Saturday, March 14, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Juxtaposing Layers
OK, OK, OK.
I know. It's been nearly 12 months since my last update. And no. Unlike the amount of traffic moving around the intranets regarding the tragedy of what's been happening in terms of natural disasters here in Victoria this last week, I haven't been moved to update this blog because of it.
No.
I've been moved to updating this site due to an outrage that's been building in me for a while now. As a human being, OF COURSE I empathise with the victims of natural disasters, the world's poor, of injustice. I'm outraged by the corruption of the world's leaders, and I'm sickened by the rise & rise of racism in this country under the Howard government's tenure in Canberra, and the fact that it hasn't abated under Kevin Rudd's regime.
But that's not why I'm moved to update this site tonight. No sir (or madam).
Sure the bottle of Mount Barker Cabernet Shiraz has helped motivate this diatribe (not to mention the couple of "sneaky go's" of Wild Turkey that slipped past my lips earlier this evening), but no.
The "prime motivator", as I once heard someone say in a meeting I attended once, has nothing at all do with any of these equally inspirational things. I've been inspired to write due to the use of two simple words, used together in a sentence, to describe food.
I guess I should explain.
I like to cook, and I like TV, so obviously I'm a fan of the Food Channel on cable TV. Now of all of the programs one finds littering the ever-repeating schedule of celebrity chef star-maker programs, is a little locally-produced gem, an Australian hybrid of an English program, named "The Best in Australia".
I really appreciate this program, as unlike so many of it's competitors, it feels very unpretentious, very natural, and the hosts seem to have an honest rapport with each other. The hosts are Darren Simpson, Anna Gare, and Ben O'Donoghue - all very likable characters; all very much the type of people you'd love to receive a dinner invitation from. And not just because they're all quite accomplished in the kitchen, but also because they seem like quite decent people, with likable personalities, and healthy senses of humour.
But the hosts are not the reason why I've been moved to update this site.
If you have access to the Food Channel, or indeed, you come across the dvd version of series 2, check out episode five. The show's premise is that our three intrepid cooks compete to come up with the best dishes with a theme, and this episode features the theme, "Best Old Fashioned Desert". Anna Gare cooks a sublime "Bombe Alaska Made With Shop Ice-Cream Jazzed Up With Dad's Burnt Cumquat Marmalade" - quite the mouthful regardless of the emphasis of the description.
Now I mentioned that the three hosts compete, but how is this judged? The meals, upon completion, are served onto three plates, and sent God-only-knows-where in a dumb-waiter to the judges. The judges seem to be a miscellaneous trio of folks, all as opinionated as they are anonymous, nobodies (ironic coming from a blogger). Now upon rating the aforementioned "Bombe Alaska", one of the judges, a twenty-something member of the incredibly horrible "Y-Generation", has the chutzpah to describe this sweet piece of yumminess by it's "...juxtaposing layers".
Juxtaposing layers.
Juxtaposing layers? Fuck me!
This jumped up little fucker has described a desert by it's "...juxtaposing layers". Now we've all heard the Andy Warhol "15 minutes of fame" diatribe a million times over, but SHIT! This guy has summed up a traditional sweet desert by it's juxtaposing layers. Is this a feeble attempt by this high priest of right-handed self-gratification to impress the humble populace of viewerdom?
I think, in a classic expression of Australian vernacular, this bloke is a tosser, a wanker, a monkey spanker. But what's more, I think this guy must be a Liberal voting, future captain of industry, with more friends than you and I on Facebook, and a healthy appreciation for his own self-worth.
Or, as your humble grumbler would prefer, he's obviously just a pretentious little cunt.
Now enough of my diatribe, click the following link to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal, or call 1800 811 700.
Thank you, and good evening.
I know. It's been nearly 12 months since my last update. And no. Unlike the amount of traffic moving around the intranets regarding the tragedy of what's been happening in terms of natural disasters here in Victoria this last week, I haven't been moved to update this blog because of it.
No.
