Real Men Use Chainsaws.  The very first branch is cut off the fig trees in Laman Street.

No protest would be complete without some pets coming along.  It was hard to believe they included poultry and a rooster wearing a baby's bib and perched on a pram!

For all the countless meetings, the CEOs, mediation processes and negotiating skills, our psychological insights, our higher education and degrees in management and change agent, peace studies and meditation, the zen of the removal of the fig trees has not proceeded smoothly.  And I'm not anti-intellectual but it makes you wonder.   

Citizen action when fig trees were about to cut down in Laman Street Newcastle today. The chain saws soon began their work despite the protests to keep the old trees.

Following is homage to elders among the green activists seen during the protest.

Right: J. Sutton. Special edition T shirt.  

D. Lithgow.

M. Henry left and J Sutton

D. Lithgow, left and J Sutton.

Major personalities in the current fig tree protest are covered in the media rather than in these pics. 

Other citizens at the protest follow in pics below.

 subversive flag, protestor in wheelchair

Law keepers.

Mayor and partner on right. 

NBN TV

Radio 2HD

T Leahy, Uni lecturer

Fig tree remnants were handed out.

The hugh famine in Africa urgently requires generous cash donations.  Every donation to the leading NGOs will be matched, dollar for dollar by the Australian government.
We are seriously obligated to provide aid in times of famine and disaster.  Otherwise, does aid really do good? Does it do harm? Really, change needs to come from within a country itself.  Instead of charity, new trading patterns and clever arrangments that reward a struggling country must be the way of the future and that takes leadership and will. Our 'guest' working visas could be in that direction.
Ties of friendship and good will with folk overseas are wonderful yet limited.  Belief in a small catalyst that gathers momentum is a difficult notion.  Outsiders impose and establish foreign services that demand hugh long term support that may become unavailable.
And this rant is coming from one who has volunteered and who favours social justice.
How many countries have a burgeoning middle class along with those in adject poverty?  In numbers and in affluence these middle classes are far bigger than our own population. In one light it is absurd to undertake charity work in a country that can well look after its own if there was the will to do so. We have hugh potential to establish more equality and overcome poverty and allow a decent standard of living to be extended. What happens in the meantime? Is that where charity comes in?
Will it be change in the West instead of charity?  Is the financial crisis lowering our high unsustainable standard of living and making way for others to have a fair share?  Then the crisis will not be in vain.

This evening, Police and forensics were on duty at a crime scene in public housing in Waratah.

Window shopping. Beacon Lighting, Kotara. All that glitters is not gold.

A safe recovery from the economic tightrope that several countries find themselves on could be via the way of the Cup Cake.
A cup cake recovery stimulates a raft of activities and the outcomes are sweet when products, services, the workers, imports and exports are all involved.
The PM knows the wisdom of this with a Fiftieth Birthday Cup Cake Arrangment as a surprise during a school visit where the cup cake had infiltrated.

Infrastructure becomes crucial with strong demand for space age baking trays, giant psudo-cup cake pans, paper patties, tierd cake stands, cake mixers and mixes, themed fridge magnets, cards, toys and adorments, Wedding cakes and parties. At its peak, job creation is just the icing on the cake.
As well, social capital benefits because Cup Cakes are good for self esteem. Trouble with a successful full size cake?  From experience Cup cakes are almost fool proof.
Is this a valid policy? On second thoughts, it is most likely, that the cup cake craze began in one of those big countries that is not doing very well at all.
Kids in the Kitchen. Turn a simple cup cake into a masterpiece. A school holiday activity at City branch, Newcastle Region Library. Thursday. 10yrs+

School concert making the most of new school hall built recently by economic stimulus activity.  

Assembly halls have sprung up everywhere in the lucky country. Are we appreciative?
The public's response was painfully mirrored on ABC TV ?comedy, At Home With Julia,  (Prime Minister) where she was painted as inept.

Mr Wayne Swan, Federal Treasurer, at her side, also finds himself among a nation of whingers even when he is named Finance Minister of the Year slash World Best Finance Minister for 2011 awarded by Euromoney (sic) with a ceremony in Washington (sic).  

Far too much is made of personalities. Just give us decent government by expert work from appropriate work groups.  

Just imagine how it is to be a radical.  I'm still the same old self but my ideas are extreme.  Climate change is not happening yet I have been known to mull over the ethics of taking a flight on a holiday whim, considering the hugh amount of fossil fuel that an aircraft burns and exhausts. The act of using a human or a donkey as a beast of burden so as to swan around mountain tops is another question. At least the donkey is not carrying a male bigger than itself. (yes, it is employment, but...)  And isn't Nepal riddled with malnutrition?

