I give you Janet Fife-Yeomen with ‘thanks’ to @WildlyP for drawing my attention to the car crash that is that article

“Stab” writer Mike Jennings:

“You can leer at the 16-year-old as you would an adult woman, so long as you’re ignorant,” Stab writer Mike Jennings said. “Once you become aware of their age you must look away.”

Uh…yeah. How exactly does that *work* fuckwit? And particularly, how does it work in relation to putting a naked 16 year old (covered in graffiti) on the front cover of your magazine? Are you putting a warning on the magazine that adult men should ‘look away’? Aren’t you sending a stronger message to ‘keep on looking’ by putting the naked 16 year old on the front cover? [E.T.A - with a scrawled 'sign' of 'She's only 16!' pointing to her].

Correct me if I’m totally out of line here, but to me a naked teenager on the front cover of a surf magazine says it’s fine to leer at sixteen year olds, in fact, I’d say that right around the time of ’schoolies’ on the Gold Coast and other beach areas, a teenager naked posed with the ‘come hither’ look, with the word “THINGS” scrawled in texta on her arm and a sign pointing at her reading ‘She’s only 16!’strongly suggests that teenage girls are things, hot sexay things, good for some solid ‘Toolie’ fun and games, a conquest, something to score (perhaps using the pointers in ‘How to get a woman to yes’ as advertised on Ella’s left on the front page).

And his response? What a pathetic excuse for an attempt at insight and justification. “A 16 year old girl can choose for herself” would have been far less objectionable. But this faux-coy ‘You should look away when you know’ crapola when you’ve just PUT a naked 16 year old ON your front cover NEXT to a sign that says (dangling the premise tauntingly, salaciously) ‘She’s only 16!’? Please. If it’s wrong once you know then you can’t defend your cover, if you think it’s fine then at least have the gumption to own your decision, don’t play it both ways.

(See story of the front page here)

To be clear, the girl in question is attempting starting a modelling career (indeed the prize was a modelling work with a Sydney agency), so front cover of a mag is a good opportunity for her (though the naked shot may impact on *her* career negatively from comments by her agency). This is NOT in any way ’slut shaming’ or any suggestion that girls who play the game by the preset rules are anti-feminist/doing anything wrong…the world is totally fucked and opportunities for power/advancement/money/prestige for women are sorely limited.

Girls aren’t morons, they know that teenagers are lusted after, that they can turn heads, that they can make money and a career, albeit brief as a shooting star when they’re considered in their ‘prime’ – that is 15 to 22-ish.

After that they’re has-beens and it’s back to mediochre employment/advancement/pay options or marriage + babies = good woman equation (with the hidden subclause of ‘Haha, you didn’t really expect us to RESPECT you as a wife and a mother or support you did you? FOOL!’)

Yes, as Mike is so keen to point out 16 year old girls ‘do know’ that they’re moving into womanhood. You know HOW they know? They’ve been leered at since 13 and they’ve absorbed the message that young girls are HOT STUFF for adult men from well BEFORE adolescence by the constant stream of comments by adults on teenage girls, by the popularity of ‘teen’ and ‘preteen’ porn, by the obsession with sexualising girls like Miley Cyrus (and Anna Kournikova back in the day).

So young girls using the sense of ‘power’ on offer, of turning it around to work in some way for them when it happens regardless of posing on covers  (it happens when you’re simply walking down the street in a sweater at 13, and by FAR older men), of making money from the system that leers at you, tells you you’re hot, eggs you on to get your tits out (then calls you a slut if you do), the same industry that serves the perve-interests of adult men in fetishising youth and the whole ‘pre teen’ ideas/industry? This sort of manouvre does not make the girls themselves responsible for the behaviour of adult men, or responsible for the system, or mean they are ‘causing’ it, or necessarily ‘accepting’ it in the larger sense…they’re taking an opportunity for a moment of feeling powerful/powerfully desired. In no way do I think less of them.

But for the guys like Jennings? If it’s wrong (for adult men to leer at 16 year old girls) once you know, and you know that largely you cannot ‘know’ how old the girls you’re leering at are, then how’s about we put adult men in the position of responsibility by asking them to have a little self control and NOT leer at anyone that could possibly be in their teenage years? (Ideally we would require them not to ‘leer’ at all, it is *entirely* possible to notice people you find attractive without being a total sexually harrassing buffoon).

