Pica Pica

Today I combed the cat:

I just took part in the “Soapbox” public speaking competition, a little part of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House.

Well I didn’t get past the first round, but it was huge fun. The “facilitators” in the red, green and yellow hats (if you were there, you’d know what I mean) did a terrific job of making it go well.

Anyway, in order not to waste my speech, here is the text:

Democracy demands terrorist software

We know that the government’s proposed Internet filters are half-baked and unpopular – but worse than that, they are really the very opposite of what we should be doing.

We know that power looks after power– the law is framed that way. And we know that money looks after money – by and large, the rich stay rich. Those in power can lose huge amounts of other peoples’ money and still grow their own millions. Just think of Telstra or Goldman Sachs.

Those in power now want to get their hands on our information so that they can control us. Elsewhere at this festival David Mutton is putting forward the appalling idea that – I quote – “intrusive, coercive surveillance” is somehow a good thing, and that – again I quote – “issues of privacy, informed consent and free will are irrelevant“. Now that’s what I call a really dangerous idea!

Those in power, in this case represented by the Minister for Broadband, Stephen Conroy*, want to stop us from having free access to information. But at the same time, security organisations now want to intercept and store every electronic message that we send. They want to track the author of every bit of information that is out there.

Those in power want to do this because they think they can. The Gestapo and the KGB also wanted to record the thoughts of ordinary people. And for very much the same reason.

Are we serious about democracy? Then we need genuinely free exchange of information. That means we need privacy and security software that
·        protects the identity of people who publish,
·        that gives us free access to information, and
·        stops spies from snooping on our conversations.

We must do research into privacy software, not into filters! 

*I wanted to quip “… or should that be Minister for Narrowband, or even Minister for Narrowminds”, but I didn’t have spare seconds in the two minutes.

It was just a couple of minutes distraction:

The toilet has been going down slowly for a couple of weeks. Attempts to use a plunger brought only temporary relief. This morning I accepted it wasn’t going to get better, got in a plumber with cameras. They cleared the (vile and substantial) mess, but found the main fault in a broken junction. Tomorrow it will be dug out and replaced. The lot will come to almost $8000. Ouch. Need I say more?

I suppose it was nearly inevitable that having worried about not getting enough work, I would now be worried about meeting the deadlines, which is why the blog has been a bit slow.

Anyway, last weekend I took teachings from Lama Pema Dorje in a form of Tibetan yoga – a relatively gentle form, fairly safe and not “strange and secret”. I wrote about it a little more over on DangZang. Here I will just mention that it was very enjoyable. Apparently Nougat, our large new dog, missed me when I went out on Saturday morning, but then he had some sardines and a bit of a lie down:

… so everything was all right then.

I did, however, notice how security is spreading everywhere. The first time I went to put on my loose-fitting “yoga pants”, I thought it would be discreet to pop out to change in the stairwell. I had just started when a door opened and a man looked out from what I then saw was the “Chinese Massage Parlour”. I had not noticed the dome of the security camera in the ceiling, so I guess he wondered what I was up to. But no harm done! Lesson: examine environment before taking trousers off. What is a Chinese massage parlour anyway?

Jason Blake gave this piece, a monologue written by Will Eno, a good review in the SMH. We saw it last night, and I must say that I have no idea why. A more spectacular failure to engage the audience is a rarity. But the theatre was warm, the seat was reasonably comfortable, it was only a bit over an hour long, and after all these years of Buddhism I have at least a slight level of skill in resting my mind in its own nature, so I was able to let the time pass pleasantly enough.

There were good points: Sarah noticed that the line “The dead horse of a life we beat, all the wilder, all the harder, the deader it gets” was quite telling. And about 50 minutes into the show Luke Mullins, the actor, went “Boo” quite loudly and unexpectedly, so the audience was momentarily a-flutter as we all exclaimed a light “Hooh!”. So that was amusing.

Otherwise it came across to me as a self-indulgent ramble through an angst I didn’t feel – even vicariously – peppered with humour that was as sophomoric as the title.

People care enough to keep this kind of place passable and free, but they don’t particularly pride themselves on the back lane. Perhaps that’s why there is such a dreamy peace to be found there sometimes.

Behind Norton Street

The Patio de tango website has been down for more than a week, which is bad news for them. But here is the summary from last week’s lesson at Bondi, concentrating on forward and backward ochos:

It’s the late summer and the successful female orb-spinners have grown fat. The strings of discarded prey advertise their success and demonstrate the majestic scale of their palaces. So when you walk down the path between the bushes, those who don’t like spiders should not look up.

Like most pictures on this blog, you can click for a closer view, but again those who do not like spiders should not enlarge the picture below – the detailed view has more resolution than I usually use. The bodies of the big ones can easily be bigger than my thumbnail!

Here is a picture of part of our street this morning. This is nothing unusual.

I’ve mailed the distributor with the suggestion that they might apologize. I’ll let you know if they do!