Banksy: Wall and Piece

Manifesto

Extract from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO who was amongst the first British soldiers to arrive at the Nazi death camp Bergen-Belsen. It was liberated in April 1945 close to the end of the second World War.

I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen.

It took a little time to get used to seeing men and women and children collapse as you walked past them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that give hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diphtheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference.

Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentery which was scouring their bowls, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated.

It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.

Source: Imperial War museum

(I've got) Unfinished Business

(© Ricky Flores - South Bronx during the 80s and 90s - 11 http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickyflores/)

Sometimes I feel like there are so many concepts floating inside the cess pool of ideas that is my brain that I cannot express them all.

But here is what is coming:

Banksy and his rats.

Why democracy will never work in Iraq.

More photography than your eyes can swallow.

Conversations overheard in the changing rooms of Supre.

Kareena Zerefos.

Head, First Down

This is Miss D. She is holding the skull of a young girl. The weight of the skull is light and the bone is thin. The forehead is vertical and the contour of the face is smoother than that of a male skull.

She might have been pretty. She might have been ugly. She could have been a showgirl. Or she could have been a cleaner.

How did she die? Did she enjoy her life?

Does it even matter?

Yes, because her skull is symbolic of the way in which youth fades. Your flesh will rot off to reveal patchy, brown bone. But years later, when another young woman muses over your remains, you become something more.

An enigma and a mysterious artifact that will endlessly fascinate.

And that is beauty.

Do you need democracy?

Mao Zedong or in correct spelling Mao Tse Tung.
(December 26 1893 – September 9, 1976)
Was a Chinese military and political leader who led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and was the leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976.

However, in 2002 Jiang Zemin declared that "Inner party democracy is the life of the party." It could promote democracy in the country as a whole. But why would China want to be democratised after the dicatorial efforts of the party to squash any kind of dissent, (as seen most in the bloody suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989)?

Hu Jintao, who came to power in 2002, has emphasised the principle of centralism which means upholding party decisions without dissent.

This sounds typical of harsh Communist rule, where no one gets a say in the policies or governance of the nation. But maybe this all just points to one very obvious idea: China is not suited to Western style democracy.

Mao Zedong briefly played with the "tenure system", which "gives delegates to party congresses notional supervisory power over officials for the entire five years of a confress, instead of just for one meeting at the beginning of it. It also gives delegates some say in the appointment of party officials."

After the tenure system was revived in the 1980s, it was found that, by the time Hu Jintao came to power, it was not working. Villages were fighting over the roles of elected leaders and ancient clan rivalries had begun to resurface. Rural protests showed that even village level democracy had not helped the well being of individuals or made them happier.

The tenure system has failed and China is and will not be democratised.

"32 year-old television writer who yearns to be Bob Ellis"

I don't know. Who the fuck gathers Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty around to witness the birth of mice? Is this video even real? Am I still high from the pseudoephedrine I took on Thursday before clutching at Julian from the Presets?

This is Marieke Hardy in a post on her now defunct blog, Reasons You Will Hate Me.

Those of you over fifty will know Hardy in relation to her granddfather who penned Power without Glory in 1950. This was a fictionalised version of the life of Melbourne businessman, John Wren, and was set in the fictitious Melbourne suburb of Carringbush (based on the actual suburb Collingwood).

However, more youthful and sprightly readers will know Marieke Hardy better for her various talents as a blogger, freelance writer, broadcast and television producer. She presented the JJJ Breakfast Program with Robbie Buck and Lindsay McDougall in 2009 and has written a variety of television scripts.

It was these achievements I sought to exploit in hunting down Hardy for a uni assignment in March. The task was to find someone related to your future career, then interrogate them with questions about the impact of the global knowledge economy upon their line of work. Enthralling.

After reading Hardy's blog and listening to the breakfast show, I concluded Hardy woud be much less intimidating to interview than Johnathan Holmes or Peter Fray.

Despite this, I was still scared shitless. Sitting in the ABC cafeteria in Ultimo, waiting for Hardy, I realised that I didn't really have a straight definition of the global knowledge economy. I also realised that I was surrounded by hard core journalists, writers and people generally far smarter than myself.

I quietly began to piss myself, fiddling with my embarrassingly 1980s Sony recorder while George Negus ordered his cappucino a few metres away.