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot, your individul man-right to collectively leer trumps girls’ rights to walk down the street unharrassed, girls’/womens’ rights to lack of invasive ‘leering’, girls’/womens’ sense of safety and*actual safety* – pretty much anything. The right to leer. Australia doesn’t want a charter of human rights, but that one seems to go without saying. Man-rights go unspoken and yet totally supported, it’s just common sense…anything else would be ‘un-Australian’.

So Hugh Mackay is in the SMH today banging on about forgiveness and how forgiveness is the only authentic signal of acceptance of an apology.

Yes, he *is* talking about the apology to Indigenous Australians regarding the Stolen Generations.

He counsels that the remarkable Amish have unconditionally forgiven a guy who killed five little Amish girls – so what’s doing Indigenous Australia? Hugh tells us we’ve all been wronged, so buck up emo kids! I mean it’s not like it was systematic, institutionalised, routine and racist, it’s not like you were left powerless when the government decided to swoop in ‘for your own good’, it’s not like we all know that it was far more than five little girls, and it’s not like the apology changed nothing, left racism oppression and violence in place and the government refuses to consider the compensation we KNOW would be demanded if it had happened to white kids…oh…wait. It is.

Essentially Hugh Mackay’s article boils down to ‘I once had a pen stolen from this guy at work, and I was SO angry with him, but he apologised to me, and I forgave him…yes, after my pen was returned undamaged. How’s that relevant?’

I have no beef with forgiveness – you know, there are times when it can be liberating. But an apology is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card, it’s not something that means you don’t have to make amends properly, it’s not something that means what you did wrong never gets discussed again, or gets forgotten. I’m a little tired of this happy clappy christian take on forgiveness – you just *do* it, because it’s right, because it’s freeing, because it’s What Jesus Would Do. I think we all remember that before God decided that his son could mystically take on the sin of the world, get the shit beaten out of him and get nailed to a tree as the cost of His Unconditional Forgiveness, that God’s ‘justice’ demanded plagues and the slaughter of innocent babies in reparation/retribution for the enslavement of His People right? No one is advocating the slaughter of babies in retribution here, but let’s all stop and remember what God’s justice looked like, and how the newer form came about before we get all giddy on the joy horse of pushing unconditional God-like forgiveness shall we?

So I have no problem with forgiveness of itself, except that it leaves no place, if you dig your heels in and insist on this forgiveness as a right concomitant with a delivered apology, for real respect for other beings and their hurt, for justice, for reparation, for ensuring history doesn’t repeat itself. It’s not something you can petulantly demand. You’re only really in a position to ask for it when you’ve done everything in your power to make things right.

Hugh Mackay’s little missive might have come off a little better if the current government had halted the intervention and made real inroads into support for Indigenous communities, if Aboriginal deaths in custody were taken seriously, if magistrates weren’t referring to Indigenous women as having ‘faces like squashed tomatoes’.

It might have come off a lot better if it weren’t in the same edition of the SMH as a story about how an Indigenous kid is in court facing charges for having recieved a stolen fucking Freddo frog.

You think we’re past it Hugh Mackay? When the days where a whitey could go to jail for stealing a loaf of bread are over, but an Aboriginal kid steals a packet of Tim Tams and the mandatory sentencing laws kick in? And someone who EATS a fucking Freddo that someone else flogged (hands up who HASN’T eaten a stolen chocolate bar before? I have, I also flogged a small bottle of perfume and $20 from a collection plate as a teenager…summon the police!) gets hauled away to languish at a cop shop for hours on a school morning?

Hugh Mackay? You’re definitely a strong contendor for the Friday Fuckwit.

[More on the 'It's all about me and my experience of forgiveness': Steve Fielding says he was sexually abused as a child and:

"I was sexually abused as a child by a scoutmaster for years," he told reporters in Canberra today, adding his heart went out to anyone with a similar experience.

"I have very strong emotions and feelings on this issue."

But providing victims with compensation was a separate issue to the apology, he said.

