The IMF Needs YOU!

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has launched a consultation process with the private sector, civil society, academics, and others to gather ideas about the best use of natural resources for boosting living standards in developing countries.

The IMF is preparing two papers for the institution’s Executive Board—Natural Resources Wealth Management and Taxation of Natural Resource Rents—on these issues and will incorporate comments gathered in the consultation process.

Kinhasa Conference
As part of the consultation process, the IMF is hosting a conference in Kinshasa with the Democratic Republic of Congo, on March 21–22 on the management of natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa.

CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONSULTATION

Rally for Aboriginal Rights and self-determination on the UN Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Stop Aboriginal deaths in custody - Justice for Terrance Briscoe and all victims - Independent Inquiry Now
Stop the Second NT Intervention - Withdraw 'Stronger Futures' legislation

Wednesday March 21
12:30pm at the office of NT Tourism
201 Sussex Steet Sydney



http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&bav=on.2%2Cor.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.%2Ccf.osb&biw=1000&bih=536&wrapid=tlif133168436341410&q=where+is+201+sussex+street&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq&hnear=0x6b12ae3bfdbfdef3%3A0xf0c6a1fdd3c901bc%2C201+Sussex+St%2C+Sydney+NSW+2000&gl=au&ei=Z-RfT5ztLqf4mAXD1MiQCA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCIQ8gEwAA

Speakers include:

• Nicole Watson, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning UTS, co-author of Listening but not Hearing, a new report on Stronger Futures
• Ray Jackson, Indigenous Social Justice Association
• Patricia Morton-Thomas, Aunty of Terrance Brisoce (phone link up from Alice Springs).

March 21 will be the 52nd anniversary of the Sharpville massacre in South Africa, when scores of anti-Apartheid demonstrators were gunned down by police.

But while the Australian government will participate in 'harmony day' celebrations, its ongoing Intervention in the Northern Territory is creating conditions which closely resemble those of Apartheid. UN special rapporteurs on Indigenous and Human Rights have condemned the policy as racist.

Terrance Briscoe was a 28 year old Anmatjere man found dead in a police cell in Alice Springs at 2am on January 5.

He was picked up with a number of friends for being drunk at 9.30 the previous night and taken into "protective custody".

Almost three months no official cause of death has been announced. Despite widespread calls for an independent inquiry, including from Amnesty International and the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, police continue to investigate police.

The family has information that the autopsy shows that “asphyxia” is the most likely cause of death. And the testimony of two witnesses who were in custody with Mr Briscoe indicate that police may have suffocated him while roughing him up at the police station.

Oscar White told AAP that one officer pushed Mr Briscoe hard onto the ground and held him face down and sat on his back while other officers put their feet on him. He said Mr Briscoe struggled to breathe and a stitched cut above his eye was opened and began to bleed. “They were really rough, and they were laughing at the same time,” White said. “They were making a mockery out of him. He was short of breath too, because he was actually really, really suffocated.”

Mr White stated that Mr Briscoe was like a rag when police picked him up off the floor and dragged him to his cell. One of the main recommendations of the Royal Commission was the decriminalisation of public drunkenness, but like most of its recommendations, this has been ignored and Aboriginal people continue to die in custody at the rate of one a month.

Since the Intervention in the NT, Indigenous incarceration has increased by 40 per cent. But the government is pushing ahead with 'Stronger Futures in the NT' legislation which will only fuel the prison crisis. Increased penalties under 'Stronger Futures' could see people jailed for 6 months for having a single can of beer on Aboriginal land.

'Stronger Futures' will extend most Intervention powers for a further 10 years. It will expand income management around Australia, starting with Bankstown in Sydney and 4 other trial sites.

There has been an avalanche of opposition to Stronger Futures. A Senate inquiry has faced overwhelming opposition from community members and major stakeholder organisations and in just two weeks twelve thousand people have joined an online campaign 'Stand for Freedom' demanding withdrawal of the legislation.