Prime Minister Gillard has an uphill battle.  In my books, she can do nothing better than finalise climate change leglislation.  If she has to sacrifice everything and become a martyr to the climate change cause she will be glorious and enjoy the view from the top.

My daughter just loved trecking in Nepal despite the effects of local illnesses, was it the altitude, and she carried her pac.

 Ahh nature!  Another spin-off from our notorious live cattle export to Asia? from scarce timber resources? from child labour? from paltry wages?  In the city: Genuine (!) cow hide rugs from $499 limited time only. ...From a shop that gathers 'wow' factor pieces from travel to a list of places in Asia and beyond.  

Laman Street, Newcastle. A birds eye view upon climbing one of the notorious trees - just joking! The trees in Laman Street have a short reprieve...again... 

Lower photo: tree protestors last Sunday.  

Tree loving protestors gathered in Civic Park in response to the plan to remove the Laman Street grove of trees.   The trees have been the subject of a hugh amount of debate for a long time. 

It must be time for an urban Fig Tree ballad to germinate. Rock a bye baby on the tree top....

The overall plan for a creative space to take the place of the trees, if and when they go, is of enormous interest.  Will it be done with flair and imagination?  

Darkness and light, mindfulness and impermanency, swept adrift like a sand mandala.

From Buddism to Christianity to a unique church cluster on the village green at Morpeth, gone, all gone to a developer -  although preservation orders are in place.  Not your everyday scene graced with a sandstone residence from earliest times, with community buildings, retreats, chapel, a green oval and old shade trees looking out over fields beside the Hunter river. 

Now a new housing development spreads close by.  Seniors can't resist the pressure to move out of their carefree home into a carefree village lifestyle and oblige the developers. Change is constant. Eventually all the housing for seniors will become redundant because an ageing population is not a permanent feature.  Or is it? 

Residential areas need holistic planning over the Hunter area to guard against it becoming a wall to wall housing estate. This is nothing new to the planners. Good planning is vital but the need is so widespread over the east coast, for a start, only so much will be done and at the same time there is originality in crude haphazard development.

Proactive innovation in the Hunter would see new centres built offering quality apartments in high density areas and built well before other citizens move in and voice their opposition. Start from scratch like many other have dreamed before this. 

Just imagine young families flocking to an alternative new tall city with good infastructure that offers sustainablity and supports a good lifestyle consistent with sane community life and with employment close by, not 100 clicks distant and with adequate transport.

With decent planning, enough space would remain to allow for peaceful natural areas and agricultural lands in perpetuity.  Who am I kidding?  

Peaceful art class.

We have come to take it for granted that criminals, droogs and protesting crowds are rounded up like cattle................. herded by savage dogs........ and pacified by violent means...........and use storm troppers armed like feudal warriors in feudal armour. We take it all for granted. 

A Clockwork Orange (1970s) was......was... a British satire.

Enjoy surfing and have a break from  news of events that come in waves or relentlessly creep up on us. Angry people riot in the U.K.  They riot by social media.  Watch the latest struggles on CCTV.  Is that what all those cameras are for?  While probably not a doomsday fundamentalist, to me it seems that the brave new world has crept up on us and produces certain vibes.  It is not, by any means, the end of life as we know it.  Yet...

Riots are widespread and commonplace from the U.K., Paris (a few years ago), Greece, to the Middle East and beyond.

Thousands of refugees are in transit and beat at the doors of the well-off, without success.

Famine is gripping thousands of displaced families.

For all our higher education and the cyber age, global finances are beyond control.  Nations face bankrupcy. At least Australia has escaped that path.

Hardship?  The Mayor of London was overseas and the P.M. had to cut short a holiday in Italy.

Two examples of leaders who exemplify a bright new age, Obama or Gillard, are denied progress by those who just want to deprive them of success no matter what it costs the country, the economy or the environment. What is very promising in Australia is in struggle against negative forces that I thought we had seen the back of. 

Peoples.  Tuesday 9 August 2011 is Census night. Everyone is counted making the census much more than just an estimate.  A small population makes it possible to literally record anonymous statistics about everyone.   

Historical archives are valued and people have the option of giving permission to additionally have their names and some other personal things put on a data base for posterity.