Firstly, I'm sorry that happened Mr Fielding, really I am. However, it's not the same - it's not the government systematically tearing children away from their families after condoning massacres etc. Second, compensation to sexual assault victims *is* in fact possible through the courts. Third, you seem to be implying it would be morally 'wrong' of you to pursue compensation via the Scouts. Fuck that shit. They're responsible for the actions of their organisation and its agents, and if they didn't take enough care to ensure this didn't happen, I'm a-ok with them being required to provide compensation. Them and the church. Fourth, if compensation and apologies are so different, why did you decide to raise them together (though admittedly it's probably a bit of a hot topic today)? Fifth, newsflash hairdo, not all about you. I was beaten by a man - does that mean that I can stand in the shoes of Indigenous Australians who were stolen from their families by government actions aimed at eradicating aboriginality? That I can 'know their pain'? That I can say 'Well I don't want compensation therefore you shouldn't get it/that I 'forgive' so you should too? No. The fact that you were sexually abused has got NOTHING to do with systemic and institutionalised governmental wrongdoings - when the government fucks it up they should fix it up. Also, fuck it, I don't forgive the guy. He didn't make amends, he can get fucked. I've released it, it has nothing to do with my life now, but fucked if I should extend forgiveness to a self involved partner-beater even if he says the 'magic word']

Well tigtog from over yonder at Hoyden About Town has a post up about how the anti-Camilla crap gets her riled.

I really hadn’t thought about it you know – I grew up in a bit of a working class area and anti-Camilla jokes were a dime a dozen. I’m sure I was guilty of some teenaged bitchy comments about Charles cheating on Diana with Camilla and what the heck was that about? (Being young and snotty and assuming no one over 30 was worth looking twice at) I had no idea of the back story of them being madly in love but him being forced into marriage with Diana, or honestly any idea of anything at that age being busy being a snotty know it all.

But reading tigtog’s articulation of just why the anti-Camilla campaign bothered her, it hit me like a ton of bricks how wrong it is that this woman is lambasted simply for appearing her (and his) age, and considered ‘ugly’ for that. I really think it’s the first time I’ve genuinely looked at Camilla.

The photos included are really rather sweet – they clearly enjoy each other’s company immensely, and in a comment Rachel WA linked to another photo stream in which their obvious mirth made me laugh out loud and maybe fall a little bit in love with them as a couple.

Who knows what they’re like as people, but as a couple, well honestly, if you’ve known each other that long and give each other that much joy and delight? I think that’s pretty frackin awesome.

This might strike you as odd from someone calling themselves ‘Fuckpoliteness’ but that picture makes me squeamish.

I’m really not a big ‘prude’, you know? My son knows about sex/bodies etc, we laugh over double entendres, I swear like a trooper and he swears at appropriate moments and in appropriate places. He’s twelve. He’ll jokingly say ‘Shut up’ or ‘Oh bugger off’, or flip me the bird when we’re arsing around. So I’m not Captain of the OHMYGOD but he’s a KID brigade.

But there is something kinda depressing about this pic. I really hope it’s a digital manipulation thing…please?

I mean look at those pudgy dimply hands…and then that look on his face…total macho aggro ‘Fuck YOU Ref!’ and then the baby teeth? Gyyeeeeaaaragh! He’s like some British soccer hoodlum’s Mini-Me.

I laughed my arse off at that baby pic from ages ago with a baby pulling a random crazy-face that someone had typed over to say ‘I’ll stab you cunts’…but because it was such a juxtaposition. The baby was just caught pulling a random face, and the interpretation was funny cos it looked accurate, but couldn’t be/wasn’t…but this? Not so much funny to me.

“I mean really!?? WHY must you consistently work at deluding yourself into a belief that women are not afforded equal respect in this society? Get with the times! Look at all those female school teachers (feminazis seizing control of the education system and raising stunted children bound and muzzled by the ludicrous restraints of political correctness)! You got the vote, you get to work (getting paid less than men for the same roles and having the social pressure to be the primary carer for kids and having your employees milk you for all the extra hours they can even when your kids are sick, and if you look half broken asking if it’s ‘that time of the month’…but you GET to work! Why it’s been a while now since universities controversially decided that humans with vaginas are still humans and could therefore possibly be allowed a university education! Sure the first chick at Sydney Uni faced so much fucking hostility she bailed and went to Scotland to finish her studies, but FARK…that’s all OVER! And sure, okay, there are those Islamic countries where women are disrespected, and okay, sometimes some uneducated redneck (or footballer) might beat or rape a woman, but REALLY – that hardly ever happens, and women are equal (and liars about rape) and viewed as equal so if you want to think otherwise you’re just playing the victim – why don’t you get empowered with a pole dancing class?”

