What's the definition of democracy?

Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch!

Genius.

At the risk of being insubstantial...

I haven't blogged for ages. So I thought I would. Please do not read this if you don't feel like reading random waffling thoughts. I'm going to keep it to 10. I promise.

1. I am really looking forward to this weekend. Hanging with my homey chicks, having a laugh, maybe the odd deep-and-meaningful... You guys rock and I love ya almost as much as I love my iPhone.


2. I am REALLY enjoying my art stuff at the moment. It makes me smile a lot (when I'm not frowning in concentration - yes, really, it IS my face), and occassionally laugh out loud. I often talk to myself. And I can smoke like a train "inside" and it's the workshop so that's OK.


3. I need to get into the garden. Poor neglected garden. I am ashamed.


4. Intense earnest white "Green" guys can be a pain in the arse. Why is it that I always attempt to look interested in the dribble that comes out of their mouths? What I really want to do is to tell them to stop looking at their navels, and go out and listen to some people. That really WOULD change the world.


5. I've seen a few cute wee baby dykes lately. Funny. I haven't seen any in 5 years. It's like they all went inside, cut their hair, decided to go "punk" or "grunge", ripped up some clothes and then have been parading up and down the streets. It's good. I thought they were becoming extinct.


6. Is it OK that I want to sell my art? Is that art? Or product? And why is it that everytime I create something that I think is cool, I then spend the next gazillion hours trying to work out how I can make something the same, but unique, in half the time and for half the cost? I might be a lost cause.


7. Sometimes I think my heart might have a blanket over it. I look at people around me and despair about humanity and its cruelty and selfishness. Sometimes I think my heart might burst with love. My heart is confused at the moment, can't settle on either, and that is probably not good for a white chick, who's been on medication for so long, who smokes and is turning 40 soon.


8. I'm sorry to the people who I love and who I am so bloody hopeless at keeping in touch with. Regularly anyway. I do think of them. Often in fact. I'm either lazy, inconsiderate, busy or all of these.


9. Everytime I look out of my office window at the lush green grass of parliament, I think about the scabby pockmarked lawns that abound in NZ. It makes me think that grass is expensive.


10. I'm off to do some jobs for Sue B - I'm sorry but I'm dropping you all immediately, because Sue needs me.

Who has the right to write...

One of my scripts for the Radio NZ competition has a Maori family as the central characters. This has once again opened up that good old can of worms of who has the right to tell a story...

The story I wrote is not about race but it is about people. I orignally had different main characters but the story morphed and it was this family that I was drawn towards. This brings into question the appropriateness of whether or not it is ok for me to have a Maori family to tell the story, and if so how do I need to represent them.

There is a part of me that thinks 'I'm gay yet I write straight characters, I'm female yet many males inhabit the world of my scripts, I'm 31 yet my characters are 5 and 65' BUT is this just another colonial piece of crap that allows me to think I have permission to represent a culture I'm not part of? Is it ok for me to assume that because I am writing about people I know, family's I have been amongst, and most of all that I write about PEOPLE, and that I am 'creating', that I can assert grounds to do what I please?

I realise that this argument is not about my script, it is much bigger than that. But what difference does it make if I change the characters to pakeha? Would I have had the same conversation if my characters were Asian, or South African?

Do I really have the right to write the stories that come to me?

ACC cut postering

Bebe and i spent the morning (after having lovely breakfast and catch up with tank, fnessm and H2TB) postering Island bay and Lyall bay about cuts to sexual abuse funding. It was all going really well and we were quite happy with our progress. However in Lyal bay we ran into a little bit of conflict. A man stormed over to us demanding that we take down the posters or he'd take our photos (the camera was in his hand) and give it to police and city council. Fuck wad. He proceeded to say taggers like us werent welcome in his neighbourhood. I immediatly retaliated, put my hand up stretched out in front of my face towards his camera and walked towards him exclaiming we were standing up for the sexually abused and that he should just read the poster. Needless to say it got pretty heated. We refused to take down the posters and he went into his house just across the road- taking photos almost the whole time.

Bebe and i left and decided to return to his house with a little present.

A flower, some facts and a thank-you note in the form of chalk, right outside his whare.

We ended up having quite a good discussion and by the end of it, he reached out to give both of us a hug. I refused but Bebe was quite happy to receive cuddles.

