More Stuff....

Stradbroke Island, Kelly's Boyfriends, Art Funding Issues, and Aiming for a Fairer Distribution of Sympathy

1. Started to watch an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

2. Saw that Aaron Pedersen is in this episode.

I know him from City Homicide.

So far, I've seen three City Homicide actors on The Secret Life of Us—Pedersen, Damien Richardson, and Nadine Garner.

3. Started to watch an episode of Farscape.

4. Remembered that we saw Alan Dale last night on The Mindy Project.

I think, miraculously, his character isn't a wealthy, powerful, evil guy.

I could be wrong, though.

5. Went to palg1305's Flickr account.

Today I'm looking at his album of Stradbroke Island.

6. Saw from Google Maps that it takes about forty minutes to drive to the ferry from Brisbane. Then the Ferry ride takes about 55 minutes.

7. Went to the Stradbroke Ferries website.

8. Saw that the price is quite reasonable. It's $20 for a return ticket.

If you have a car, though, it's more expensive. Then it's $55-95 just for a one way ticket.  I guess it makes sense. More weight equals more fuel.

9. Started to look at palg1305's photos.

I like this one.  I think lately I have a thing for photos that have water, trees, and clouds.

10. Noticed that in the picture the water changes color. Near the beach, it's kind of amber; then it looks maroon; and then dark blue.

11. Liked this ocean picture; and this one too.  I love the blue green water in the latter.

12. Went to see which The Secret Life of Us actor am I going to look at on Twitter today.

The answer is Todd MacDonald.

He played Nathan, one of Kelly's (Deborah Mailman) annoying boyfriends.

By the way, Kelly got a new boyfriend in the episode I watched today—Corey. That's what Aaron Pedersen was doing in the episode. He's in and Frank (Rhys Muldoon) is out. I love Rhys Muldoon, but I don't think he was a good match for Kelly.

Although so far no guy has been a very good match for Kelly.

Will Corey be the one?

13. Thought about how Aaron Pedersen is Aboriginal. I think it's the first time the show has had an Aboriginal character besides Mailman's

Well, and I think they also showed Kelly's grandmother in one episode.

If Corey ends up being Kelly's happily-ever-after, is the show giving a subtle message that interracial relationships don't work out?  Is there an idea that it's best if we stick to our own kind?

14. Wondered if I'm reading too much into these things, and wondered if I'm being racist by thinking about it.

I think it would be different if Kelly dated a mix of guys—some Aboriginal and some not; then at the end, she ends up with a guy who's Aboriginal.

But if she goes through a bunch of failed relationships with white guys; then lands happily with an Aboriginal guy.  Well, I don't know then.

15. Wondered if one of Kelly's men wasn't white. The pyramid scheme guy?

16. Looked for the guy and instead saw that Ben Mendelsohn is going to be in five episodes this season.

Interesting!

Maybe someone will end up with him.

17. Found the actor who played the Amway-ish guy.  Steve Mouzakis. I think he's pretty white.

18. Wondered if Kelly will end up with Ben Mendelsohn. Then the message of the show might be that if you find the wrong Jew, try again and you might get a better one.

19. Remembered Todd MacDonald.

Sometimes I get very side-tracked.

20. Found a Todd MacDonald on Twitter. He's in Brisbane and looks sort of like the guy on The Secret Life of Us.

He's the artistic director and CEO of a theater.

21. Went to the theater website. It's called La Boite Theatre Company.

22. Tried to find staff biographies, but had no luck.

I think I'm just going to guess that this is the right Todd MacDonald.

Or, you know what, even if he's not The Secret Life of Us Todd MacDonald, he could still be the right Todd MacDonald.

23. Saw that on November 5, MacDonald had various posts about funding. Maybe regarding the theater?

24. Saw that it might have something to do with the government. Maybe the government's support of the arts.

Well, it seems he's not happy with cuts to art-funding.

25. Read an October article about art-funding issues.

This might be what Todd MacDonald is referring to.

If I understand it correctly, people were upset because a Minister in the government would be given control of funding decisions.  The money goes to a division called NPEA (National Program for Excellence in the Arts).

This whole idea came from George Brandis, but now a new guy has taken over—Mitch Fifield, and he offered to maybe make changes.

26. Wondered if artists had grievances about the government, being in control of art funding or just George Brandis specifically.

27. Read a little bit about NPEA.

The problem might be about what they are willing and not willing too fund.

This website says NPEA won't fund television or film production.

Would that mean there's no money going to Screen Australia. Or is that a different entity?

The article I read before, though, says money from the arts was cut to go into the NPEA thing. That might include Screen Australia art.

28. Saw photos of the French flag on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

I think it's very nice.

Though I feel sad for Lebanese people, because there's no flag for them.

I feel bad that certain countries don't get a lot of attention when they have a tragedy.

I also feel mixed up and confused, because, in the past, I've been annoyed by people pointing out the discrepancies.

Then again, this is when I see them pointing out discrepancies that are proven wrong by what I'm seeing on Twitter.

One example is the numerous Twitterers complaining about people making jokes about Ebola on Twitter when no one makes jokes about people dying of cancer.

First of all, I didn't see jokes about people dying of Ebola. I saw jokes about the paranoia over contracting Ebola. Second, people do joke about cancer—though, usually not about dying, probably.

29. Felt with France and Lebanon, there truly is a difference between the world's reactions.

First of all, I looked at one of my Followers on Twitter. This person is very left-wing. She would never try to be racist or unfair. She had a lot of Tweets/Retweets about Paris. I looked back a few days and could not find anything about Beirut.

Then I looked at a certain left-wing celebrity who has a huge heart. She posted about Paris. I saw nothing about Beirut.

So...even people like that are treating the atrocities differently.

30. Wanted to say that I definitely, unfortunately, include myself in the problem.

I barely noticed Beirut. I probably didn't even really know it was Beirut until after the Paris attacks. Then I probably thought, wait wasn't there a bombing yesterday?

Killings in Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, Chad, Nigeria, Iraq, etc just kind of flow by my head. They just give generalized proof to my brain that the world is full of shitty people.

Then people are killed in France, and it's like, Holy shit! Oh my God!

The World stops and we start lighting up our buildings.

31. Felt we should continue loving on Paris. But it should be a wake-up call.

We need to start loving on the other victims as well.

I also think we should stop worrying so much about Muslims being hated by right-wing rednecks and instead worry more about Muslims being horribly slaughtered by Islamic terrorists.


EDITED TO ADD

32. Realized my last thing might have come out wrong.

I didn't mean to say that all right-wing people are rednecks. And besides that, I'm sure many redneck people are quite lovely.

What I mean is if there are people out there who are racist enough to believe ALL Muslims are terrorists; then shit on them.  But as annoying as they are, they're a small problem compared to mass murderers.

33. Concluded that it's cool to be right-wing, a redneck, or Muslim. It's not fine to be hatefully, horribly racist. And it's a million zillion times worse to be a mass-murderer.