Well dear (fabricated) arsehole reader: let’s discuss St Paul’s college at Sydney University shall we? These wonderfully educated, privleged and pampered little tossers wear formal wear to dinner every night, that’s JUST how much wankery goes into ‘Did you get the message? You are Very Important People’.

Their parents have already paid more than most of us will earn in a lifetime so they can brag about their kids fluency in Latin, or deftness with a ball made from pigskin. These fine upstanding pillars of our society are the boys/men we should allegedly look up to/hope for our kids to be like – they should be a decent barometer of where it’s ‘really’ at, or where it’s going, shouldn’t they? I mean no ’school of hard knocks, grew up on the farm, had me ears clipped if I slept in, harden-the-fuck-up’ upbringing to blame for outbursts of uncouth aggression. These aren’t those ’scarifying Muslims’ from out West preying on our girls! These are the landed gentry, the diligent and respectable future of our country, the professionals-cum-politicians, the leaders in waiting. So what, pray tell do these wealthy respectable erudite leaders-in-waiting have to say on gender equity, the role of women in society and the way forward for society?

‘They can’t say no with a c–k in their mouth” read the hand-drawn graffiti in the Salisbury Bar, part of St Paul’s residential college on the University of Sydney campus.

Just for anyone confused, that would be COCK, not cookie, chicken or cook.

Here’s hoping that anyone these little fuckers (and their oh-so-precious cocks) come into contact with have razor sharp incisors and jaws like a bear trap. But happy-daydream-scenarios of a couple of torn off cocks stapled to the wall in the same spot as the graffiti with a handwritten message of “I think they can” aside – we know this is not the reality of how this will play out.

These students are men – they are eighteen, entitled to vote, drive a car and drink (I’d say hopefully not at the same time, but why the hell not, Daddy knows someone who could smooth it all over if they did). They have the best education considerable piles of money can buy, from the ‘finest’ institutions. They *allegedly* have the finest moral upbringing one could ask for, what with their shelter from the ‘uncouth’ ways of the poor and rough and their religious schools instilling their lessons in strict morality and proper conduct. They have every chance in life and no ‘excuses’. And they *know full well* that not only can they hold these attitudes towards women but they can fucking flaunt them, scream them from the roof tops, rub women’s noses in them. They didn’t just ‘not know’ it was ‘wrong’ to talk about/treat women this way, they *learned* the lesson that women are objects and they are the only real subjects, the only people who matter, they *learned* the ‘boys club’ lessons. They learned they’ll get away with it. And then they’ll settle down and marry and no one will be any the wiser.

The girls/women they rape will unfortunately NOT be physically able to bite their trouble making cocks off. They will be raped, presumably by someone laughing at their trauma. And they will be shamed. They will be blamed. Their sense of control over their bodies and what should happen to them will be torn from them by a bunch of entitled little misogynists. Their sense of safety can be destroyed in an instant because these boys have *learned* that it’s safe and acceptable to carry these attitudes towards women. And these guys are the guys with the very best chances of getting away with it permanently…with no blemish on their records. And to go on to positions of power safe and smug in the knowledge that they are invincible – they can do anything and get away with it.

So if you happen to be the next person to ask me why I’m a feminist…or to tell me that women ‘are so too’ equal? Just be forewarned that I’m likely to be slightly LOUD and unpleasant in my response okay?

[E.T.A Please go read Mary's much more thoughtful and insightful post on the matter @ Hoyden About Town

Also, I'd really love it if people could be clear that rape and condoning rape is the problem, not being drunk. While I understand that alcohol and violence have a complex and enmeshed relationship, it keeps appearing to me as though people are like 'Rape, yes, bad - oh to stop binge drinking'. I hope like HELL they mean the drinking of the men is the issue, and not that women were drunk, but even then...they did not rape because they were drunk, and they did not think rape was fucking HILARIOUS stuff to post about because they were drunk. RAPE is the issue. I'm all for alcohol being seen as dangerous, but let's not act as though it's a Jekyll/Hyde thing where but for that last malted beverage no one would have been raped.

