My total rant to Simon Birmingham...

I ask that you to reject the bill regarding the collection and holding of data from private email and telephone records in Australia, currently being debated in the Lower House.
The destructive policies the LNP is introducing every day in the Federal Parliament are creating fear, hatred and confusion amongst the people you are supposed to be serving.  I can personally tell you that my anxiety has gone through the roof.  I cannot see ONE thing that this current Government has done that is forward thinking.  Playing the blame game still, 12 months after being elected, is ridiculous and childish.
I see that you are the Parliamentary Secretary re: Environment.  May I also put forward my absolute disgust with not only 'Direct Action', but the approval of dredging in the Great Barrier Reef marine parks area.  Across the nation on the weekend of 18 October, thousands of people pledged to make moves to close, or did close, their bank accounts associated with fossil fuel investment. I  myself am pulling all of my money out of ANZ and BT Super (Westpac) so that my personal dollar does not continue to fund old dirty technologies which should be abandoned.  As the rest of the world moves forward, the LNP continues to push it's agenda of industrialisation which, simply, cannot be sustained.  Being a South Australian Senator, you may have noticed our State government setting it's OWN emissions target, much higher than what you are proposing Federally.
Roads are not the way forward, high speed rail is. Allowing more coal mines to be built is simply bad investment. And allowing hydraulic fracturing at ALL in this country is a terrible threat to aquifers and waterways, of which we have very limited resources.
Please pass on my comments also to Mr Hunt. I have phoned his office in the past when there was first talk of approving the Adani project to put forward my objection.
Sign the DOHA amendment for the Kyoto Protocol, committing to our future.
Regards,

Hannah McQueen's "The Perfect Balance" - notes

I found this book by Hannah straightforward, but uplifting and mostly I thought it would be helpful to many people I know.  We don't have to accept being unstable or less organised financially because we earn less.  For example, I've always said that I have no pre-conceived notion that I would ever own property. Could that change? Who knows, we shall see.

Some quotes from the book:

"Consider whether you want something because you have always had it, or does it truly make you happy? It is not until you start to go through the process of elimination that you can rule out needs vs wants"

"Remember, it is never too late to change your financial landscape."

"Where am I financially? What potential do I have? Where do I want to be? What is standing in my way?"

"The key to every successful financial plan is to spend less than you earn so that you can repay any debt you have as quickly as possible. After that, you can save for your future, which can be painted whatever colours you want."

xJ

Tired of being so angry all the time...

In my recent past I went to see a kinesiologist at the insistence of a Bristanbul beauty.  Sadly, the words 'fear', 'anger', 'rage' came up, as well as 'confusion of truth' and 'activism'.

"Surrendering to the natural order" may be all well and good, and hey, deep down I do believe that.  But at the same time does that discount fighting for what you believe in?!

Problem is that right now, especially in this country, there is so much fuckery going on that I can't even take it any more.  News feeds of various sorts keep telling me the worst news I can think of; and this is mostly how backwards our Government is.  Having just passed the 12 month interval in power, not only do we not have a leader who can even do a speech without a tiny plastic bug in his ear, their complete obsession with 'bringing the budget to surplus' is a complete joke.

There are many quotes I could bring in here, but let's use just one from Utah Phillips: "The Earth is not dying, she is being killed. And those that are killing her have names and addresses."  (the word 'she' is probably 'it' in that quote, but let's not mince words)

Oh but wait, let's ignore the budget, there's a war to go to!


Oh but wait, let's ignore the budget and push through backwards policies on environment whilst no-one is looking. To quote our PM "Coal is good for humanity".  What the ACTUAL FUCK TAbby?! (Obviously didn't have the bug in his ear that day).

Two words: Kyoto Protocol, numbnuts. (Okay, that's three).

Oh wait, now that initial period is over isn't it... except that you know, the people have been marching across the world and you couldn't care less.

What will it seriously take for them all to realise they can't eat money?!

Rant rant rant.
Apologies interweb. I've been feeling dreadful about the state of the universe this week.

What have I done?! Been in conversation with both my Super fund and one of my banks (sadly, stuck with a debt with one of the Big 4 that I will hopefully be able to shift elsewhere - because hey, if I have to pay interest to anyone, I'd like to know that even that small amount isn't fossil fuel investment based).

It's all I can personally do right now, to clear my conscience and to send a message, that I will not store my money with someone who is investing in technologies I believe need to be ousted completely in favour of something a liiiiiittttle cleaner.

xJ

Another day, another tape dubbed....

Talk about going into a time-warp! Yes I dubbed off video footage of some girlfriends and I on a cruise boat in early 1999, amongst other things. Hilarity.