One option is to use the eCensus via the internet. As it is, an attempt is made to provide everyone with a nine page census form to fill in, one way or another, and to personally collect them afterwards.  

Census data is used to plan infastructure - among other things.  A good deal of planning went into the Emergency facilities at the newish hospital - or did it - because it is into its third or fourth makeover, seen fenced off  At least there is flexibility! 

Newspapers have no need for phone tapping. Instead, just do other news and letters to the editor. The Sydney Morning Herald gave us cat mythology in letters relating to names for cats and their failure to acknowledge them and Ian Walters wrote on July 11:

...T.S. Eliot ...points out that the naming of cats is a difficult matter...a cat must have a name for everyday...then a name that is particular, peculiar and dignified and thirdly, a name that no human research can elicit, but one only the cat knows... (after)...a succession of cats I can state categorically... that a cat which is provided with luxury... abundant gourmet food, and attentive staff will frequently come when its name is called, or at the very least open one eye and even raise an inquisitive eyebrow.

In strange juxtaposition is the Sumataran Tiger, endangered in a big way, according to the footage that streams from Indonesia showing the relentless clearing of the rainforests. What the hand dare sieze the fire? The human fat cats have deaf ears. Totally deaf.

Tiger, tiger burning bright

In the forests of the night

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?.............Blake................................image of Tiger from Sun Herald

 At Westfields, Kotara, a phantom surfer is high and above the shoppers. 

 Another multinational, Cotton On, is brave enough to open a store right where Borders closed up after going into liquidation. The age old book company, Angus and Robinson, seem to be taken over by Borders and that was the end of that. A & R published many of the Australian classics. 

Cotton On stores are already in the shopping centres around here somewhere, shopping is not a favourite pastime of mine. As it is, several well known retail clothing chains are going out of business. Then, David Jones department store closed their store in Newcastle city and have a bet each way saying they may reopen it in the future and use the window displays to attract customers out to their store in Westfields, Kotara.  

Air Ambulance lands at the hospital. Otherwise quiet afternoon and a few onlookers return indoors to where the action is.

 

A toddler goes to the big local hospital and waits four and a half hours in the waiting room then waits three hours to see a doctor in A & E and is then moved to the hospital ward.  At least it was not into a bed in a corridor.   We know such as this is not for the faint hearted.  We cannot expect the impossible and are fortunate and this is not a complaint about delays but those officials who boast of improved waiting times in emergency departments need a reality check.

Update: the above times are inaccurate and somewhat overdone due to confusion about the waiting time as a total. In all, a morning spent waiting at the G P, then diagnostic tests, then in the afternoon, turning to hospital care and eventual admission very late at night - all of which is fairly usual.  

From the Hibbart Island car ferry.  The ferry goes backwards and forwards - backwards and forwards (more frequently in holiday times!)

Is all reasoning affected by the summer weather on the other side of the world?  It certainly must be time to tap into the untold wealth of the high rollers to help save the economies that are going under instead of cutting into basic services too much.

Why do we copy what is done overseas - every bit of economic rationalism and privatisation  and closure of services - what have those countries gained as they sit on the brink of financial disaster? 

But then our economy is saved by mineral resources.

Our dollar has been higher than the $US for some time.  As a result of the high dollar Aussie tourists are having a field day but certain investments give no returns and go backwards and exporters groan. 

  

Folks in Catherine Hill Bay and their worries about a development application.  The village had humble beginnings as a mining community and hasn't changed much over time.

All aboard at Kempsey Station. Many of these passengers were taking the train to bypass the flooded Pacific Highway which has been closed at this point for about four days.
The highway is roughly in the distance under the flood.waters which cover the cow paddocks. A viaduct crossed the high and wide river just south of Kempsey station which is on higher ground where a flood free 'suburb' has developed.
Surely it is the preferred area of development but not for the the big duopoly supermarts who have just established themselves down on the banks of the river in the original settlement. The highway is planned to bypass Kempsey township all together.
This afternoon, the New England Highway was in good enough condition except for a few patches, and pot holes were under repair near Murrurundi or thereabouts, police cars were active and the pot holes were largly all patched up in the Singleton area.
Coffs to Dorrigo and Armidale was a wonderful run,  notwithstanding narrow hairpin bends on the long steep climb through rain forests, a big semi trailer or two, several high fast waterfalls splashing the road as they thundered down and the road, which is narrow, has a very low wall between car and a vast sheer drop at several points. Not to be missed. 

Are they queing up to own a bike and join the parking in this laneway?