And another thing - in the article discussing the college there's a quote re the St Paul's experience:

''All the facilities of the college are designed to ensure that men have the greatest possible amenity and can spend as little of their life as possible dwelling on mundane, domestic arrangements."

While I'm not suggesting that if they had to fold their own sheets they wouldn't rape, I'm a bit taken aback by that being seen as a social good/social service...ah more fully grown men thinking the house cleans itself, and that dinner will present itself as the Just Rewards for Manliness, and when they realise it doesn't they'll just get a wife - a 'nice' wife and look fondly back on the days where the Universe provided and they could rape whomever they wanted. I'm afraid I *do* think there's a link with handing all of the 'Fun Bits' of life to 'men' on a platter and making them believe that life is like that, that 'mundane domestic arrangements' just take care of themselves or that is what a woman or servant is for (or indeed that the domestic is mundane etc), and the sense of entitlement and superiority they carry in all areas to such devastating effect in this area]

[E.T.A more links rounded up at H.A.T here including links to Penguin Unearthed and News With Nipples posts which I've been meaning to add links to]

I don’t suppose anyone happens to know someone who lives on the Central Coast of NSW and who would like to get away for Christmas?

I have a lovely shiny little apartment in a nice area in Sydney with a barbeque on the balcony which sleep three easily, and four or five at a stetch, and pretty much I’m hoping someone up there likes the idea of coming down to Sydney for a week around Christmas so we can swap.

There are plenty of cafes and restaurants nearby and the city is a fifteen minute bus trip away.

So if you know anyone who’s keen to ‘get away’ and wouldn’t mind a bit of a house swap please let me know. Potentially they could take my place for up to three weeks, and I really only need theirs for a week.

I have *that* option, or paying for a hotel, or paying (literally hundreds of dollars) for a cleaner for Mum’s place. Frankly swapping with someone would be less stressful, and far cheaper, particularly given Christmas is always expensive and I’m planning holidays around then.

I took miniFP away for four days to stay with the lovely Wildly Parenthetical and her parents.

Road trip down, lunch and dinner with everyone there, kayaking and puppies followed by an adventurous solo run in which I got chased by Country Dogs (scarier than city dogs since no one is around to help you and you may step in horse poo trying to get away) and vego feasts for dinner, knitting and card games and a late late night, breakfasts of eggs and mushrooms and tomatoes and juice and coffee and lunch with home made pasta and veggies and fetta and herbs with Jennifer Gearing and her partner talking blogging and gaming and politics, dinner of home made baked beans followed by home made brownies, history and theology discussions, more knitting, Dollhouse, puppies, more puppies, breakfasts and study in the sunlight and lunches and dinner of ratatouille whipped up from a well stocked pantry, more Dollhouse, more knitting, more breakfasts and puppies and study and a long long bus ride home in which I finished the study I’d set for myself.

It was thoroughly delightful, but I stayed up too late and didn’t sleep all that well freaking out about the approaching exams so it was pretty tiring as well as restorative.

Back last night – I had called TBO to see if he’d come to my rescue as I’d not get home til 8:00pm and the thought of shopping and cooking was abhorrent. He rescued me with style and flair cooking a fancy-pants mac and cheese and a big salad YYYYYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM – and packing a bit of a hamper of breakfast supplies for a sleepover.

Nowhere near enough sleep, lots of coffee and music and laughter made for a lovely morning, sadly followed by work (which it’s best not to talk about really), late leaving the office (GRRRRRRRRR), shopping, and prepping for dinner tomorrow night so I can feed the sharehouse full of friends who will help miniFP and I carve a Darth Vader Pumpkin for the Halloween night at his school.

Despite being hysterical with tiredness and I suspect hormones (curse you PMS) and a bit of Impending Exam/life stuff stress, I managed to get tomorrows dinner prep done, draw a pretty good Darth Vader from a pic of a pumpkin someone else has carved, cook tonight’s dinner, fit in calls to Mum and from TBO, clean up, cut the lid for the pumpkin and carve its guts out – YUCK! SLIMY STUFF!!!

AND I have a recipe to roast the pumpkin seeds. I dropped them all over the floor which nearly made me cry, but the floor was mopped today, and the bastards have to be seperated from the goop and washed and boiled in salt water anyway, and roasted, so fuck it, I picked those bastards up. They left my floor all slimy though. Yuck.

