1. Listened to Sally Seltmann singing Heart that's Pounding. I saw it when looking for a Bran Nue Day song. I haven't listened to "Heart That's Pounding" for a few days. I'm glad I ran into it. My love for Offspring has been overshadowed a bit by my obsessive love for Tallygarunga. But hearing the song has rekindled the love. I'm going to download another episode soon. I think I'm going to wait though and watch the show in New York. I'll watch it on the plane or car ride...or both. I'll split it up again.
2. Found the Bran Nue Dae song. It's the title one. I thought of it because someone found my blog by searching for it. I saw that on Statcounter, and it made me want to listen to the song.
3. Remembered what I thought about in the shower. It was regarding what I said in the last post about feeling bonded to Adrian, the character from Tallygarunga.
I do think you can bond with characters. Maybe bonding is the wrong word. I don't know what's the right word. But it's where you start having feelings for the character. It could be love, in a very lose form of the world.
Let's go back to Offspring. I think I immediately had feelings for Nina and Cherie. It was love at first episode. It took me awhile to like Billie. I think the last character I "bonded" with is Mick. It took me a long time to like him. He was blah to me at first. I was always eager for his scenes to end. I look back at those past feelings and it seems totally crazy. He's one of my favorites now.
4. Went to sleep and dreamed about my sort-of Australian cousin. She's an expat, and I think in the dream, my older sister Dawn and her friend were expats as well. I'm with Dawn, and her friend, in a room. I ask Dawn if she's seen our cousin lately. She replies that I can answer this question myself by thinking of Dawn's photos that I've seen. Are there any recent photos of our cousin? I don't remember seeing many photos, so I'm guessing the answer is no. Then Dawn and her friend start complaining about my cousin. They say she uses all these Australian words and phrases; and it sounds very fake. I defend my cousin and say Australian words and phrases sound strange when you first hear or see them. But after awhile you get used to them and it feels very natural to say and hear them. I tell them that there are Australian ways of saying things now that sound more natural to me than the American counterparts. I try to think of an example, but I can't.
Dawn and her friend seem surprised by this, but they seem accept what I say.
5. Dreamed about the sons of my sort-of Australian cousin. I'm in a house with lots of people. A child has just peed on the floor of the bathroom. People start to take care of that. Coming from down the hall, I can hear one of my young cousin's singing with a microphone. I go in the opposite direction to another room. The singing cousin's younger brother is there. I tell him that his brother is singing. He doesn't really respond to that. He takes off a big piece of paper from a pad and starts to draw. I watch him and think about how he's pretty adorable.
I wonder if that dream is symbolic in some way. Singing vs. drawing? Someone peeing on the floor. It all seems like it could mean...something.
6. Dreamed about one of our Australian friends. I have sent my friend a bunch of my clothes. She's going to do something to them—some kind of favor for me. I start thinking that it's a bit strange that I have sent so much clothes to Australia. Then I remember that I didn't send money for the return postage. I feel guilty and embarrassed about that.
In real life, I would have realized I could just send money through PayPal.
7. Read article about the cows in Australia, the ones not being sent over to Indonesia. It's a problem for some of the farmers because they don't know what to do with the cows. I was thinking, why not just keep them for awhile? But the article says they don't have enough feed.
There's talk of a lot of meat going to Australian grocery stores. This might be good for the consumers. If there's a lot of supply, the price will go down. It's not good for the farmers. The article also talks about how cows are prepared differently for the Indonesian markets. They weigh less, and in turn they taste differently when dead. They're going to try to fatten them up before killing them.
For the thin cows that taste differently, could they not be turned into dog and cat food?
8. Wondered if it would work to have a charity set up for the cows and farmers. Maybe the money could go towards getting more food for the cows so they don't have to be slaughtered right away?
Also, this might sound weird coming from a vegetarian, but I sort of think maybe Australians should try to eat a lot of beef in the next few weeks. It's best if it doesn't come from a factory farm, of course.
I wonder how much beef in Australia comes from factory farms, and how much comes from regular not-so-bad farms.
9. Changed my mind about my advice...sort of. I read the article again, and it sort of annoys me. The farmers don't seem to care about the welfare of the cows. It seems they (at least the ones in the article) only care about their losses.
