boring plain packages. Look at my colours! It's all to attract the laaayydeees..."

International Roast: "Awwright guv! Yor de boss!"

Percolated coffee: "Oooh yes push push harder HARDER! Ohhhhhhhh God yes!"

Instant coffee: "SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

My latest installation art piece for the office (note tongue-in-cheek there), entitled "Brokeback Chair Mountin'," assembled from some odd rocking foot-stools a colleague expelled from his office and our boss's broken chair back.

Moving indeed... ;)

Hmmm...

Kristin posted something last week about the US senate agreeing to torture, and the day after I found an article on www.ananova.com - Girl, 14, quizzed over anti-Bush MySpace page.

The girl's name is Julia Wilson, and at least she wasn't tortured... But it made me wonder what the Secret Service a) is doing looking around on MySpace and b) just what the Secret Service MySpace page would be like if they had one? (Something like: We're the Secret Service and we love finding fake currency, protecting our nation's leaders and partying on! LOLOLOLOL!!! And totally catching the most wanted fugitives! Gooooooooo America! LOLOLOLOL!?) (just working the MySpace stereotype there... although apparently half of MySpace users are over 30)

*ahem*

Okay, so she "made a threat against his life" (the SS has to investigate credible threats like that), but not really in a credible way, and hadn't used the blog for months and months, and had actually deleted it. Why not do something about it when it was originally created, rather than months down the track? Were they hoping that Osama bin Laden had been checking out the MySpace thing and she had his e-mail address?

I also found an article about it on a newspaper's website that allowed comments and was amazed at the right-wing replies on there, which generally ran along the lines of 'bring back military service' and 'blame the parents' and 'this is what liberalism is about!' and 'God ordained Bush, how dare anyone question anything he does,' plus the old chestnut of 'ship her to Iran and see how she likes it there' (ugh).

Bah, politics makes me want to puke sometimes!

Had the most bizarre experience today.

It was raining, so I decided to see some of the bad weather out by heading into one of the local stores. Wandering around in there is always quite relaxing, there's lots of pretty things to see.

This afternoon I stumbled across a beautifully painted leather box, apparently made in Japan. It captivated my interest, and I examined it in the quiet, darkened shop, running my hands over the butter-smooth leather.

I opened the lid of the box, which housed a mirror and was lined with a tea-coloured paper covered with Japanese script. Then I opened the first drawer beneath that, which was lined with black velvet. And then the second.

It contained a delicate silver key with a swastika at the top of it, silently gleaming against the black velvet lining.

Although I know the swastika-style symbol is part of Buddhist culture, it still was a little odd, perhaps because I'm half-German. Seeing such a thing that reminds you of horrors, death and evil in a beautiful container like that leather box is startling, to say the least.

I had to shut the box and the thoughts as I wandered out of the shop in which the lady who works there calls me "Elizabeth."

Perfume stores having birthday sales are fantastic - nothing like Alexander McQueen's Kingdom for $45.

My first photo with the new camera!!

Okay, it's definitely not up to the usual standard, but it was a moment of turning the camera on for the first time and snapping a photo. So exciting! And I finally have my "birthday" digital camera (only a couple months late). Hurrah!

An Ode to My Shoes pt I

Favourite shoes, how thou art adored by me!
Thou art the shiniest, reddest, pointiest in my collection,
Capturing my heart with thy cherry gloss,
Thy silver orb's empty reflection.

An Ode to My Shoes pt II

Oh accursed shoe, how thy points do pinch,
Gloriously thy shine mocks mine agony
As others do admire thee! Tease, Devil shod!
Combined in ecstatic, painful synchrony!

An Ode to My Shoes pt III

Thy insides art like the gardens of merrie, noble Spring,
Restoring my love for thee once more when removed,
Thou art truly excellent, glorious shoes of red!
My adoration of thee wilt not be disproved.

Okay, so I needed a distraction this afternoon and this was it... You know how it is sometimes!

Things I don't need to see while satisfying my odd late-night Mac Cheese craving, which is gross enough, but anyways:

The Movie Show's review for Boytown, or whatever the movie is, with guys jumping around on a stage in white suits singing, "I am sensitive to your special time of the month" or something like that to a bunch of middle-aged women.

Ack!

White and that "special time of the month" don't mix for a start...

But I do want to see Suburban Mayhem.

These are the roses I picked last week. Annnnd the first lot of Christmas decorations (the white things off to the right) that I've bought for the year. Scary to think that Christmas is but a little over two months away.

Looked at the (PRODUCT)RED website recently with their manifesto. This is part of it:

IF THEY DON'T GET THE PILLS, THEY DIE. WE DON'T WANT THEM TO DIE. WE WANT TO GIVE THEM THE PILLS. AND WE CAN. AND YOU CAN. AND IT'S EASY.

For some reason, I'm imagining in the shouty Irish accent of comedian Jason Byrne (tell me the stars on his site don't surprise you at least a little), before he then goes off onto a rant about how these kids need drugs because it's important that they don't miss out on the "life-enhancing experience of E," with some audience participation and more shouting.

"I fink so Brain, but if Jimmy cracks corn and no-one cares, why does he keep doing it?" - Pinky, Pinky and the Brain.

I love to go a-wandering...

I hate it when people are making small talk and ask you, "So, what did you do on the weekend?" and then you try to think of a suitably interesting yet average answer as you think, "Lord, what exactly did I do on the weekend? It was so boring even I've forgotten about it already... Or was I abducted by aliens and this is all part of... Oh yeah, it was good."

There's really not that much to say about weekends, unless you do something magnificent or totally out of the ordinary. Or at least something that's a little different. Do you go into the mundane detail? Regale them with tales of re-grouting the bathroom tiles? Delight them with descriptions of making an attempt to get the yard looking somewhat less like the jungle it is?

I guess I could just say, "Well, I well and truly learned my lesson about what local people mean by a 'walk' around here. It's not a walk. It's a hike or at least a looooong walk at a fast pace."

Went on one of these "walk" things with some local people on Saturday evening and I think it would have been about a 3km thing at a brisk pace (although I shouldn't complain - I'd walked 3kms earlier in the afternoon and that had kinda warmed me up for it, I guess). Just glad I'd remembered the last "walk" I'd been on and wore sensible shoes. But it was nice.

The first ever "walk" here was with some other local people who made it sound like it'd be a nice short wander. But no. It was a 5km hike up hill (mountain, if you will) and down dale while I was in clothes and shoes totally not appropriate for hiking through leach-country (miraculously, my open-toed slip-on shoes did not send them in plague proportions to attempt to feast on my feet - in fact, I didn't end up with any attaching themselves). Plus it was at power-walking pace, the entire way.

Unfun, to say the least...

So I guess the moral of the story is to check just what kind of "walk" people are intending to go on before you totter along in stilettos or skiing boots or flip flops. Or you may end up tramping along a trail muttering, "Kill me. Kill me now before my feet do!" under your breath.