Red Rag

I thought these photos made for an interesting juxtaposition.

Mexico:

Italy:

“The suicide bomber’s brother and cousin had been killed by the Israeli army in June.” Repeat after me: there is no cycle of violence. There is no cycle of violence. There is no cycle…

Via Jason Soon, what kind of thinker are you? Apparently, I’m an interpersonal thinker.

Dear Ms Beilby,

Thankyou for your letter of 30 September. I am pleased that my letter to the West Australian captured your attention, and that the Greens (WA) were interested in my point of view regarding flag burning.

I had at one point considered joining the Greens, but your party’s lack of direction on a number of key issues dissuaded me. For example, one of the Principles listed on your website is that “The Greens (WA) will work towards the ideal of one vote one value.” This is a noble principle and I commend you for it. Unfortunately it appears to be nothing more than empty rhetoric.

As I live in the State electorate of Kingsley (which has 27,949 electors), my vote is worth less than half of the vote of someone living in the Kimberley (12,797 electors). Rather than use the historic success of progressive parties in the Legislative Council to “work towards the ideal of one vote one value”, the Greens decided to maintain this outrageous and anti-democratic gerrymander.

Apparently the continued entrenchment of conservative rule in Western Australia is the price we have to pay for the ongoing employment of the hopeless Robin Chapple and Dee Margetts. This is a cynical demonstration of the Greens’ desire to put shallow party-political interests above the fundamental democratic rights of the Western Australian people.

I hope you reconsider your position before it is too late. Then again, it doesn’t really matter, because you’ve only lost half a vote.

Yours in disgust,

Robert Corr

In the leadup to the republic referendum, the RSL tried to make Donald Buchanan swear allegiance to the Queen. He wanted to swear to “uphold the constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia” instead, but they refused. He sued them for political discrimination and won. Nice work, Don.

In the discussion on this Quiggin post, I wrote:

Re Faulkner and factions. Word is some unlikely people are going to come out and support him in the preselection for the Senate…

Now, it’s time:

The former prime minister Gough Whitlam yesterday launched a stinging attack on NSW Labor’s right-wing party bosses for their promotion of factional hacks over quality parliamentary candidates.

Mr Whitlam’s ire was provoked by the party machine’s intention to deny Labor’s leader in the Senate, John Faulkner, the number one spot on the Senate ticket for the next election.

… Mr Whitlam refused to comment on Senator Hutchins, preferring to attack those who were behind him, specifically Mr Roozendaal.

“I blame Roozendaal for the fact that we don’t have better male and female members of the two federal houses from NSW.”

Whitlam is just the first cab off the rank. Several very senior Right-wingers are set to join him, so keep your eyes peeled.

Carita and I bought Moleskine notebooks. It’s pronounced mol-a-skeen’-a, and it was used by Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh and Ernest Hemingway, among others. If that’s a bit too high-brow for you, the Moleskine made a cameo as the Grail Diary in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

It seems we’re not the only ones to have discovered these wonderful books. Every bloody blogger seems to use one. (That’s far from an exhaustive list, and it doesn’t even touch the foreign-language blogs…) Try as you might, you won’t be able to resist. There’s even a mysterious Moleskine Project going on. I’m not sure what it does, but the site is cool because it looks like the Moleskine packaging.

One interesting idea is posting pictures from one’s Moleskine to one’s blog. Taking that to the next level is 1000 Journals, in which a thousand blank journals were sent off around the world, passing from owner to owner and eventually returning to a home base. It reminds me of the old “a day in the life of a penny” stories, and offers a fleeting insight into the lives of total strangers.

There’s something about pen and paper that is far more intimate than a blog or online journal. Perhaps it’s the sense of personality that you get from seeing someone’s handwriting, or maybe it’s the idea that things written in a diary are not meant to be seen by the world at large.

I don’t know, but I like writing in my new Moleskine.

(No moles were harmed in the making of this post.)

The same thing happened at Notre Dame — American exchange students complaining they were marked too hard and it would affect their grades back home. They got the US institutions on their side, and I’m pretty sure ND caved and agreed to mark the Americans differently.

They lobbied him, he accepted his arguments. Hardly ironic.

Yesterday I received the weirdest response yet to my letter about flag burning:

Dear Robert,

We read your letter on flag-burning and democratic freedoms, in particular the RSL comments, in The West Australian on 22nd Sept and were interested in your point of view.

Your ideas on this topic are very much in line with the policies of The Greens (WA). The Greens (WA) policies are based on the principles of social justice, participatory democracy, environmental sustainability and peace and nonviolence. Enclosed is a summary of our policies for your interest.

In case you find these policies close to your own views we also enclose a membership form.

[...]

Yours for a just, peaceful and sustainable world,

Mike Beilby
for Margo Beilby (Hon Sec)

The Greens (WA)

I’m going to write back, pointing out that if the Greens really supported democratic freedoms they would support One Vote One Value. If you want, you can imagine they wrote to you and draft your own response in the comments. Steve, Sam, that means you…

On a related note, did anyone catch this week’s episode of Futurama? It was quite topical…

…and hilarious!