An Awesome Arguement

Today I got to chat face to face with racism. How did it feel? I'm not some interviewer like Andrew Denton or Oprah. Not even a lowely TV psychologist like Doctor Phil or Koschie from Sunrise.
But I was excited and thrilled and got to smack that racism bitch down like a true chauvanist!
It started with the innocuos question (i really shouldn't use adjectives what I don't know what they mean) 'How was your weekend' my UNESCO seminar on aboriginal entrepreneaurship one out over tupperware party (even though tupperware party is a more exotic experience for me than peace and love gatherings of intellectual snobs) I was really feeling strongly about this one because a couple of corn kernals had gone pop in my brain and they were dripping with butter.
Australia is racist. 90% of funding from the government goes to remote communities even though 70% of the indegenous population live in urban areas. This perception is cultivated by the media. Of the 6089 aboriginals classed by the ABS as Self employed (representing 4.8% of the indigenous population) 2058 are employers only the rest are classed as Other Self Employed which is a politicised term of the work for the dole scheme.
Many Aboriginal entrepreneaurs claim to be indonesian and south east asian because it is favorably percieved relative to being Indegenous.
My spelling is pretty atrocious but as I was realing off such facts racism surfaced and stopped me.
'Hold on, I have a friend who went to Dubbo and she was afraid to go out on the streets because those arogant ungrateful aboriginals would have beaten her up'
A) Suggesting she was afriad of something that might happen rathen than something that would happen.
B) I have said before the Anglo Saxon is Mr. My Way or the High Way, the most merciless, intolerent and violent race to ever grace the earth.
C) Aboriginals as far as I am aware have never committed genocide and dispossessed any White races in history.
When I explained this racism said:
'Your talking about our great great great great grandparents'
To which I replied 'Up until the 70's an aboriginal women wasn't allowed to own property the government would confiscate it, this isn't generations we are talking about this is generation.
So racism got tactful: 'Australia is multi cultural, they get all these benefits. Any other race that comes here can get work.'
A) Being on centrelink is not the dream of any individual anywhere. It isn't a glorious or worthwhile occupation it is a symptom of a racist repressive system.
B) Italians an greeks were brought in as migrants to employment and as such were given more of a chance than any indegenous residents ever got simply by having structural employment and being able to freely practice their way of life (being European)
C) $8 an hour is a good wage for a Chinese international student in China town, these students find it incredibly hard to find employment in decent jobs against local students.
We two'd and fro'd between customer calls for a while but racism was cornered, not realising this manifestation of an attitude was precisely the problem.
'They get all these benefits and do nothing with it'
All these benefits what about all the free land white colonists stole and have derived millions apon millions of dollars of wealth only to spend a measly few million on indegenous affairs. I'd fucking attack these whiteys too.
'They can get work, I lost my job and I put out heaps of resumes and got work.'
Where did you work racism?
'Jeans West'
And how many overweight people did jeanswest employ on the shop floor?
And that was it that was the clincher I had to put it like that before she realised that an aboriginal can no more get a job with the Australian attitude than a fat chick can work at jeans west.
Life isn't as simple as trying hard.
The real sad thing that highlights it all was this guy that spoke to us spoke of a dude who was the first aboriginal member of the Coffs Harbour Golf Club and President no less, as well as president of the Hoteliers and Caravan association actually went to England to get educated.
An abbo had to go to another country to have a chance. Not in Multi-Cultural Australia.

