Emirates Airlines
Level 10, 1 York Street
Sydney NSW 2000



To Whom it May (Should) Concern,
I read recently that Emirates Airlines are at present the nominated airline used for the deportation of refugees from Australia.
I am writing to urge that your company reconsider this participation from an ethical standpoint, being aware of the fact that participating in such inhumane, unjust actions communicates a very poor image of your company to the Australian public (at the very least).
As an airline I would imagine that one of your primary concerns is to attract passengers. I feel it appropriate to inform you, as I am currently researching ticket prices to travel to Europe in a few months, that this information has driven me to eliminate Emirates from my list of possibilities, regardless of pricing.
There are a lot of people in the Western world who feel as though they are held quite powerlessly in the maws of late Capitalism. Speaking as one of these people, I am aware that one of the most effective avenues of impact that I can have, defunct and onanistic as our ‘democratic’ political systems are, is through money. Henceforth, if I am in a position to spend a hunk of money, which most people who are about to go travelling are, I will opt to spend it in the most ethical way possible. For now, Emirates has fallen below my ethical threshold.
A country in which the Government is paying people to reproduce in order to increase the population, should not be deporting refugees.
I appreciate your time in reading this letter.

Not to be confused with the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

- our (Kylie and Helen's) show is opening at Clubs on Saturday 11th June, 2 - 7pm (though it will be open the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before that, 11am to 7pm). Come along, if you are a lover of stories, heights and radio. Oh, and please bring with you a walkman which picks up radio and a clean pair of white socks to wear. ClubsProject Inc., above/behind the Builders Arms, 211 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.

Ooh, these blog memes, they are getting dangerous! Skirting a bit close to the 'chain letter' for comfort I fear, at the risk of sounding uncharitable. But for you, dear Liv, I will raise my arms.

Post an image to your blog, depicting something (animal, human, metahuman, subhuman...whatever) with arms upraised. Then cut and paste this very paragraph beneath it. Include a link back to whoever sent it to you here, and link forwards to at least three other members of the blogosphere below. Any hardy soul who clicks through the links will thus be witnessing The Largest Virtual Mexican Wave In The Universe...

Kid Shirt
LoveEcstacyCrime
Sweet Effat (who just a few days ago posted an 'arms up' picture by coincidence)

This week at work I have spent hours enriching my mind with bushwalking wisdom from Roger Caffin's Bushwalking FAQ. These pages are so full of good advice. Not only for wending your way through near-impenetrable scrub in Australia, but even for walking on the odd track. And more importantly (for me, anyway), for pitching a camp in the snow. For anyone planning to go on a walk lasting more than a day or two - Indespensable advice.
(Photo below taken by Roger on one of his snow-touring trips)

Off the subject, but a good way of pushing those rat guts out of sight:

An African dancer acting the part of 'the white man' in a ritual dance. Missionaries tried and failed to quash this ceremony.

All that was left of a rat which our cat caught about two minutes before this photo was taken. Lovely little skull-crunching, surgically-efficient puss.

Australians in Europe

Got my British passport in the mail yesterday.

The empire will be mine yet!

But really. It saddens me that someone such as myself can get British citizenship because my parents were born there, but then they can behave like complete bastards when it comes to immigration, when it comes to refugees. The British government are almost as incorrigible as the Australian one on this issue. Or maybe not even; the Australian government spending a fortune keeping refugees including children, in detention camps in the outback - paying America to run these American-owned detention centres, no less - putting 'illegal immigrants' through the ringer for a few months, then shipping them back to the country they fled with an invoice for about 1.5 million dollars in 'processing expenses'. I kid you not. Amanda Vanstone, what do you dream at night.
At the same time that Australia sanctions and implements atrocious violations of human rights such as these, they offer government subsidies of $5000.00 to any Australian who has a child. Because they want the population to grow. But...we don't have room for all these refugees and illegal boat people! Send them to Nauru! (Our re-elected Prime Minister being irrefutably implicated, prior to election time, in the dissemination of a piece of misinformation in the form of a video which was falsely reported as showing 'boat people' throwing their children overboard).

Night before last I dreamed that I was in a large lebanese bakery with M up the top of Sydney Rd (like A1 but bigger), it was full of private school kids hanging around in booths eating their spinach triangles and drinking coffees etc., when all of a sudden a riot erupted, evidently the private school kids had been planning this for a while. There were things being thrown around, doors being barricaded, lots of injuries. I realized in the midst of it all that there were cats all through the scene, and not just any cats, but all the cats I or my family have ever owned, some of them were getting hurt in the chaos, and I was moving around desperately trying to gather them all together in my arms, calling them all each with their special summoning calls, 'Moshie-moshie-moshie!' 'Errrrrrasmus!', etc. All my poor little cats.

It is in many ways a cat week.

Knights of the Metropolis

High-rise fever at the Metropolis show. Audience crammed in the stairwell, humming of the elevator shaft. The music echoing down, luring people siren-like up the stairs. Reports of sudden inclinations to throw things - anything - out the windows, compulsive urge to get in the elevators and start wreaking havoc with the buttons as the floor tom picks up volume and the vocals start multiplying. This is the second time this week I've felt inclined to post an MP3. Dern...de ne - ne. Though I suppose if I am posting my own music then it neatly sidesteps the whole ethical quandary...