Sign the online petition against 'Stronger Futures' at

www.standforfreedom.org.au

Join this rally at the NT Tourism offices to continue the fight for justice for Terrance Briscoe and withdrawal of Stronger Futures laws.

http://stoptheintervention.org/

http://www.jumbunna.uts.edu.au/researchareas/alternatives.html

http://www.jumbunna.uts.edu.au/researchareas/submissions.html

http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/

For more information call:
Paddy on 0415 800 586
or Alex on 0449 184 801

"In accordance to the principles of Doublethink, it does not matter if the war is not real,
or when it is, that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won.
It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.
In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation.
The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects."

~ George Orwell "1984"

People and Peace

Us - Audry. Where are you Audry?... But love, much love!

Indigenous Innovation Unconference! This weekend in Redfern!!

What: Indigenous Innovation Unconference
Where: National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, 180 George St, Redfern, NSW 2016.
When: Saturday, 29th October 2011, 9:30am - 4pm
Who: People in or interested in the Indigenous Sector and Social Innovation Sector
Why: To develop and progress ideas and action on Indigenous Innovation
In Partnership: National Centre of Indigenous Excellence & Social Innovation Sydney

The Indigenous Innovation Unconference will be a gathering of thought leaders and changemakers in the Indigenous and Social Innovation sectors to explore:

• the role of Indigenous perspectives, knowledge and culture in social innovation;
• the potential for socially innovative concepts, practices, relationships and enterprises to influence Indigenous enterprises and communities; and
• the notion of Indigenous Innovation, a unique form of social innovation led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and informed by their perspectives.

The idea for the Indigenous Innovation Unconference is to facilitate connections and collaboration between people in the Indigenous and Social Innovation sectors. The event will foster the development of new partnerships with a positive social impact to empower people and build enterprises to create a brighter future for all Australians.

Tawny Frogmouth Visits Backyard

Lessons in chillin currently being held by tawny frogmouth in Malabu Backyard.

The tawny meditates deeply. Days are spent peacefully perched in clever camouflage with braches.
The tawny is a receiver. Mostly insectivorous, they wait for food to come to them - occasionally dropping to the ground for other small prey to add variety.
The tawny gives love. It winked at me.

Tale Of A Mad Night

In Don Quixote's case, the auspicious community of the wise and the sane took it upon themselves to judge his books and to burn them. Cervante's chilling parody of the Spanish Inquisition is echoed by our own contemporary experiences with forces of Law and Order and by the current and recent Administration's attempts to protect us from dangerous ideas and information, for our own good.

In a subtler way, the collective efforts of the self appointed sane influence the whole field of psychiatry and psychology. The clinical diagnosis of psychopathology is too often a form of social control. If other people make us nervous by the foreignness of their queer talk and odd behaviour, we give them tranquilizing drugs and lock them away in custodial institutions."

~ Sheldon B. Kopp
from
If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him!

Wednesday is Indigenous Literacy Day

...And I'll be book-busking on the forecourt in front of Abbey's Bookshop at 131 York Street, Sydney (opposite the Queen Victoria Building) at 3pm.

Abbey's are only letting me read from their "Vintage Classics" Collection, so in order to avoid buying a book from Random House/Abbeys I had to choose one that I already own from that list. I'll be reading from Thomas Pynchon's wonderful novel "V". Any money raised will be matched by Random House (McPublishing) and donated to the Indigenous Literacy Fund. Come and see me and donate a wee bit'o'somethin for Indigenous book-learnins!!