Blasphemy and Criticism

Tom Jones said 'There isn't a day I wake up where I don't thank god I'm Welsh' it's an odd quote. Everyday I appreciate that I am a dude and I am an atheist.
A fair while ago Father Bob wrote on his blog about dealing with blasphemy highlighting the violent riots of Moslem communities around the world to the portrayel of Mohammed by some newspaper (a reaction Mohammed would have condemned and furthermore the purpose of forbidding Mohammed from being portrayed is so he would never become the focal point of the religion and treated as an idol rather than a messenger) and the Taliban's destruction of carved Buddha's in Afghanistan. The Christian groups protests against the da vinci code and Scientologists outrage at the Southpark episode that portrayed their religion as a money making scam.
Yet these reactions highlight the flimsiness of the belief and the misalligned energy of its practitioners.
I'm not a fan of democracy but what I love about it isn't the supposed self determination of the electoral process, nor all civil liberties put together but the fact that comedians can bag out the powers that be.
Think about it when was the last person too fragile to hear criticism ever to make an impact on the world. Most religious leaders and economic theorists were regarded as crack pots and weirdos in their time.
My coworker is a smoker, rather than thinking about the new graphic imagery on her cigarette packs she got the guy at the store to filter through them till he found one with only a graph on it.
I can't imagine how many teenage girls are being spared this debilitating habit right now by the fact the package conflicts with the 'cool' imagery.
Yet her solution was to find a way not to look at it.
If your a smoker see if you can handle this criticism: You smeel bad, your dwellings smell bad, you are unfit, your fingernails are yellowish and your teeth are brown.
There's ways to cover up all of this but the fact is if you don't confront the criticism the criticism will destroy you. Whatever it may be, (I was criticised over my appearance and attire recently at work, it pissed me off but I felt at ease when I addressed it) it exists. The things portrayed on cigarette packaging doesn't not exist because it's not their.
Blasphemous thoughts don't go away because nobody is voicing them. They infact get channelled into policy by the resentful populace all achieving further alienation because nobody is willing to engage in discussion.
If you disagree with me, just imagine you smell real bad, maybe you do. Wouldn't you rather know?

Choo Choo

Hey all. I thought I'd include this quote that recently inspired me from Allen Iverson star of 76'ers NBA team and one of those little engines that could players that I always gravitate towards. Read it, I mean you're going to because you've already read this far, it is inarticulate and delivered post losing a finals knockout match where coach Larry Brown criticised Allen for not attending practice in the lead up to the playoffs.

I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're in here talking about practice. I mean listen, we're talking about practice. Not a game . . . We're talking about practice. Not a game . . . that I go out there and die for, and play every game like it's my last. Not the game. We're talking about practice, man. I mean, how silly is that? We're talking about practice. I know I'm supposed to be there. I know I'm supposed to lead by example . . . I know it's important . . . I honestly do. But we're talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice? We're talking about practice, man . . . We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We ain't talking about the game, we're talking about practice, man. When you come into the arena, and you see me play . . . you see me give everything I got, right? But we're talking about practice right now. We're talking about practice . . . We're not even talking about the game, the actual game, when it matters. We're talking about practice.

— Allen Iverson at a press conference on May 8, 2002

He said "practice" more times than he's actually practiced.
— Larry Brown speaking to reporters the next day