I've been moved to updating this site due to an outrage that's been building in me for a while now. As a human being, OF COURSE I empathise with the victims of natural disasters, the world's poor, of injustice. I'm outraged by the corruption of the world's leaders, and I'm sickened by the rise & rise of racism in this country under the Howard government's tenure in Canberra, and the fact that it hasn't abated under Kevin Rudd's regime.
But that's not why I'm moved to update this site tonight. No sir (or madam).
Sure the bottle of Mount Barker Cabernet Shiraz has helped motivate this diatribe (not to mention the couple of "sneaky go's" of Wild Turkey that slipped past my lips earlier this evening), but no.
The "prime motivator", as I once heard someone say in a meeting I attended once, has nothing at all do with any of these equally inspirational things. I've been inspired to write due to the use of two simple words, used together in a sentence, to describe food.
I guess I should explain.
I like to cook, and I like TV, so obviously I'm a fan of the Food Channel on cable TV. Now of all of the programs one finds littering the ever-repeating schedule of celebrity chef star-maker programs, is a little locally-produced gem, an Australian hybrid of an English program, named "The Best in Australia".
I really appreciate this program, as unlike so many of it's competitors, it feels very unpretentious, very natural, and the hosts seem to have an honest rapport with each other. The hosts are Darren Simpson, Anna Gare, and Ben O'Donoghue - all very likable characters; all very much the type of people you'd love to receive a dinner invitation from. And not just because they're all quite accomplished in the kitchen, but also because they seem like quite decent people, with likable personalities, and healthy senses of humour.
But the hosts are not the reason why I've been moved to update this site.
If you have access to the Food Channel, or indeed, you come across the dvd version of series 2, check out episode five. The show's premise is that our three intrepid cooks compete to come up with the best dishes with a theme, and this episode features the theme, "Best Old Fashioned Desert". Anna Gare cooks a sublime "Bombe Alaska Made With Shop Ice-Cream Jazzed Up With Dad's Burnt Cumquat Marmalade" - quite the mouthful regardless of the emphasis of the description.
Now I mentioned that the three hosts compete, but how is this judged? The meals, upon completion, are served onto three plates, and sent God-only-knows-where in a dumb-waiter to the judges. The judges seem to be a miscellaneous trio of folks, all as opinionated as they are anonymous, nobodies (ironic coming from a blogger). Now upon rating the aforementioned "Bombe Alaska", one of the judges, a twenty-something member of the incredibly horrible "Y-Generation", has the chutzpah to describe this sweet piece of yumminess by it's "...juxtaposing layers".
Juxtaposing layers.
Juxtaposing layers? Fuck me!
This jumped up little fucker has described a desert by it's "...juxtaposing layers". Now we've all heard the Andy Warhol "15 minutes of fame" diatribe a million times over, but SHIT! This guy has summed up a traditional sweet desert by it's juxtaposing layers. Is this a feeble attempt by this high priest of right-handed self-gratification to impress the humble populace of viewerdom?
I think, in a classic expression of Australian vernacular, this bloke is a tosser, a wanker, a monkey spanker. But what's more, I think this guy must be a Liberal voting, future captain of industry, with more friends than you and I on Facebook, and a healthy appreciation for his own self-worth.
Or, as your humble grumbler would prefer, he's obviously just a pretentious little cunt.
Now enough of my diatribe, click the following link to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal, or call 1800 811 700.
Thank you, and good evening.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Chris Joss - Discotheque Dancing
I have decided to introduce a new rating system for things that tickle my fancy, and what better way to judge what's cool than by using the epitome of cool himself, Steve McGarrett from Hawaii Five-O, everyone's favorite show in the Seventies.
And the inaugrial award goes to a fantastic song, with an absolutely wicked film clip (is that too old school of me to call it film clip?) - Chris Joss performing his funky-as-all-get-out anthem "Discotheque Dancing". Now I've obviously come in late on the Chris Joss story, but better late than never! This song does the business!
I'm going to give this a rating of three Steve McGarretts :
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Going Up the Country...
About 20 years ago, a mate of mine telephoned me from his family's holiday home in Mansfield in the North Eastern Victorian "High Country", to tell me that he & his band had manged to get a gig at the Merrijig Hotel.