I don't know. Maybe it's better if the cow industry has their losses and the farmers go onto producing something else. How about more vegetables? Fruit? Cotton? Nuts? All that's useful.
10. Decided I'd like to live in a world where animal farming becomes very rare. Only a few farmers do it, and meat becomes a fairly expensive delicacy. All the animals are treated wonderfully before dying. On most days, people eat vegetarian food. Every so often, they have a steak or chicken sandwich.
The alternative is that thing where meat is grown in a laboratory with no real animals involved. It's just live tissue. I hope that happens someday. It's creepy, but cruelty free.
11. Started to read an article about the experiences of an asylum seeker. The man (Kamal) is from Burma, and he was in Malaysia. Then he got on a boat to Australia. He's now in the Villawood Detention Centre.
Kamal and his family fled Burma because of slavery and persecution. That was about twenty years ago. He spent a long time in Malaysia before coming to Australia. He had to leave his family behind. I'm guessing he was hoping to bring them over later.
In Malaysia, Kamal set up a refugee centre and was given donations by a Christian group. A Muslim group didn't like that, and stalked Kamal and his family. That's why Kamal left.
So now Kamal is stuck in a detention centre and he's away from his family. It would be nice if he got out of the detention center, became part of Australia life, and brought his family over to live. I hope they're reunited someday soon, and have a happy life.
12. Consulted Lord Wiki about the Villawood Detention Centre. It's in Sydney. I'm looking at it on Google Maps. It's pretty far our west.
Lord Wiki says it's been the center of a lot of controversy. There's been suicides there, and a few months ago, some of the detainees set the place on fire. I vaguely remember that
13. Skimmed through article about the Villawood fires. There's a part of me that asks, what kind of rude person would come to a new country and set it on fire? Then another part of me answers....one who's had an awful life, came to Australia to find a better life, and is now still living a very horrible life.
As for the fire, no one was injured, fortunately. But three rooms were destroyed—a computer room, media room, and a dining room. A place that provides those three types of rooms doesn't sound all that bad. But who knows. It could have been a very gross and ill-equipped dining, media, and computer room.
14. Disturbed by some of the comments on the Villawood article. Glynn says, Refugees who dont accept our temporary institutional detention system for filtering unsuitable aliens are potential threats to our safety, security and a drain on our taxpayer provided funds. But it's not temporary. In 1994, the time limit for detaining people was removed. They can be there for years. I think there'd be much less anger if there were a reasonable time limit.
Nurse Ian says, Send them home. Anybody who wanted to be here and truly deserved to be here would not behave in this way. Does the government really think Australians want these people living in our society? That's true. You don't set fire to a place where you want to be lived and welcomed. But maybe after being in the detention center, these refugees no longer even want to live in Australia. I am betting they're extremely angry and disillusioned. They don't feel safe and welcomed in Australia. They don't feel safe in their old country. Their life is hell. What are people supposed to do when they're in that type of situation? What would Nurse Ian do if he was stuck in a detention center indefinitely?
Still. I wonder. Are the detainees truly being treated horribly? Now the whole indefinite detention thing gives me the chills. I hate that. But within the detention experience itself, is it horrible? It's really hard to tell, because people have different tolerance levels.
How bad are the detention centres when compared to Nazi death camps? I mean minus the death. I don't think anyone's being gassed in showers. Are people getting enough food? Are they overworked? Do they have enough living space? Are they free from verbal and physical abuse?
Is the fire a desperate response to horrific abuse? Or is the fire a response from people who are a bit too demanding regarding their accommodations?
15. Wondered if the detention centres are comparable to prisons? Are they? If so, is it right to treat refugees like criminals?
16. Wondered if you could have a detention centre where people have a fairly decent life. It doesn't have to be full of luxury. When I was young, my family used to go to this camp in Illinois. It was fairly rustic. We slept in cabins with no air conditioning. You had to walk outside to go the bathroom. There were daddy long legs there, and it was a bit creepy. If I remember correctly the toilet stalls had no doors, so there was a lack of privacy. There were also no private showers. There was a big outside thing with multiple shower heads. All the women would have to shower together. People would usually wash while wearing their swimming suits.