SO all I have to do tonight is wash the freaking seeds off a bit and leave them in a pot of water overnight, clean the floor, sort the seeds out tomorrow morning and draw the Darth Vader face onto the pumpkin in tomorrow’s lunch break (no, really, I have to carry a fuck-off-enormous pumpkin up the road to work tomorrow cos I won’t fit it all in otherwise).

Oh yes, my washing machine that I paid $290 to have fixed the other day? It DOESN’T WORK!!!!I also have to map out dates and make a study plan, and you know, actually DO some more study.

I didn’t get any study done tonight, and I still have a billion things to do, but we will carve this fucking pumpkin and it will be awesome and that will make MiniFP happy and that will be cool.

Oh…and [major heartbreak warnings] following the links over at Hoyden About Town, I saw pictures of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography…I got up to number 9 in the office when I just had to stop because howling in misery for this young boy and his mother and the things they had to go through just wouldn’t be considered acceptable in the office.

It’s the saddest (and loveliest) set of pictures I’ve ever seen. Such beautiful photography, but utterly devastating. Wait til you are alone in a room and can howl and rail at the universe because I promise you, you will. The photos leave you devastated, but amazed by the strength of love and commitment and heartbreak and joy – what Cyndie went through for Derek, and what Derek himself went through…it astonishes me that anyone has the capacity for it all.

Christ…better drag my sorry tired arse to bed.

I’ve been away what feels like an awful long time…away from blogging that is, not ‘away on vacation’ away sadly.

So most of you know that I went pretty quiet when TBO and I broke up and I set up another blog with a plan for a third.

But then, you know, life got busy as it does, and things intervened as they do.

TBO and I are kinda working through stuff and are trying to give it another/a new shot, so you know, the whole ‘Let’s blog hilariously about being single and getting into comic scrapes in the dating scene’ thing isn’t really a go under the circumstances.

And I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for hunting down things to write about here – I’d notice stuff that pissed me off but my energy was directed elsewhere so I just didn’t have any follow through.

Then I was sick for about two weeks and felt like I was just shit out of energy. (While I was sick I was determined to be Ms Independence and when I was all fevery and crampy I knocked down a big wooden framed mirror which hit me several times on the legs/feet leaving me all bruised and scratched…but at least the fucking mirror didn’t break, I honestly think I would have sat down and ‘quit’ had that happened).

So what’s new? Well I’ve gone nutty for exercise. Boxercise once a week and swimming at least a couple of times a week, plus I’ve started a running program that says it will get me running five Ks by Christmas (I remain slightly sceptical). I never really thought of myself as fit/athletic, but I guess I like noticing the change in my muscle tone and having a go at seeing what level of fitness I have – happily enough I’ve been surprised that my cardio fitness situation isn’t quite as dire as I’d thought. But I have *muscles*! Honestly I got muscle-fatigue in places I hadn’t even known I *had* muscles, and I’m getting quite the bicep line! It’s quite fun and gives me a nice break from more ‘thinky’ stuff.

I’m headed down south again this weekend to visit the folks of the lovely Wildly Parenthetical and to hang out with them, with WP, with miniFP and two other friends, and play with puppies, and maybe knit…I should study but frankly I’ve had the sort of semester that means I can’t quite make myself give a shit about “should”. I totally deserve a holiday/some free time. And it’s *that* sort of thinking that will cost me my usual distinctions this semester. But who gives a crap right? I need to pass, I’m not shooting for a merits scholarship.

I also found a flyer for a community permaculture garden! Community garden!! Permaculture!!! I know nothing about how to grow shit but I’d like to, plus I like the community-project idea, and I love home grown veggies and I’m keen on the permaculture idea. So it’s win/win/frikkin win really.

I’m doing a lot of thinking and talking about thinking and talking (oh and about ‘feelings’ and stuff too) which is surprisingly not as scary as it previously seemed. It’s really nice to be seeing TBO in different settings, and to be stealing time for coffees together, and to be laughing together again.