Now his band was just starting out, so this was a big deal to get a gig in a pub - even if it was a few hundred km's from the city! So my buddy Ted & I jumped into my beat-up old 1973 Mazda 1200, and off up the Hume Hwy we went. All was going well until a burning smell started to fill the cabin at a town named Yea, a good hour's drive from Mansfield. Yes, we had "cooked" the motor, but undeterred, we pushed on, leaving the car at the local RACV yard, we caught the local bus (after a few hour's wait)the rest of the way to Mansfield.
We then had to leg it into the hills outside of town, to find my friend's farm - both of us had only been there once before, and it was starting to get dark (& cold).
An hour or so later, we finally made it to the farm house, only to find that it had been deserted, but a note was left for us, telling us to meet them in Mansfield, and we'd all go to the gig together.
Now this was in the days before mobile phones - remember those days? The note was the only means of communicating with an absent friend back in the eighties. The note was everything - "Why didn't you leave me a note? I was worried sick!"
Faced with the prospect of hanging around the deserted farm house all night, waiting for our mates to return triumphantly after rocking the Merrijig pub, the temptation got the better of us, and our youthful enthusiasm convinced us to head back into town, meet our friends, and enjoy the gig as we'd intended.
As it had taken an hour to walk to the farm house from town, if we were going to make it, we figured that we had to find some alternative means of transport. A quick peruse around the farmhouse revealed a turn-of-the-century old push bike, with no tyres or brakes, but we figured it was good enough.
So, we set off into the inky blackness on board our tyreless old treadly - my mate pedaling furiously, and me propped very uncomfortably on the handle bars, and started the trip downhill to Mansfield.
Clearly, the principles of perpetual motion had not figured into our cunning travel plan, that was of course until we entered hyper-space about half way down the hill - my mate stopped pedaling, and I started praying.
Through some kind of miracle, the angle of our descent seemed to relax as we got closer to town, and we both started thinking that we'd actually make it without having gravel-rash applied to our faces, chins, arms & legs. Even the inky-darkness started to clear as Mansfield's street lights illuminated our way to what was going to be a triumphant entrance in town. Mind you, the G-Force we were still experiencing would have knocked out Neil Armstrong, but it would be well worth it. We were going to rock out to my mate's band - does it get any better than that?
But then we saw it - a thing that would put any normal cyclist on the alert, but would send a tyreless, brakeless cyclist into the realms of horror, anxiety & panic!
Road works.
Lots of gravel.
Steel "No Thoroughfare" signs.
We were SCREWED!
There was no way our downhill trip (reaching speeds Han Solo would have been proud of) would allow us to come to a gentle halt, and entering the construction zone was a suicide mission, so my embattled pilot steered the bike towards a car park located in the medium strip of the road. That was great, but like any car park, a gutter surrounded it, thus separating car parks from the medium strip, and some vegetation.
Vegetation?
We hit the curb doing about 40 km per hour, and were both flung into the bushes conveniently located along the edge of the car park. Once my head cleared, and I realised nothing was broken (or hanging off), I called out to Ted to make sure we were OK (he was). I was about to climb out of the bushes, when a bright light filled my eyes.
Was this a vision of God, reminding us that it was His will that we were both still alive?
No.
It was a member of the local constabulary, whom had witnessed our crash landing from his squad car parked not 10 metres from our landing point. How did we miss that? To this day I can only guess that it must have been the speed-haze blurring our vision.
Now, how does one begin to explain what had just transpired to a humorless country cop, whom thought all of his Xmases has come at once, as two long-haired city boys had flung themselves into his gaze, having been catapulted on a seemingly-stolen bike, with no tyres & no brakes?
You don't.
So, we missed the band, got a grilling from the cop, and then spent the next hour or so pushing the tyreless bike back up the hill to the farmhouse.
And when we tried to tell our friends the story on their return from the gig, they called us "Soft Cocks".
I never really liked my mate's band anyway...