It was all really awful, but we had a fantastic time. Why? We were treated with respect. The counselors were nice to us; and they were fun. We were also free. That was a big thing. And we stayed for only a week.
My ideas for fixing the detention centre situation is to a)have a time limit. I don't know if it's feasible to get people in and out within a few weeks; but how about a few months? Maybe have a three month limit? Would that work? b) Even if the detainees can't have the most comfortable of living standards, make things as enjoyable as possible.
I don't know. Maybe people are already trying to make things okay for the detainees, and the detainees won't be happy until they get the hell out of there. It's really hard to know.
17. Read article that says underage drinking happens more in Australia than America. The belief seems to be that this is because drinking is more tolerated in Australia. Well, at least a Dr. Hemphill believes that. She thinks America has a zero tolerance approach, and that Australia has the attitude accepting that young people might sometimes use alcohol and other drugs but trying to encourage them to do that in a safe way.
That could be true. The thing I wonder is whether the results were obtained by self-reporting tests only. What if American kids were less likely to admit to using alcohol BECAUSE of the zero-tolerance thing? Yes, I'm sure they were told the results would be private and anonymous. But what if the kids didn't have full trust in the anonymity system?
Personally, I think it should be a balanced approach. I don't have a teenager yet, so I'm talking out of my ass here. I wouldn't want a zero tolerance approach when Jack's older. I don't want him to feel something's absolutely forbidden, because then he might do it in secret. I feel he might make safer choices if he feels he can be open about it. On the other hand, I don't want him to get the idea that I support drinking and drug use. I want him to know that I think drinking/drugs are bad for you; and I already talk to him about this. I think Tim is more open to drug use. He drinks. His message is probably more about being responsible and moderate. Jack's going to be getting mixed messages. That's fine. It's part of life. I do hope my message wins out. At the very least, I hope he waits until he's older to start drinking, smoking pot, etc. I've already told him about the studies I've seen that show early pot smoking can lead to schizophrenia. I told him if he wants to do that, wait until he's older.
18. Read Andrew's post about the cow issue. His opinions seem similar to mine. He says, this morning I heard a farmer come up with some doozeys. The poor Indonesian child sitting down to dinner with a bowl of rice and no beef to go with it. Worse was, the north of Australia will be full of farmers hanging from trees. I do feel some sympathy for the farmers, but you can't tell me they were all so ignorant.
2. Found the Bran Nue Dae song. It's the title one. I thought of it because someone found my blog by searching for it. I saw that on Statcounter, and it made me want to listen to the song.
3. Remembered what I thought about in the shower. It was regarding what I said in the last post about feeling bonded to Adrian, the character from Tallygarunga.
I do think you can bond with characters. Maybe bonding is the wrong word. I don't know what's the right word. But it's where you start having feelings for the character. It could be love, in a very lose form of the world.
Let's go back to Offspring. I think I immediately had feelings for Nina and Cherie. It was love at first episode. It took me awhile to like Billie. I think the last character I "bonded" with is Mick. It took me a long time to like him. He was blah to me at first. I was always eager for his scenes to end. I look back at those past feelings and it seems totally crazy. He's one of my favorites now.
4. Went to sleep and dreamed about my sort-of Australian cousin. She's an expat, and I think in the dream, my older sister Dawn and her friend were expats as well. I'm with Dawn, and her friend, in a room. I ask Dawn if she's seen our cousin lately. She replies that I can answer this question myself by thinking of Dawn's photos that I've seen. Are there any recent photos of our cousin? I don't remember seeing many photos, so I'm guessing the answer is no. Then Dawn and her friend start complaining about my cousin. They say she uses all these Australian words and phrases; and it sounds very fake. I defend my cousin and say Australian words and phrases sound strange when you first hear or see them. But after awhile you get used to them and it feels very natural to say and hear them. I tell them that there are Australian ways of saying things now that sound more natural to me than the American counterparts. I try to think of an example, but I can't.
5. Dreamed about the sons of my sort-of Australian cousin. I'm in a house with lots of people. A child has just peed on the floor of the bathroom. People start to take care of that. Coming from down the hall, I can hear one of my young cousin's singing with a microphone. I go in the opposite direction to another room. The singing cousin's younger brother is there. I tell him that his brother is singing. He doesn't really respond to that. He takes off a big piece of paper from a pad and starts to draw. I watch him and think about how he's pretty adorable.