One thing was for sure, I was ultimately miserable with my boyfriend at the time.  I also dragged out the last remaining box of random stuff (that I know of) in my parents house and have been going through old letters and such.  This included letters FROM said boyfriend, of which are all now in the recycling. What a joke, truly. You realise how far you came since getting rid of something so toxic out of your life.  So long ago *sigh*.

The tape also had really short bursts of footage from my old home just North of Adelaide. Friends doing stupid shit like discussing why christ was ultimately in smarties chocolate, and making a bunch of toys dance to random music. And failing at buying milk, apparently. It actually prompted me to look up a few people to see if I could find them in the social media sphere. I found a couple and sent them messages explaining what shenanigans I had found.

Still have a number of VHS tapes to go through, it is quite fun really. One tape I knew I wouldn't bother keeping but thought I would watch was very early season South Park.  I was feeling rather under the weather yesterday, a cold is trying desperately to get me but I won't let it!  So I slothed in front of the box whilst looking through paperwork and watched a half dozen episodes at least of that, then put the tape in the box with the others to go to the recycle place.

On the membership card challenge front (only a few days until the end of the month - EEK!), I put one for a nail salon in the recycling. Ultimately I tend to only do that girly stuff whilst in North America once I've destroyed my feet at a couple festivals over the summer there. Besides the business was actually pretty average and I know I won't go back.

I've asked the company I was querying AGAIN about their fair trade, workers rights, environmental practices. I'd sent them an email about it over a month ago when they queried what kind of information I was after. They never came back to me.  We shall see. They have about 5 days to do so or bye bye membership card.

I've downloaded the PDS and the other information from the Super fund I am most likely to switch to. NO investment in fossil fuels whatsoever. It's brand new. Some people might think it a gamble, but realistically, I'll be working probably another 35 years so sod it. I'd rather have a clear conscience than worry about if money will be there or not - at least right now.

Namaste.

xJ

SA Water Future Hypothetical

Hmmm... I still don't know how to react to what I saw last night.

Recently I watched the following film about how we are clearly doing things wrong.

Peak Oil was only mentioned once last night (by the moderator, the delightful Rod Quantock) and I wonder why we are still managing to ignore this.  It's why it infuriates me so much our Government is so backwards when it comes to renewables. Eventually things will start to run out, oil and coal are not reusable forms of energy, you burn them and that's it. Why is that so hard to comprehend?!

Currently the Australian Government are attacking the Renewable Energy Target, seemingly allowing some concessions for 'trade' if you believe a tweet by the "Environment Minister" Greg Hunt. I put him in inverted comma's because he is not doing the best job.

I am desperately trying to understand all of this. The fear, hatred and sheer confusion this Government is creating is completely frustrating. I want clear language, I want them to actually DO something, I want a Leader who can actually public speak, and a party who does not continue to play a blame game 12 months after they elected. You won, you fools, so actually work for the people you are supposed to serve, instead of playing he-said-she-said.

I'm so over it!
xJ

The passing of Whitlam...

I certainly don't pretend to be an expert by any means on Whitlam, but after hearing people speak about him and learning more about the myriad of things he did for social change during his very very short time in office, I truly wonder where our next great leader will come from.

The entire LNP should be hanging their heads in shame right about now. They've been in power a year and all I can see that they have done, apart from stupidly dissolve two environmental 'taxes' (that were actually meant to hit big business and, you know, hopefully make them think about how to diversify and do things a little cleaner - one of which wasn't a tax), is create fear and division amongst the people of this country.

It's a crying effing shame, truly, that people would have criticised someone like Gillard, who I saw was so proud and really obviously deeply moved when she announced something she considered her legacy in Parliament (the NDIS).  Mostly it ended up being about what she wore, that she was living with someone that wasn't her husband, blah blah blah. Which was ridiculous and shameful.  If that's all you've got, LNP, to use personal attacks on a leader, you're a shitty opposition and an even shittier Government.

To continue to play the blame game in Parliament at this point in your tenure, TAbby, is an absolute farce; I don't buy it. You're in power now, clean it up if you think it's that bad. Stop fluffing around and DO SOMETHING.

You don't have the respect of the nation, you have people asking 'what the hell?'.

And when we all now remember someone who was as forward thinking as Whitlam, I hope that the Parliamentarians of this nation take a good, long, hard look at themselves, retrospectively thank him for their free education, and have the revelation that nation building is not always about the cash-money, but about the well being of all.

Vale Whitlam. A true leader.

xJ

Membership Card Challenge Update...

Earlier this week I cut up my Woolworths rewards card!  It was totally satisfying, I just logged on to the site, cancelled the card, and cut the bastard up!