Now his band was just starting out, so this was a big deal to get a gig in a pub - even if it was a few hundred km's from the city! So my buddy Ted & I jumped into my beat-up old 1973 Mazda 1200, and off up the Hume Hwy we went. All was going well until a burning smell started to fill the cabin at a town named Yea, a good hour's drive from Mansfield. Yes, we had "cooked" the motor, but undeterred, we pushed on, leaving the car at the local RACV yard, we caught the local bus (after a few hour's wait)the rest of the way to Mansfield.
We then had to leg it into the hills outside of town, to find my friend's farm - both of us had only been there once before, and it was starting to get dark (& cold).
An hour or so later, we finally made it to the farm house, only to find that it had been deserted, but a note was left for us, telling us to meet them in Mansfield, and we'd all go to the gig together.
Now this was in the days before mobile phones - remember those days? The note was the only means of communicating with an absent friend back in the eighties. The note was everything - "Why didn't you leave me a note? I was worried sick!"
Faced with the prospect of hanging around the deserted farm house all night, waiting for our mates to return triumphantly after rocking the Merrijig pub, the temptation got the better of us, and our youthful enthusiasm convinced us to head back into town, meet our friends, and enjoy the gig as we'd intended.
As it had taken an hour to walk to the farm house from town, if we were going to make it, we figured that we had to find some alternative means of transport. A quick peruse around the farmhouse revealed a turn-of-the-century old push bike, with no tyres or brakes, but we figured it was good enough.
So, we set off into the inky blackness on board our tyreless old treadly - my mate pedaling furiously, and me propped very uncomfortably on the handle bars, and started the trip downhill to Mansfield.
Clearly, the principles of perpetual motion had not figured into our cunning travel plan, that was of course until we entered hyper-space about half way down the hill - my mate stopped pedaling, and I started praying.
Through some kind of miracle, the angle of our descent seemed to relax as we got closer to town, and we both started thinking that we'd actually make it without having gravel-rash applied to our faces, chins, arms & legs. Even the inky-darkness started to clear as Mansfield's street lights illuminated our way to what was going to be a triumphant entrance in town. Mind you, the G-Force we were still experiencing would have knocked out Neil Armstrong, but it would be well worth it. We were going to rock out to my mate's band - does it get any better than that?
But then we saw it - a thing that would put any normal cyclist on the alert, but would send a tyreless, brakeless cyclist into the realms of horror, anxiety & panic!
Road works.
Lots of gravel.
Steel "No Thoroughfare" signs.
We were SCREWED!
There was no way our downhill trip (reaching speeds Han Solo would have been proud of) would allow us to come to a gentle halt, and entering the construction zone was a suicide mission, so my embattled pilot steered the bike towards a car park located in the medium strip of the road. That was great, but like any car park, a gutter surrounded it, thus separating car parks from the medium strip, and some vegetation.
Vegetation?
We hit the curb doing about 40 km per hour, and were both flung into the bushes conveniently located along the edge of the car park. Once my head cleared, and I realised nothing was broken (or hanging off), I called out to Ted to make sure we were OK (he was). I was about to climb out of the bushes, when a bright light filled my eyes.
Was this a vision of God, reminding us that it was His will that we were both still alive?
No.
It was a member of the local constabulary, whom had witnessed our crash landing from his squad car parked not 10 metres from our landing point. How did we miss that? To this day I can only guess that it must have been the speed-haze blurring our vision.
Now, how does one begin to explain what had just transpired to a humorless country cop, whom thought all of his Xmases has come at once, as two long-haired city boys had flung themselves into his gaze, having been catapulted on a seemingly-stolen bike, with no tyres & no brakes?
You don't.
So, we missed the band, got a grilling from the cop, and then spent the next hour or so pushing the tyreless bike back up the hill to the farmhouse.
And when we tried to tell our friends the story on their return from the gig, they called us "Soft Cocks".
I never really liked my mate's band anyway...
Monday, February 25, 2008
Michel Gondry is Back!
Thanks to the always wonderful Driven By Boredom, I have learnt that the new Michel Gondry film “Be Kind Rewind”, is currently screening in the US. I guess that means we'll see it in 2053, but by the sounds of things, it'll be worth the wait.
For those whom joined us late, Michel Gondry is one of the most inventive film directors making movies right now – you might know his work from “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “The Science of Sleep”, or the awesome videos he's made for the White Stripes (Fell in Love With a Girl & The Hardest Button to Button).
