Disturbing Wall Art in Berlin

Altho' this Daily Mail article, linked at end, has a different main subject – starting with Nicolas Sarkozy's confused recollection of his part in the fall of the Berlin Wall & continuing with general reflections on that event & its 20th Anniversary – there was a background in an accompanying picture that I found striking, disturbing &, unfortunately, memorable (brain bleach wanted). It's the first modern picture after two historic ones.

WARNING! This picture may disturb some readers. DO NOT PROCEED IF SENSITIVE.


It's a mural in the East Side Gallery in Berlin featuring Leonid Brezhnev & Erich Honecker

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/08/article-1226161-07234620000005DC-715_468x302.jpg (UPPA Photoshot)
OK. You can look again.

The newspaper story, parts of which you might like to read. There are other photos too. (Second weirdness note: Why did they make the 1989 photo sepia?)

Sarkozy reinvents history
By PETER ALLEN
Last updated at 5:45 PM on 09th November 2009


www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/ worldnews/ article-1226161/ Sarkozy-posts-Facebook-image-hacking-away-Berlin-Wall-night-came-down.html

The Strange Story of Stan Brock remains untold here

A report from Guy Adams in Los Angeles at the music arena that has been turned into a makeshift medical centre
The Independent (UK)
Guy Adams
Saturday, 15 August 2009

The brutal truth about America’s healthcare: &hhellip; Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.
… Remote Area Medical was founded by an Englishman: Stan Brock. The 72-year-old former public schoolboy, Taekwondo black belt, and one-time presenter of Wild Kingdom, one of America's most popular animal TV shows, left the celebrity gravy train in 1985 to, as he puts it, 'make people better'.
Today, Brock has no money, no income, and no bank account. He spends 365 days a year at the charity events, sleeping on a small rolled-up mat on the floor and living on a diet made up entirely of porridge and fresh fruit. …"

Hate Crimes

One quote from a recent American Terrorist story jumped out. From my local paper's report (‘Gunman says murder of abortion doctors was 'justified'’), via Associated Press, also in variations from several sources

"The anti-tax stuff came first, and then it grew and grew," said Lindsey Roeder … he became involved with the Freemen movement, an anti-government group that discouraged the paying of taxes.

That story seems to be getting more publicity than this one: ‘British hostage executed by Islamists in Mali’.

It'll be interesting to see how the Tiananmen Square massacre 20th anniversary, and some other anniversaries are remembered in the next few weeks.

Post-Election Musical Thoughts

DEMOCRACY

It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;
on a visionary flood of alcohol;
from the staggering account
of the Sermon on the Mount
which I don't pretend to understand at all.
It's coming from the silence
on the dock of the bay,
from the brave, the bold, the battered
heart of Chevrolet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we'll be making love again.
We'll be going down so deep
the river's going to weep,
and the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
beneath the lunar sway,
imperial, mysterious,
in amorous array:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

     —Leonard Cohen

www.musicsonglyrics.com/ L/ leonardcohenlyrics/ leonardcohendemocracylyrics.htm

The Burns Sisters sing it on their
'Wild Bouquet' album.

Links on Compulsory Voting

Here's a link to the Australian Electoral Commission's very brief summary page on Compulsory Voting. This links to more detailed PDF documents (1-short, 2-fuller. See also Informality. For excruciating detail see Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918). It covers the Federal law, the States have their own (NSW, see legislation: Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act 1912 No 41, Div 13), and each also (fairly loosely) enforces it for local Council elections.

Aren't they a lovely couple?

APEC_2005-Howard_Bush-Busan
Originally uploaded by Epacris

John W Howard & George W Bush at APEC 2005 (Busan)

For an overview of APEC leaders group photos, see this Sydney Morning Herald blog link: blogs.smh.com.au/ photographers/ archives /2007/ 08/ ok_some_targets_are_just.html

Death of a Fighting Liberal

The blogosphere is mourning the death of Steve Gilliard, editor of NewsBlog. Leslie Turek reprinted one of his posts that made the greatest impact on her, and I am copying it as applying in some part to Australia, tho' "Liberal" is far less of a term of abuse here, being the name of the local conservative party.

I'm a fighting liberal

You know, I've studied history, I've read about America and you know something, if it weren't for liberals, we'd be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren't fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.

What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn't given us anything we didn't have and it wants to take away our freedoms.

The Founding Fathers, as flawed as they were, slaveowners and pornographers, smugglers and terrorists, understood one thing, a man's path to God needed no help from the state. Is the religion of these conservatives so fragile that they need the state to prop it up, to tell us how to pray and think? Is that what they stand for? Is that their America?