Racism the T-shirt

I was in K-mart last week looking for Sydney Swans Away socks, I figured what better way to showcase my delicious calves than in the candy cane white and red stripes of my surrogate finals team in the Carlton dismal years.
I ended up settling on St Kilda socks which I must admit caress my legs in a surprisingly delightful manner.
But those two points are irrelevent except that on the day I bought these socks Carlton got slaughtered by the Saints by 92 points.
The point which is not the point but in fact my introduction is that there was a shirt for girls that said 'my eyes are up here' on it and had an arrow pointing from the chest to the neckhole. I thought I should buy that shirt. I did think that but now I don't know why because I can't recall what the point of this observation was as an introduction. But I'm going to buy that shirt and fuck the consequences.
Anyway, people complain about rising petrol prices. My work is obsessed with Chinese copy product. Everyone is nervouse about the Chinese communist parties recent decision to allow the most populous nation in the world to participate in the economy.
Everyone feels uneasy as resource industries experience record sales ripping minerals out of the earth and other billion dollar corporations cry poor as their manufacturing costs are suddenly well above the global benchmark.
But seriously this mentallity is fucked up. I've been studying international trade for a semester now and all methods of intervention and prevention cost society a deadweight loss even in the best of circumstances.
And all methods of intervention and protectionism are infact racism. When motorists are outraged at the price of oil they are being racist. When mum & dad investors buy Telstra shares for fear of some multinational taking over we are being racist.
Because it's all based on the assumption that we are somehow more entitled to the worlds common resources simply because we are used to consuming them.
When I see Tasmanian loggers coming out in force to bitch about their livelihood being lost I never see them coming out in force to protest the lost livelihood of offshore manufacturers who aren't employed because of Tariffs or Subsidies.
Nobody gets indignant about who misses out unless its us that misses out. Possibly the source of all inequity in the world is the fact that occasionally people forget to even stick up for themselves.
But seriously. Why should we drive an SS Sports Utility with its inefficient fuel consumption and burn petrol that could have been split between 5 families worth of mopeds in thailand or indonesia? Sure we'll put our loose change into buckets and bins for ambiguous tsunami charities. We'll give two bucks to anyone foreign looking with a jar at times like those.
There's really no justification, no justification at all apart from racism to 'buy Australian' if you take a truly global perspective. Australian products don't sell to well against imports because they are expensive. They are expensive because due to inefficient processes we consume more resources producing them than another nation with a comparitive advantage in one of the factors of production.
Any resource wasted in production is a cost to society, generally because wasted inputs cost money (unless sold as by-product) and this cost needs to be recovered by the producing firm so is passed on to the consumer.
A consumer won't pay this cost if they can consume a more efficiently produced competitor product that fulfills the same need. So in free trade you purchase it off the countries that produce it more efficiently.
If you tax these imports consumers can not only consume less of the good than they want to they are forced to buy normally uncompetitive products. eg. You have a one legged representitive running for Australia in the melbourne commonwealth games so you bring the competition to their level by making all the other athletes tie their ankles together.
It's less enjoyable and we're needless throwing away POTENTIAL for the sake of national pride.
Nobody would say it was right for an Executive to employ his son over better candidates. Why do we make an exception when it comes to whole industries where surely it is more morally reprehensible.
For the record the Australian Made brand doesn't mean much to consumers, Australians aren't big on nationalistic buying opting for quality. Japanese consumers are yet they have started to take the right steps in their stagnant economy (Japan is my Jesus isn't it the moral always seems to come back to it) Sony corp has employed a british dude as it's global CEO a powerhouse like Sony has broken through one of the most jingoistically Xenophobic nations in the world.
Nobody thinks much of Australia, at least not as much as Australian media portrays maybe we could surprise them and open up. How can you invade and conquer a country with no defense?

Man crush

A lot of interesting things happened today. But I wont talk about it because this blog was never going to be as coherent as an account of daily events.
Something curious has happened to me that I have never experienced before. Not true love no, I have experienced that a couple of times and would be sure if that were the case. I got my first man crush. I've never thought anyone but far off ditant rockstars an celebrities were cooler or had more to offer me than I did myself but since I've started playing basketball again for the first time I've got a role model in coolness.
He's a japanese dude. I've met cool Japanese before and I must say Japanese people re very dedicated and generally are dedicated to either being cool or being studious. The studious ones are the ones that tend to make it to Australia. At any rate this guy had done both so you know high fives all round for him.
He's one of these showman harlem globetrotter spin the ball on their finger types and he has it ll down, the style, the humour all of that.
I have friends who are funny, but not attractive.
I have friends who are attractive but not funny.
I have friends who are funny and attractive but they aren't good for anything or at anything.
So this dude has all three as far as I'm concerned.
It's not homo erotic or anything, which is why Man-crush is a popular but misleading term. It's like when women talk about Angelina Jolie, because really what they are seeing is John Voight minus a moustache I guess.
I culdn't begin to speculate if I would be attracted to this dude if I was a chick. If I was a chick I'd probably have different interests, tastes and preferences anyway.
so really its a dumb question and I'm offended that you ask.
Besides Japanese people are supposed to have real small dicks.