By the way, “Eternal Sunshine” is in my top 10 all time fave films, and I can't watch it without weeping, so if you haven't already done so, go forth & buy it/torrent it/hire it, but whatever you do, do it soon!
I'm hardly going to review a film I've never seen, so I'll simply pass on the research material :
Here's the official trailer :
And here's the "sweded" version (by Michel Gondry - research people, research):
For those whom joined us late, Michel Gondry is one of the most inventive film directors making movies right now – you might know his work from “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “The Science of Sleep”, or the awesome videos he's made for the White Stripes (Fell in Love With a Girl & The Hardest Button to Button).
By the way, “Eternal Sunshine” is in my top 10 all time fave films, and I can't watch it without weeping, so if you haven't already done so, go forth & buy it/torrent it/hire it, but whatever you do, do it soon!
I'm hardly going to review a film I've never seen, so I'll simply pass on the research material :
Here's the official trailer :
And here's the "sweded" version (by Michel Gondry - research people, research):
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Tote - "F.U.N. - It's THAT Simple!"
Whilst conducting my usual online rounds this afternoon, I came across an advertisement on My Space which I could not resist following. There is a documentary film being made on that bastion of Melbourne Rock 'n' Roll, The Tote in Collingwood.
I checked out the first of two trailers that is available to view there, and it reminded me of all of those nights spent at The Tote, sweatin', stinkin', and gettin' drunk, all the while watching some of the best live rock music in town!
Oh the memories...
Sunday afternoon BBQ gigs, where the cover charge included a BBQ - snags in bread, with plenty of sauce, all washed down with lots of cold beer! Seeing TISM, Painter & Dockers, Cosmic Psychos, various incarnations of I Spit on Your Gravy, Bored, Hoodoo Gurus, The Huxton Creepers, Mr Floppy, Hoss, The Meanies, The Dirty Lovers, Powder Monkeys, even the Sacred Cowboys – there's just too many shows to name!
Stand out moments include :Roddy Rayda (of the Surfin' Caesars) leaping from the stage in an attempt to grab hold & then swing from the lighting rig (in a lost-in-the moment spontaneous rock 'n' roll act of abandon), but instead, bringing the whole thing down around him. The gig didn't stop, it just got darker! I recall the band completing their set illuminated by cigarette lighters & candles!
Or Mudhoney playing to a “Shhh! It's a Secret” crowd of wiped out rock pigs on a hot February night back in '91 or '92, blind drunk, and playing a punk rock karaoke set.
More recently, Kiwi freaks The D4 rockin' the house supported by a very early gig from The Spazzys – now that was an impressive show! I still recall the steam rising from Dion's slumped body, completely spent after the show, outside in the beer garden on that cold Winter's night!
Suffice it to say, if you're a fan of loud rock music, then The Tote has always been a one stop shop in Melbourne for you! With a great front bar crew, matched only by the best juke box in town, it was my mini-Mecca throughout the late eighties, the nineties, and to a lesser extent, into the 00's.
I can't wait to see this doco – for more details, check out :
http://www.myspace.com/thetotedoco or
http://www.myspace.com/thetotehotel
|
I checked out the first of two trailers that is available to view there, and it reminded me of all of those nights spent at The Tote, sweatin', stinkin', and gettin' drunk, all the while watching some of the best live rock music in town!
Oh the memories...
Sunday afternoon BBQ gigs, where the cover charge included a BBQ - snags in bread, with plenty of sauce, all washed down with lots of cold beer! Seeing TISM, Painter & Dockers, Cosmic Psychos, various incarnations of I Spit on Your Gravy, Bored, Hoodoo Gurus, The Huxton Creepers, Mr Floppy, Hoss, The Meanies, The Dirty Lovers, Powder Monkeys, even the Sacred Cowboys – there's just too many shows to name!
Stand out moments include :Roddy Rayda (of the Surfin' Caesars) leaping from the stage in an attempt to grab hold & then swing from the lighting rig (in a lost-in-the moment spontaneous rock 'n' roll act of abandon), but instead, bringing the whole thing down around him. The gig didn't stop, it just got darker! I recall the band completing their set illuminated by cigarette lighters & candles!