Hardy spoted me immediately and greeted me warmly. The sweat ceased to pour off my brow as I found Hardy friendly and relatable. She swears like a sailor and has a number of tatoos. We spoke briefly about her experiences in moving from Melbourne to Sydney's inner city. The interview then got underway... before she kindly informed me, "I think the red light needs to be on before it starts recording."

Hardy grew up around film and television sets, as both her parents were stage actors. "I was a child actor then realised at the age of eighteen that I was much better as a writer." She worked in Melbourne community radio before becoming a freelance writer for The Age and Frankie.

I was desperate to know how she went from community radio to writing a column for The Age.

It began with her blog, Reasons You Will Hate Me, on June 3rd, 2004. It got noticed by the editor of The Age who then contacted Hardy and asked her to pen a column for him. This shows the value of social capital in the media industry. Success hinges on collaboration, networks and social relationships. These are the key demands of the information age.

The idea of knowledge capital also relates to Hardy when she describes her reliance upon Google for scriptwriting when searching for a specific pop culture reference or facts and words. "I'd be lost without it."

Knowledge capital is information that flows rapidly across multiple media platforms, therefore driving the generation and dissemination of new services and products.

The the way in which the internet has transformed writing and the media became obvious for Hardy when she read The Everyday Guide to Drinking by Kingsley Amis. "He would have gone to the library and searched through tomes... and I just go sraight to Google."

However, it has been argued that the drive for new products and services has impacted upon media autonomy, constraining the industry by forcing them to pursue profit rather than the ideals of the Fourth Estate, a model free of vested interests. The mainstream media is controlled by global communication corporations, such as News Ltd, which hold immense economic and political strength, which is increasing everyday with the help of knowledge capital.

But Hardy insists that these global communication corporations do not dominate the majority of the Australian media. She points out that knowledge capital and the advances of the information age have been used by the ABC to assist in information flows and access to rural audiences.

"Triple J's big strength is that it takes music to regional areas where the only music young people can get is local mainstream FM. These people not only have Triple J radio, now they have the website where they can access gig guides... they can read CD and gfilm reviews and have a look at the presenter's blogs. We try and make information more accessible to people like "Joe Nobody" living in the Northern Territory. Musically, Triple J's online multimedia and blogs are a great window for what is going in the rest of the country, this material acts as a cultural lifeline for those in rural areas."

However, being a government funded organisation, the ABC is freer to pursue the ideals of the Fourth Estate and fulfil public interests, as opposed to the commercial networks, who are dependent upon the global economy as their profit is derived mainly from advertising revenue.

Hardy does concede that the media industry is getting it rough at the moment because of the global economic crisis. Financial markets have affected newspapers especially, as the news moves online. "Where I work, at The Age, there was a huge strike last year and a large number of staff were made redundant. It is dangerous to be working as a journalist in the current economic climate."

This last comment doesn't give me much hope for the future. But I do get to go back to uni and boast that I met and interviewed a real, live radio presenter.

And maybe I am missing something, because out of the 45 minutes or so I spend talking with Hardy, I do not get a hint of the "show pony granddaughter of Frank Hardy who uses her family connections and thuggery to gain noteriety."

She just seems like a normal person trying to succeed.

I get to meet another real, live radio presenter as we are leaving the ABC cafeteria. Unfortunately Lindsay McDougall appears to have lost the power of speech after a long morning on the radio. He can't seem to respond when I say hello.

Ah, the pains that being a high flying broadcaster must inflict upon the vocal cords.

FAM KIA

"Troops failed to check victims' identities: inquiry"

This was an article I read in the weekend edition of The Sydney Morning Herald. These are the parts that I found particularly intriguing. An Australian Defence Inquiry has found that Australian special forces failed to check the identities of their victims (before or after killing them), to see if they were Afghani insurgents or civilians.

Australian soliders killed three unarmed men in Southern Afghanistan amid concerns that the men were adopting firing positions when the soldiers raided the house of a known insurgent.

During the operation, the Australians had detained eight civilians from Oruzgan province. None of the detainees were allowed to assist with identifying the three victims.
The internal inquiry illustrated the need to quickly gain intelligence regarding the identity of FAM KIA.

FAM KIA is an acronym for "fighting age males killed in action". What is the male fighting age in Afghanistan?

The traditional warrior age of 15 to 29 years still remains in Afghanistan.
Australian, American, British soliders and others protecting the Western world against the Taliban are shooting kids still struggling to grow facial hair.