I wonder if that dream is symbolic in some way. Singing vs. drawing? Someone peeing on the floor. It all seems like it could mean...something.
6. Dreamed about one of our Australian friends. I have sent my friend a bunch of my clothes. She's going to do something to them—some kind of favor for me. I start thinking that it's a bit strange that I have sent so much clothes to Australia. Then I remember that I didn't send money for the return postage. I feel guilty and embarrassed about that.
In real life, I would have realized I could just send money through PayPal.
7. Read article about the cows in Australia, the ones not being sent over to Indonesia. It's a problem for some of the farmers because they don't know what to do with the cows. I was thinking, why not just keep them for awhile? But the article says they don't have enough feed.
There's talk of a lot of meat going to Australian grocery stores. This might be good for the consumers. If there's a lot of supply, the price will go down. It's not good for the farmers. The article also talks about how cows are prepared differently for the Indonesian markets. They weigh less, and in turn they taste differently when dead. They're going to try to fatten them up before killing them.
For the thin cows that taste differently, could they not be turned into dog and cat food?
8. Wondered if it would work to have a charity set up for the cows and farmers. Maybe the money could go towards getting more food for the cows so they don't have to be slaughtered right away?
Also, this might sound weird coming from a vegetarian, but I sort of think maybe Australians should try to eat a lot of beef in the next few weeks. It's best if it doesn't come from a factory farm, of course.
I wonder how much beef in Australia comes from factory farms, and how much comes from regular not-so-bad farms.
9. Changed my mind about my advice...sort of. I read the article again, and it sort of annoys me. The farmers don't seem to care about the welfare of the cows. It seems they (at least the ones in the article) only care about their losses.
I don't know. Maybe it's better if the cow industry has their losses and the farmers go onto producing something else. How about more vegetables? Fruit? Cotton? Nuts? All that's useful.
10. Decided I'd like to live in a world where animal farming becomes very rare. Only a few farmers do it, and meat becomes a fairly expensive delicacy. All the animals are treated wonderfully before dying. On most days, people eat vegetarian food. Every so often, they have a steak or chicken sandwich.
The alternative is that thing where meat is grown in a laboratory with no real animals involved. It's just live tissue. I hope that happens someday. It's creepy, but cruelty free.
11. Started to read an article about the experiences of an asylum seeker. The man (Kamal) is from Burma, and he was in Malaysia. Then he got on a boat to Australia. He's now in the Villawood Detention Centre.
Kamal and his family fled Burma because of slavery and persecution. That was about twenty years ago. He spent a long time in Malaysia before coming to Australia. He had to leave his family behind. I'm guessing he was hoping to bring them over later.
In Malaysia, Kamal set up a refugee centre and was given donations by a Christian group. A Muslim group didn't like that, and stalked Kamal and his family. That's why Kamal left.
So now Kamal is stuck in a detention centre and he's away from his family. It would be nice if he got out of the detention center, became part of Australia life, and brought his family over to live. I hope they're reunited someday soon, and have a happy life.
12. Consulted Lord Wiki about the Villawood Detention Centre. It's in Sydney. I'm looking at it on Google Maps. It's pretty far our west.
Lord Wiki says it's been the center of a lot of controversy. There's been suicides there, and a few months ago, some of the detainees set the place on fire. I vaguely remember that
13. Skimmed through article about the Villawood fires. There's a part of me that asks, what kind of rude person would come to a new country and set it on fire? Then another part of me answers....one who's had an awful life, came to Australia to find a better life, and is now still living a very horrible life.
As for the fire, no one was injured, fortunately. But three rooms were destroyed—a computer room, media room, and a dining room. A place that provides those three types of rooms doesn't sound all that bad. But who knows. It could have been a very gross and ill-equipped dining, media, and computer room.
14. Disturbed by some of the comments on the Villawood article. Glynn says, Refugees who dont accept our temporary institutional detention system for filtering unsuitable aliens are potential threats to our safety, security and a drain on our taxpayer provided funds. But it's not temporary. In 1994, the time limit for detaining people was removed. They can be there for years. I think there'd be much less anger if there were a reasonable time limit.