Or Mudhoney playing to a “Shhh! It's a Secret” crowd of wiped out rock pigs on a hot February night back in '91 or '92, blind drunk, and playing a punk rock karaoke set.
More recently, Kiwi freaks The D4 rockin' the house supported by a very early gig from The Spazzys – now that was an impressive show! I still recall the steam rising from Dion's slumped body, completely spent after the show, outside in the beer garden on that cold Winter's night!
Suffice it to say, if you're a fan of loud rock music, then The Tote has always been a one stop shop in Melbourne for you! With a great front bar crew, matched only by the best juke box in town, it was my mini-Mecca throughout the late eighties, the nineties, and to a lesser extent, into the 00's.
I can't wait to see this doco – for more details, check out :
http://www.myspace.com/thetotedoco or
http://www.myspace.com/thetotehotel
|
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
I'm Sorry Too...
Growing up in Melbourne, I've obviously never really met an aboriginal person before, as most of the suburbs are WASP, with a smattering of European, Asian, and Middle Eastern faces thrown in to keep it "culturally diverse". As a consequence, the whole "stolen generation" issue has always been a part of someone else's life experience, and something I've heard about on the news, but not something I have any real perspective on.
That was before Kevin Rudd's speech this morning.
His telling of one person's experience was compelling, and perfectly brought the horror of the experience home to me for the first time. This was a misguided, evil attempt to eradicate the indigenous people of this country, and all I can say is that my grandparent's generation have a lot to answer for. So do my parent's generation whom have filled the media with right-wing messages of paranoia, mistrust & racial hatred. At least Mr Rudd's speech makes an attempt to undo the wrongs of the past by officially saying that we're sorry for what past governments have been too afraid to admit.
That means you John Howard.
Like a lot of Australians, I tuned the radio in to listen to the "Sorry" speech, but was amazed to find that of the 15 people whom I share an office with, no one else seemed remotely interested. Someone made a reference to "Rudd's saying sorry to the Abo's", but that was it.
It was bad enough having to wade through the diatribe of protest & hatred on the only radio station I could pick up in the office, but the apathy of my colleagues saddened me. In my opinion, this is the single most significant moment in Australian political & social history, and all I could hear were discussions of last night's TV viewing, of what's for dinner tonight, and a general disregard for what was happening.
Jesus Christ - our entire nation stops to watch a horse race, but this was ignored!
So for all of those people who don't seem to care, I hereby post Mr. Rudd's speech, and hope that the significance of his words hit home, and eventually might make a difference in the way we treat one another as Australians (and in general for that matter).
"Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."
God Bless you Kevin...
That was before Kevin Rudd's speech this morning.
His telling of one person's experience was compelling, and perfectly brought the horror of the experience home to me for the first time. This was a misguided, evil attempt to eradicate the indigenous people of this country, and all I can say is that my grandparent's generation have a lot to answer for. So do my parent's generation whom have filled the media with right-wing messages of paranoia, mistrust & racial hatred. At least Mr Rudd's speech makes an attempt to undo the wrongs of the past by officially saying that we're sorry for what past governments have been too afraid to admit.
That means you John Howard.
Like a lot of Australians, I tuned the radio in to listen to the "Sorry" speech, but was amazed to find that of the 15 people whom I share an office with, no one else seemed remotely interested. Someone made a reference to "Rudd's saying sorry to the Abo's", but that was it.
It was bad enough having to wade through the diatribe of protest & hatred on the only radio station I could pick up in the office, but the apathy of my colleagues saddened me. In my opinion, this is the single most significant moment in Australian political & social history, and all I could hear were discussions of last night's TV viewing, of what's for dinner tonight, and a general disregard for what was happening.
Jesus Christ - our entire nation stops to watch a horse race, but this was ignored!
So for all of those people who don't seem to care, I hereby post Mr. Rudd's speech, and hope that the significance of his words hit home, and eventually might make a difference in the way we treat one another as Australians (and in general for that matter).
"Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."
God Bless you Kevin...
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