Mini FP was in a school choir thing at the Opera House today. That was pretty cool. I generally don’t love school-band-type performances. I feel mean for that but they usually make me cranky and want to throw things, but that’s because they’re generally FAR too loud for the venue and it hurts me and gives me really bad headaches. But in the Concert Hall of the Opera House nothing sounded painful/too loud, and I was really quite surprised by the level of talent on display. And of course it felt pretty special to see my son up there performing – he was so nervous! He got all rigid and his eyes kept flicking in our direction and he refused to dance freeform when they were allowed, but he was totally into the whole idea and seems very happy after it all.

Things are going well with work too – I dropped down to three days a week and while I was really nervous about that and what the workplace would be like, it’s working out well. We’ve got a new paralegal and a part time legal secretary and time is being freed up for me to do ‘proper’ legal work, and it means I’m not in the same bored funk work-wise that I’ve been in for a couple of years.

Uni’s nearly over – I have 50% of my grades earned in both subjects, and reckon I’m sitting on a high credit at the very least. One final exam on trusts and equity and a final essay on mediation in family law and I’m done. I’ve got fuck all time in which to prepare for those, but you know – I’m just going to put in the minimum necessary and just get it over with.

Then we’re on the downhill slide to the end of the year. I’m going to take miniFP on a holiday we probably can’t quite afford, but really fucking need and try to get a sense of a total break between 2009 and 2010. It’s been a tough second semester.

But I’ll be trying to get back into blogging a little more regularly over the next couple of months.

Ooh, and I just ‘discovered’ Tom Waits…so much cool music waiting to be listened to!

So sorry for neglecting commentors of late, there were some great comments in response to the Hey Hey post, but I was in a bit of a flat ‘funk’ and just had no energy for responding at the time, promise to be a little better in future.

[Merciful Zeus I made a lot of grammatical/spelling errors below. I admit I have gone through to fix a few. Apologies to those who read it prior to amendments]

I think I might just be a teensy bit in love with Harry Connick Jnr.

With thanks to @Jennifergearing on Twitter this morning I read about the Hey Hey it’s Saturday (it’s BACK??WHY??) Red Faces ‘gag’ where a bunch of guys ‘blacked up’ to be the Jackson Five. Except of course for Michael who was pale faced.

Oh, the thigh slapping hilarity of ‘blackface’ humour, of ‘Michael Jackson – is he black or white??’, of ‘Haw haw how silly are those black performers with their comical and unwittingly homoerotic moves’ etc etc.

Enter Harry Connick Jnr. While the crowd whooped it up, and John Blackman (if it’s still him) did “Michael Jackson” voice overs (ie/ high pitched/’effeminate’ breathy strangeness. Oh the humour! Such wit!! Stop it, my belly is SORE) and Darrell bumbled along laughing and congratulating these ‘performers’ HCJ sat seemingly staggered and disbelieving and gave them a ‘zero’ along with a mouthful.

Of course in that uniquely Australian-fuckwit-way the performers laughed in that  ‘Haha your attempts at discussing racism are funny you fool’/'I’m simply so daft that laughing open mouthed is my response to everything because I have no idea of *how* to engage’ way, Somers and co were immediately all ‘Oh, of course! In *your* country that *would* be offensive’.

But here where we did our best to wipe out the Indigenous population and still continue to ignore the policies that are fucking things up, that sort of racism is a-o-fucking-kay. Cos it’s *funny* right? Like golliwogs! (I need a flashing ’sarcasm’ sign).

God I HATE Hey Hey it’s what midweek? Is that the name now? Hey, Hey We Just Won’t Fuck Off? I HATE that show and the munt heads who are involved in it. The bar for humour is set low enough in this country without them taking the bar away and beating us all about the head with it. Is that fucking OSTRICH back? Or Dickie Fucking Knee? Oh haha, a bad pun and a misogynist little head on a pole…oh more puns…ha ha. And my my John Blackman and Red Simons are HI-LAR-I-OUS. Is John Blackman dead? It certainly hasn’t stopped the inane voiceovers if he is. And Jackie just smoooothing things over again. Silly Yank! We don’t care about race here, go back to where you come from!

Yeah I’m feeling pretty fucked off right now.

Oh and the ‘aplogy’? Not TO people of colour or *everyone* who is offended by this shit, but to Harry Connick Junior on the basis that his ‘countrymen’ would have found it offensive:

“I know that to your countrymen, that’s an insult to have a blackface routine like that on the show, so I do apologize.”

Yeah try again douchehound.