Squat fundraiser

	Hey crew, some friends are organising a gig to raise money for a squat bust fund Friday, September 2 · 7:00pm - 10:30pm
Location	Wilson st Park, Wilson St, Newtown
More Info	Squat Fundraiser at the Wilson St Park, Newtown. Join us for chai, food, squatumentary-documentary and squatting solidarity. The film that will be showing is 'Shelter'. Shelter: a Squatumentary - 45 min. (2008) By Hannah E. Dobbz In economically turbulent times, rent and home-ownership have become unaffordable at best and impossible at worst. Thus, people all over the world continue a long tradition of reclaiming this basic human right by squatting. Shelter: A Squatumentary is a documentary film that explores the squatting movement in the East Bay from 2004 to 2007. We follow three examples of the struggle for housing in an unaffordable market such as that of the San Francisco Bay Area. Hellarity House, Banana House, and Power Machine are stories of squatters who have found one tentative solution to the ongoing housing crisis. For anyone who is interesting in/in solidarity with/currently squatting.

Our entropic kitchen

Emily and Beargrrl were discussing the changable state of our kitchen a couple of days ago, and the fact that it never has any spoons! So being mad devotees of spoon theory, we came to the conclusion that our kitchen is non-neurotypical, and subject to its own special brand of entropy. 

Cackling over hyperbole and a half tonight I realised that this is because our kitchen is inhabited by EIGHT humyns (and two cats) who will never be grown ups. Therefore we constantly vacillate between cleaning all of the things, resting on our laurels, being convinced that it is someone else's turn to clean all the things, and being completely overwhelmed. But ohhhh the sense of accomplishment when all of the things are clean and it has shiny (and a drawer full of spoons)... :D

Anwernekenhe 5

This week I'll be in Cairns to attend Anwernekenhe 5 with the amazing Hexy to present on combating the stigma and discrimination experienced by Indigenous Sex Workers.

"Anwernekenhe means ‘us mob’ in the Arrente language, the language of the people upon whose land the first conference was held in 1994. Permission to use the name was given by the Arrente Elders. Anwernekenhe 1 was the first national HIV/AIDS meeting for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander gay men and sistergirls. It was funded by the Commonwealth government, with a total of 73 delegates coming together from every state and territory."

"The Anwernekenhe National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander HIV/AIDS Alliance (ANA) is pleased to announce our 5^th National HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health Conference. It is envisaged this forum will continue the invaluable work of our previous conferences by identifying, discussing, exploring and finding meaningful outcomes to HIV/AIDS and sexual health for our community."

Here is a link to ANA's website.

Here is a link to Scarlet Alliance's website. Scarlet Alliance is the Australian Sex Workers Association and I am currently Vice President. The site has heaps of really amazing resources and I highly recommend you check it out.

Spoon Theory (Please Read!)

Please take the time to read Christine Miserandino’s personal story and analogy of what it is like to live with sickness or disability. This is a really useful theory/practice that more and more people (including some of the Malabu housies) who live with disability and sickness use to simply/practically quantify and explain their capacity/capabilities to peeps around them. Its totally a useful tool for some of us and you may well encounter it in your interactions and collective workings with your amazing peeps (all of whom have different, and shifting, strengths, energies and capacity).

A link to her article is here.

A PDF is here for your perusal/download.

It's important to recognise that Christine's experience is based in her experience of living with Lupus. We all have our own experience of sickness and disability. The people who you work with, associate with, love with, commune with, etc will most likely not have the same experience. When someone tells you that they are "low on spoons", or that they "don't have the spoons" try to appreciate and respect them for their honesty, they are telling you out of respect and consideration for you, and they're probably dealing with some internalised shaming and blaming. Ableism is just as real as racism and sexism, and its a powerful form of oppression, stigma and discrimination. It's your responsibility to spend some time and energy to find out how you can be a good supporter, and ally, of the people in your communities who live with sickness and/or disability. Your work on this will be greatly appreciated and your relationships will be stronger for it.

Here is a quote from the article to give ya'll a glimpse of what this is about:
"I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of “spoons”. But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out 12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn’t even started yet. I’ve wanted more “spoons” for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she?"

Equality means treating people as individuals, with unique needs and desires. Thank you for taking the time to think about your communities and the diversity amongst the individuals that create them.

