Posts

Showing posts from May, 2011

And I Know Y'All Do

Image
To more serious matters, I'm sure you've all seen the horrifying images from Indonesian slaughterhouses of the abuse inflicted on Australian cattle sent there...can you please take a second to go to Ban Live Exports to voice your concerns and help end this practice? Of course, it is slightly sad that we all get so worked up over the fate of cattle leaving Australia for Indonesia on boats, and not the fate of humans treated like cattle on boats leaving Indonesia for Australia. But hey, it's something.

Because An ASW Can Never Have Too Many Blogs

So here I am with another blog. After signing off on The Xander and Nico Pod last year, I thought I was done with prose blogging. What else was there to say? I'd lost my muse John Howard - that rage was always good for a post or two - was caught in a career crisis, and there's only so many times a lady can complain about shopping centre layouts without coming off as a little peculiar. Times change. It could be that I have a new muse - I am beginning to dislike Julia Gillard with a small drop of the venom I once had for Howard - or that my change of job direction and volunteer work on a political campaign has given me a new perspective on things. Maybe it's impending motherhood, or just that I can't bear having attention diverted from me for so long. Whatever the cause, the urge to write has return and I'm going to run with it. I considered reviving the Pod, but things have moved on. Changing the name to the Xander and Nico and DH and Pinky and the Fish Pod would ju

What's Up With That - Federal Opposition Edition

The latest Liberal party scandal is quite a shock. People expected Tony Abbott to behave honourably and tell the truth? Shocking. The gist of the latest to-do is that Malcolm Turnbull was criticised in an internal Liberal Party email for failing to attend several parliamentary votes. Abbott has come under scrutiny for this because he himself also was absent from the votes, and more crucially, that whilst at first denying that he had seen this email before it was leaked to the press, Abbott now admits he did in fact read the thing at the time it was sent. This comes just days after Opposition Treasury spokesperson Joe Hockey - the "nice" Liberal - criticised Abbott for his lack of support in the aftermath of the Opposition's right of reply to the budget. So, the Liberal party is being riven by internal disagreement and Tony Abbott is revealed as being not quite as truthful a character as one would hope from an alternative Prime Minister. What else is new? The weird thing t

Not Like The Others

According to what passes for popular culture these days, pregnant women are supposed to be beatific. Tranquil. Smiling enigmatically with glowing hair and skin and the cutest ever baby bump. Why the hell don't I feel like that? No, it's not a case of feeling dowdy - I have purple hair and dark green fingernails right now (and considering I haven't had a slice of ham or a sip of alcohol for over six months I'm perfectly content with my decision to dye my hair, thank you); it's that I'm, well, so damn angry. Just today, I've had a full and frank exchange of views with both the phone and pay TV companies (five tech visits in six weeks and we still don't have service); made several threatening references to the UN, and ended with the words "screw Flanders" over and over again. In the past few months we've moved, opened new bank accounts and had a computer crash, and this has meant lots and lots of dealing with call centres to get things sorted.