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