THE TYRANNY OF BUREAUCRACY

“People feel they can rely on the irrational. It offers the only guarantee of freedom from all the cant and bullshit and sales commercials fed to us by politicians, bishops and academics.

People are deliberately re-primitivizing themselves. They yearn for magic and unreason, which served them well in the past and might help them again. They’re keen to enter a new Dark Age. The lights are on, but they’re retreating into the inner darkness, into superstition and unreason.

The future is going to be a struggle between vast systems of competing psychopathies, all of them willed and deliberate, part of a desperate attempt to escape from a rational world and the boredom of consumerism.”

~ J.G. Ballard

Seeds of Self-Sufficiency

Stick it to 'the man' with sticks.
Grow some plants of self-sufficiency.
Spread the seeds separately to the system.
Feed.
Thrive.
Bring this food to the man.
Watch as it sticks to his insides....


(My response when asked..How would you stick it to the man?..?

I like this advice.

"Stop referring to the planet where we live as “the Earth,” or “planet
Earth.” We should acknowledge this place as what it is: our home.
Home — in this more expansive definition, would exclude trashing,
destroying, sacrificing or otherwise shitting in the place where we
live. While some people may take a particularly strong liking to
certain places, we should all be aware of the fact that our home
world belongs to all of us, that we are only passing through and that
other generations will want to enjoy this place the same way we
could, if we were not stuck in some hideous circumstance which
compels us to kill our home world."
~ Rob los Ricos
(Anarchism is Dead! Long Live Anarchy!)

There is some other good advice in this essay. Including doing away with rejecting the Marxist view of class divisions...

letting go

On Houses Kahlil Gibran

Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for grove or hill-top?


Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.


In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.


And tell me, people of OrphaIese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host and then a master?


Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

multipurpose heater

bike bus

i'd like to live in an amphibious bicycle driven bike bus.

Beargrrl's Birfdy Bacchanal Luncheon

Celebrate Samadhi's first ever birthday in Sodom City in true Beargrrl-style, with lots of nummy noms, boozy bevvies and lusty laughs.

Please bring a dish of deliciousness to share, and your favourite nectar to wet your whistle.

Omnivores, vegans and gluten-frees catered for, but please, NO PINEAPPLE (I'm deathly allergic).

Feel free to swing by, pop over, drop down, hang loose, dig in, come inside, bugger off, crash out and get your groove on as needed.

This Satarrrday, Jul-aye 30th at tha Malabu Hippy-Haus!
11:00 in the mornin' - 6:00 in the evenin'

lawson's bread pompous packaging dispute

To the packaging people of lawson's traditional bread,
I recently dumpstered a bounty of your tasty wholemeal bread. The first loaf went quickly and as I put the end crust into the toaster I prepared to recycle the packaging.... However, to my disappointment and frustration I noticed that the packaging was a hopeless paper plastic hybrid. Traditionally wasteful. Oh what to do??? What an annoying process it is to pull off the plastic bit, put it into the pit preparing for landfill (the rubbish bin) and then place the remaining paper in the recycling. How many other of your bread eating customers would do this?
Please stop using all packaging immediately.

Information hippy highway!

I'll post more soon but for now I have this to say:

Love hates "free trade". The force-fed illusion of necessary constant competition is one of the company's standard issue defence mechanisms. If you think about it, the walls are paper thin. Cut and paste. Stir and taste. Put down the sickle and tend the grass roots. Your love is a given. Your anger is a gift. Open your hands and make a fist.
~ Audry Nachos Autonomy 2011/666

“The system, unstable as ever,
never ceases to create
conditions which undermine it.
It's self-inflicted wounds await our salt.
If you don't believe in progress,
it'll never disappoint you
and you might even make some progress!”
~ Bob Black (Anarchy After Leftism. 1997)

from little things big things grow

~ Paul Kelly ~

Home is where the heart and hippies are.....