Chuck the 'PC Police' on hold...

I haven't blogged for ages, I've made several starts but lack the followthrough. Anyway, most of my blog attempts have been too serious to indulge so I'm changing tack and delivering this.... a giggle for a thursday arvo.

New Words for 2009
* SALAD DODGER.An excellent phrase for an overweight person.*
* SWAMP-DONKEYA deeply unattractive person.
* TESTICULATING.Waving your arms around and talking bollocks.
* BLAMESTORMING.Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or aproject failed, and who was responsible.
* SEAGULL MANAGER.A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.
* SALMON DAY..The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.
* CUBE FARM.An office filled with cubicles.
* PRAIRIE DOGGING. When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.(This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)
* SINBAD. Single working girls. Single income, no boyfriend and desperate.
* AEROPLANE BLONDE. One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a 'black box'.
* PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE.The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get itto work again.
* OH - NO SECOND. That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all').
* GREYHOUND. A very short skirt, only an inch from the hare..
* JOHNNY-NO-STARS.A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.
* MILLENNIUM DOMES. The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there's actually naught in there worth seeing.
* MONKEY BATH . A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: 'Oo! Oo! Oo!Aa! Aa! Aa!'.
* MYSTERY BUS.. The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in thetoilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people sothe pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.
* TART FUEL. Bottled premixed spirits, regularly consumed by young women.
* TRAMP STAMP Tattoo on a female
* PICASSO BUM. A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she's got 4 buttocks

thank you very much.

ACC funding cuts to counselling

A meeting was held tonight at 128 to talk possible actions against ACC but more specifically towards Dr Peter Jansen, ACC Clinical Directorate and Minister of ACC, Nick Smith.

There is a march planned and we need as many people involved and aware as possible.

Date: Monday 19^th Oct @ 12:30

Where: Rally at the Cenotaph then Parliament and onto ACC Headquarters on molesworth st

Here’s the petition if you’ve not already signed on AND if anyone has time there will be other meetings held

Sunday @ 11.45, 128 Abel Smith St

Monday @ 5:30, 128 Abel Smith St

OR

If you’d like to help with distributing leaflets/making banners just drop in to 128 this thurs between 1 and 3.30

OR

Email Nick or Peter with your concerns

Nick.smith@parliament.govt.nz

Peter.Jansen@acc.co.nz

Find more info here here here here and here

Arohanui

Veganism

I love mince, lamb, beef, pork, rat sheesh kebabs (that’s what I was told they were-yummy), duck noodle soup, goats cheese, kai moana, pate’ eggs omg eggs! and even that awful French stuff where you choke the bird to fill the liver of 'tasty goodness'. I think it’s pronounced like ‘farg gwah’

Awareness around my 'murder consumption' has been pretty shit and predominantly purposeful ignorance. But now the *busy lifestyle slash low income* yada just doesn't seem viable so, for this and various other reasons i've looked into politics around veganism.

Now i think i have slightly more educated defences to cover my shame and guilt for my carnivorous actions.

Here are some of my thoughts (and insecurities) around veganism

Will my friends and whanau reject me if I become a vegan
(esp my hangi loving whanau that already think i’ve become too white for my own good)
Is it really ‘white’ to be vegan when there are many vegans of colour?
Will my friends think I’m imposing my views on them ?
Will or am I imposing my views on them?

Who places value on what should or shouldn't be killed?
Will I include shellfish in my veganism, if not will I substitute that intake for something of the same calibre?

Can I make a vegan boil up??

Am I thinking about becoming a vegan because I care or because there’s that really hot girl that’s vegan? Is that so bad?

But I do care, i do (sigh). Sheeps, cows, pigs into mutton, beef, pork… bacon and eggs or brisket boil ups. I’m aware that the majority of animals I consume live short, caged , mutilated, druged lives deprived of their most basic freedoms. Even free range chickens are slaughtered once egg productivity lessons after two years.

I know that the environmental impacts of agriculture has devastating effects to our land and that food production causes pollution producing large carbon emmissions AND that agriculture is highly inefficient in the use of our resources.

So why the fuck did I eat mince on toast for breakfast this morning?
Because I’m selfish.. dominant.. powerful.. the norm.. it’s my privilege??

ARGGGGH