Nurse Ian says, Send them home. Anybody who wanted to be here and truly deserved to be here would not behave in this way. Does the government really think Australians want these people living in our society? That's true. You don't set fire to a place where you want to be lived and welcomed. But maybe after being in the detention center, these refugees no longer even want to live in Australia. I am betting they're extremely angry and disillusioned. They don't feel safe and welcomed in Australia. They don't feel safe in their old country. Their life is hell. What are people supposed to do when they're in that type of situation? What would Nurse Ian do if he was stuck in a detention center indefinitely?
Still. I wonder. Are the detainees truly being treated horribly? Now the whole indefinite detention thing gives me the chills. I hate that. But within the detention experience itself, is it horrible? It's really hard to tell, because people have different tolerance levels.
How bad are the detention centres when compared to Nazi death camps? I mean minus the death. I don't think anyone's being gassed in showers. Are people getting enough food? Are they overworked? Do they have enough living space? Are they free from verbal and physical abuse?
Is the fire a desperate response to horrific abuse? Or is the fire a response from people who are a bit too demanding regarding their accommodations?
15. Wondered if the detention centres are comparable to prisons? Are they? If so, is it right to treat refugees like criminals?
16. Wondered if you could have a detention centre where people have a fairly decent life. It doesn't have to be full of luxury. When I was young, my family used to go to this camp in Illinois. It was fairly rustic. We slept in cabins with no air conditioning. You had to walk outside to go the bathroom. There were daddy long legs there, and it was a bit creepy. If I remember correctly the toilet stalls had no doors, so there was a lack of privacy. There were also no private showers. There was a big outside thing with multiple shower heads. All the women would have to shower together. People would usually wash while wearing their swimming suits.
It was all really awful, but we had a fantastic time. Why? We were treated with respect. The counselors were nice to us; and they were fun. We were also free. That was a big thing. And we stayed for only a week.
My ideas for fixing the detention centre situation is to a)have a time limit. I don't know if it's feasible to get people in and out within a few weeks; but how about a few months? Maybe have a three month limit? Would that work? b) Even if the detainees can't have the most comfortable of living standards, make things as enjoyable as possible.
I don't know. Maybe people are already trying to make things okay for the detainees, and the detainees won't be happy until they get the hell out of there. It's really hard to know.
17. Read article that says underage drinking happens more in Australia than America. The belief seems to be that this is because drinking is more tolerated in Australia. Well, at least a Dr. Hemphill believes that. She thinks America has a zero tolerance approach, and that Australia has the attitude accepting that young people might sometimes use alcohol and other drugs but trying to encourage them to do that in a safe way.
That could be true. The thing I wonder is whether the results were obtained by self-reporting tests only. What if American kids were less likely to admit to using alcohol BECAUSE of the zero-tolerance thing? Yes, I'm sure they were told the results would be private and anonymous. But what if the kids didn't have full trust in the anonymity system?
Personally, I think it should be a balanced approach. I don't have a teenager yet, so I'm talking out of my ass here. I wouldn't want a zero tolerance approach when Jack's older. I don't want him to feel something's absolutely forbidden, because then he might do it in secret. I feel he might make safer choices if he feels he can be open about it. On the other hand, I don't want him to get the idea that I support drinking and drug use. I want him to know that I think drinking/drugs are bad for you; and I already talk to him about this. I think Tim is more open to drug use. He drinks. His message is probably more about being responsible and moderate. Jack's going to be getting mixed messages. That's fine. It's part of life. I do hope my message wins out. At the very least, I hope he waits until he's older to start drinking, smoking pot, etc. I've already told him about the studies I've seen that show early pot smoking can lead to schizophrenia. I told him if he wants to do that, wait until he's older.
18. Read Andrew's post about the cow issue. His opinions seem similar to mine. He says, this morning I heard a farmer come up with some doozeys. The poor Indonesian child sitting down to dinner with a bowl of rice and no beef to go with it. Worse was, the north of Australia will be full of farmers hanging from trees. I do feel some sympathy for the farmers, but you can't tell me they were all so ignorant.