Hair Hair Hair Long Glorious Hair

I am a long hair. For over a year now no artificial mens has been used to cmbat the progression of my hair. I don't want to sound queer or nothing but long hair is beautiful. On a guy. On gils too, nothing is as surer sign of surrender to middle age than closely cropped hair on a girl with a few exceptions like shaved heads and lezbian haircuts.
Anyway nothiing is so manly as the Leonine main created through a combination of extreme patience and shampoos designed for 'curl enhancement' although women are of differing opinion since the advent of 'Friends' and chandler's puncey move to gelled (that's groovy - can be heard by your hairdresser as she tries to reassure a teenager they are cool) short spikes in what is otherwise a haircut acceptable for the milatary. In Chandler's case it was probably a good move as he is and remains a punce.
But you see a guy running around a park with a shaved head you just think he's someone who you don't particularly want to talk to. But Vainglorious locks bouncing rythmically up and down like unsecured breasts in flight is majestic, hypnotic and more to the point distracts people from how fast/slow you actually run.
Take my advice grow your hair guys even if the girls don't apreciate it at least you can braid it at sleepovers.

I am back

After having my wireless drop out over afortnight ago, inexplicably I have finally wired up my computers on LAN now I have fast reliable internet. I have missed you blog more as a forum for my self love than I miss an emotional crutch like a weak willed friend that you push around. Those are fun too.
Just remember picking on other people DOES make you feel better about yourself. Screw those who judge your motivations.
Oh yeah and love thy neighbour.

Chizmolackin

Last night I was at some dude I don't know's birthday party at the queensberry and I said to my friend when we stood in the empty dance room which had a disco ball in every corner 'this is what it's like in my head all the time.'
I don't want to sound like das uberman or any thing but there's probably three-four times a year where I'm actually bored because my head is all glitter on the inside. Generally I get bored when something is holding my attention that I can't space out from, like a performer that has me trapped in a small place.
My ex gave me a book for a birthday or christmas or some shit called 'the outsider' an 'exostentialist' novel about a dude who shoots a guy and is convicted on the death penalty because he fails to show emotion about his mother's death.
Wasn't that a nice aside?
I forget why I brought it up but those of you familiar with the text will hopefully draw lines easier than those who haven't in how I find really mundane experiences quite entertaining. Like those fucking Lipton tea adds with the fucking drops from the tap and dust catching sunlight.
So today I got on a train around 12 and had my trusty black jacket on with it's trustier YKK zip. I had my headphones in and my pocket perfection pants on. I have been hitting 'Peeping Tom' Mike Patton's solo album that was much anticipated by people who anticipate things, pretty hard. I've probably listened to the album 100 times through in a week. The new Tool album was a different story, one too painful to talk about.
So anyway I was plugged in and turned on, a Peeping Tom on the train. Cruising into Flinders St, I walked past Ben Rossi and some girl he had his arm around which was fucking weird because Bryce and I had been talking about him over dinner the night before and neither of us would have seen him inside two years, I assume.
Cruised on through and ordered my Hungry Jacks for lunch. Zen tells us to eat with mindfullness, as in tune in and be aware of the tastes, textures and sensations in eating a food, they suggest you start out with peas. Anyway I forget to do this with just about every food that I eat like an animal except for some reason the Hungry Jack's whopper. It truly is a food sensation in your mouth. Like national coming out day for your taste buds or some shit.
So I did that and loved it. Then cruised up swanston.
I was just going to comment on my ipod when I relised all references to my ipod could be taken as condescending and pase (with that accent thing on the e). Seriously fuck you, ask for one for your birthday. They are great and easy to use and have 90% of the market so I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not and say 'MP3 player' you know Esky is a brnd name? and mp3? fuck you poor arse in your poor arse.
Anyway what I was going to say is that ipod's allow you to soundtrack your lives and I have a playlist I randomly threw together called 'chizmolackin' and I thought as I walked up swanston towards the QV Big W if anything could describe Chizmolackin as a sensation it is how I feel right now.
Complete fucking ease, like a carnal commencement after copious foreplay. Nothing like cruising the streets dressed how you want to be, not how work wants you to be. Listening to something that adds texture to the living gray populated by impressionistic colour that is the streets of Melbourne.
So there you go pure pleasure in the activity that defines ballafornian youth 'going down the street'.
I bought a new Basketball, and started playing basketball with the REW kids. It was a runnaway success and yet another thing that makes me truly great. Maybe I'll start a backyard charity called 'Fun for Foreigners who can't speak english good'.
Peace out contrarians.