The Defence Department uses the acronym FAM KIA for the same reasons that the United States military uses the phrase "collateral damage". FAM KIA hides the fact that the coalition are essentially murdering children. Collateral damage (damage that is unintended or incidental to the orginal outcome) means humans, civilians killed in the way of military operations.

A seperate defence inquiry found that Australian forces were justifed in attacking a group of Afghans suspected of planting roadside bombs in late April. Graciously, the inquiry noted claims that the men killed were farmers doing night-time irrigation work.

The image at the top is fifteen year old Ali Aqa. He is not a child solider in Afghanistan. His village was burned to the ground by the Taliban. This is where it gets sticky... should we be stopping the Taliban from killing Aghans or should we be stopping Australians and Americans from killing Afghans?

http://www.defence.gov.au/media/download/video/2009/jan/video.htm

The propaganda that is produced by both sides is equally hilarious.
But this particular video from the Australian Department of Defence is exceptional.
Private Pepi was struck by a round. That was in January. I don't know if he got back by spring, which was his intention. He wants to finish his job.

This guy, who doesn't look much older than 25, is lying in a hospital after being severely injured.
Maybe I just don't understand his love for his country or his passion for his job, but he looks more than relaxed to me about "finishing the job". Common sense dictates he would be on some kind of heavy pain killer after being shot a few times. I think it is more than insidious to film this solider under these circumstances and use it as an incentive and inspiration for other young Australians to join the Defence Force.

But of course this is just another example of how war works...

The title of the SMH article should have been "Australian troops kill three unarmed men". We need to wake up.

its just the kind of thing that we don't talk about anymore

Walking on the ground you're breaking, laughing at the life you're wasting

Rowr.

I love Vinnies. It fucking fascinates me. You walk into a den of absolute chaos, trash and gold. Vinnies bursts at the seams with Catholic paraphernalia, AC/DC t-shirts and Margaret Fulton cookbooks. But there are also the gems. And the kitsch, oh the glorious kitsch.

The vast array of clothes worn by people long dead that feel itchy when you pull them on. And you wonder who held this strange troll. Or sat this fluffy tiger on the end of their bed.

Vinnies reminds you of your Nana, with all those formidable crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary.

There are records, not to mention hundreds of VCRs and tapes. Looking for Robert Goulet With Love or Disney's Christmas Favourites?

You're in luck, sonny.

Vinnies is a museum of suburban history.

And just for kicks, I tried on a wedding dress. Yes, it was a bit creepy. But I was imagining the bride who wore it fifty years before (1962 was on the label). And this Nana used to be one skinny bitch. I couldn't even get the zipper all the way up.

How can you put all your trust in a man who sleeps in his clothes?

The dog days are quite literally over. Our little champion is now resting in his favourite place to do a poop, the backyard.

Words can't express how much we miss him, so I will leave it at that sentence.

Friends also die. It can be over money, boys... and even BBQs.

Well, I know we're all dying in the Nietzschean sense of the word, but sometimes you die inside your head for a day. And it sucks. For everyone around you as well. You go all Ian Curtis on your friends but you can't help it. Its like trying to pull a sinking ship out of the swirling vacuum of the sea.

So I've quit cigarettes and now I've quit alcohol. I have begun to realise all the things I have done that would never have occured if I had not been drinking. A lot of them good. A lot of them very very bad. But no matter how high on your horse you want to get, you have to admit, being bad is fun.

Why else would we have one night stands, kiss buskers, climb security fences and tackle priests? But then why else would we put our hands through glass windows and urinate in public?

These are the dilemmas of life, people.

But on a brighter, less Joy Division note, here is a band I have discovered that brings me much happiness.

The xx. The link to "Basic Space":

http://awmusic.ca/2009/12/11/the-xx-xx/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AWmusic+%28AWmusic%29

Also check out this very interesting cover of "Romeo and Juliet" by Dire Straits.

http://www.inallcaps.com/2009/12/dice-were-loaded-from-start.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inALLcaps+%28in+ALL+caps%29

Sister killed over hair straightner

Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre.
This is where I would be if I had not bought my own GHD about two years ago, I am sure of it.
But seriously, how horrible is this?

http://www.smh.com.au/national/sister-killed-over-hair-straighteners-20091204-ka4o.html

This makes me want to vomit.