Conservatism plays on fear and thrives on lies and dishonesty. I grew up with honest, decent conservatives and those people have been replaced by the party of greed. It is one thing to want less government interference and smaller, fiscally responsible government. It is another thing entirely to be a corporate whore, selling out to the highest bidder because the CEO fattens your campaign chest. They are building an America which cannot be sustained. One based on the benefit of the few at the cost of the many. The indifferent boss who hires too few people and works them to death or until they break down sick. Cheap labor capitalism has replaced common sense. "Globalism" which is really guise for exploitation, replaced fair trade, which is nothing like fair for the trapped semi-slaves of the maquliadoras. In the Texas border towns, hundreds of these women have been used as sex slaves and then apparently killed,the FBI powerless to do anything as the criminals sit in Mexico untouched by law.

For the better part of a decade, the conservatives made liberal a dirty word. Well, it isn't. It represents the best and most noble nature of what America stands for: equitable government services, old age pensions, health care, education, fair trials and humane imprisonment. It is the heart and soul of what made American different and better than other countries. Not only an escape from oppression, but the opportunity to thrive in land free of tradition and the repression that can bring. We offered a democracy which didn't enshrine the rich and made them feel they had an obligation to their workers.

Bush and the people around him disdain that. They think, by accident of birth and circumstance, they were meant to rule the world and those who did not agree would suffer.

Liberal does not and has not meant weak until the conservatives said it did. Was Martin Luther King weak? Bobby Kennedy? Gene McCarthy? It was the liberals who remade this country and ended legal segregation and legal sexism. Not the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to the old ways.

It's time to regain the sprit of FDR and Truman and the people around them. People who believed in the public good over private gain. It is time to stop apologizing for being a liberal and be proud to fight for your beliefs. No more shying away or being defined by other people. Liberals believe in a strong defense and punishment for crime. But not preemption and pointless jail sentences. We believe no American should be turned away from a hospital because they are too poor or lack a proper legal defense. We believe that people should make enough from one job to live on, to spend time on raising their family. We believe that individuals and not the state should dictate who gets married and why. The best way to defend marriage is to expand, not restrict it.

It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his baseless, drink fueled claims.

Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi satellite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America's defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.

It is time to stop looking for an accommodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?

Mister Rogers' Neighbourhood

The "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" show either never made it here to Oz, or wasn't very big. (Play School - based on a UK show, Mr Squiggle - "the longest running pre-school children's television program in the world", and the franchise of Romper Room (museum material) are/were our TV classics (The Argonauts for radio)) I think it was back in 2003 when he died and there was a fair fuss, with people remembering their experiences, that I first heard of him. It does sound like a worthwhile show. I wonder if there are recordings around?

I found a clip of his 1969 testimony before a US Senate Committee, supporting PBS (video.google.com/ videoplay?docid=2883185966575573317). It's called "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" A bit about 4:30 in is about settling arguments, he recites song lyrics at around 5:30 "What do you do with the mad you feel?"

Go your own sweet way

There's a New South Wales State Election on this Saturday (24th March, 2007 — last day of Daylight Saving). I get quite frustrated by all the discussion of 'preference deals' and people saying they "won't vote for X because they have preferenced Y" and they don't want to vote for Y.

One of the good parts of the Australian voting system is that YOU choose your preferences (especially in the Lower House (Assembly)), no matter what the different parties say on their How to Vote cards. [This applies to the Federal elections too, with some details being different between different States and between Federal and State electoral law.]

YOU CAN NUMBER ABOVE THE LINE NOW for the Upper House (Council). This is a welcome recent change, where before 'preference deals' did actually determine flows of votes in the Council election where — as most did because of the large number of candidates — you were only allowed to put a "1" 'above the line', in the box for your first-preferred group, and no more, or you had to number all the candidates separately 'below the line'. (This model was brought in after an election where the ballot paper was described as 'a table cloth'. I think there were 168 candidates that year; a big jump from previous ones.)

You *don't* need to fill in all the 362 boxes without error, despite the satisfaction of putting certain persons #362. [NOTE: To get listed together as a 'Group' with your own column you need at least 15 candidates. I think this has helped cause the even greater number of people. Perhaps we can persuade a change, so a group of 5 or 10 candidates can get their own listing.]

OTOH, in the last few elections, trying to decide between the despicable which I despised most was quite difficult. Who to give the final place to?

Also, if you want to put several 'independent' Upper House parties before the major two, find their names out at the elections.nsw.gov.ausite and search out both their listed preferences there, and whatever you can find of their own online presence to see if you think they're a good-sounding front for possibly the exact opposite of their name, like some of the 'parties' produced for the previous election seem to have been.