The truth was I was barely using it anyway, I've had a long standing dislike of this organisation for a variety of reasons, but the icing on the cake was the random "Aussie Pride" (yeah right, more like racist) shirt they got so much flack for putting into a couple of their stores these past couple weeks.  The bigger problem I have had with them is that they owned a hell of a lot of Hotels (of which some were sold to a SUPER FUND of all things recently) that are ablaze with pokie machines.  North American family; you would call these slot machines. Yes it's legal to put them anywhere you like here. It's a truly horrific problem.

Seriously, if your hotel can't make money just being a place to meet, eat, drink, play scrabble, have gigs... then there is something wrong with your business model.

That's all for now. Rant ended.

xJ

Divestment Day is finally here!

I am almost certain there will be little to no media coverage on this day, but I am proud to say that I will include myself in this mission.

Today is DIVESTMENT DAY. 

Some big movers and shakers (ref. ANU and Glasgow University) have recently publicly declared they are divesting their universities away from fossil fuels.  I completely applaud this and wrote to the Vice Chancellor of ANU last week to tell them to stand strong on this.  There has been much criticism by our Government here, so they obviously are taking SOME notice.  So I do tend to wonder if they will pay any attention at all to the groups of people meeting around the country this weekend, declaring that they will also move their personal funds into something more sustainable.

Via the link above you can add your voice to an Open Letter to the Big 4 banks in Australia.  I've discovered my super fund is strongly linked to one of them, so have been in conversation with them about it. I think I've said before that they have been thorough which I appreciate, but still have not said they will move backwards out of fossil fuel investments. So, in a nutshell, they can suck it.

superswitch.org.au is also a good source of information, with seemingly some funds refusing to release information about where their investments are. This immediately runs a red flag for me.

Anyway, all of our journeys on this Earth is personal. But I will not have the Earth ripped up in my name.

xJ

Projects MkII

Yes, projects. Or at least... personal challenges.

So I've decided I have been way to slack in the reading department AGAIN this year, even though it was again on my annual list to READ MORE BOOKS.  Well what a slacker.

However, I have devoured two (count them, TWO!) in the last couple of weeks.

The first one being Adrienne Langman's "Choosing Eden: The real dirt on the coming energy crisis". Truly a delight. All I want to do now is pack up and create my own food forest in the country. For real. (Well researched and prepared of course.)

This book was a very personal story, about a couple in their 50's who had always been city dwellers, learning about Peak Oil. Collectively then deciding to prepare for their future and the future of their kids and grandchildren by giving it all up, retiring kind of early, and building something new and completely out of their comfort zone.

Whilst you might not appreciate the doom and gloom of it all, it is well worth a read because it was damned inspiring.  The revelations this woman was having about her life and the lives of all of us was like a HALLELULJAH moment for me because I am starting to feel less alone in this lately.

Truly, there are still bogan trolls on the internet who really need to be shot straight into the sun but that is a whole 'nother phenomena altogether. Perhaps one day these types of will also have a revelation, perhaps they won't. In any case, I'd rather be prepared for what is to come in this life than be ignorant about it.

We are all connected. Don't forget that.

I have also decided that, though I care about a myriad of issues in this world, the heart of it all for me is environment. Because if we don't have one none of us will survive.  So plodding along creating challenges for "Planet Challenge" that are really, at their core, about auditing your own life. Because I feel the world needs that. Focus for me is very hard so sadly, I am deleting emails that aren't specifically related to environmental planning, etc. at the moment. This said, that is going pretty well so far. I am trying to only take in the stories from around the globe that are about preservation, fights for our waterways and the like.

Namaste.

xJ

Mental Health Week

Been busy, busy, busy.

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of attending my cousins launch of her new book of poetry, an event held as part of Mental Health Week at the Mercury Cinema in Adelaide.

The book is called Pendulum and is a collection of her poetry. You can read about Kylie's journey by visiting her website at http://kylieharrison.wordpress.com

She is a Community Peer Worker who spends her time educating and bringing awareness to community to eliminate the stigma associated with mental health issues.  It is exceptionally commendable indeed and I am proud to know her.

In other news... not much more progress on my membership cards mission I am afraid, though I have been in email discussion with one of the organisations who recently changed their 'points' system and said I would be forwarded my first discount voucher. Well it hasn't happened, so now they have 'rewarded' me by putting my points back on my card, so when I next purchase I will THEN receive a rewards voucher. Talk about backwards. Pretty sure I will be cancelling this membership.

Besides that, I have sent them several emails about the ethical sourcing of their clothing and other products.  They sent a pretty simple one-liner kind of response in return, which didn't really satisfy me. I want real answers.  If you say you are sourcing ethically, why aren't you a member of an organisation that is pushing for this? Why is there no information about this on your website? WHY were you also labelled as a Company to watch after the terrible building collapse in Bangladesh.

Points schmoints! I'd rather have a clear conscience me thinks.  Will see what their next responses are with regards to this and make a decision on this by the end of the month.

Also, I turned a year older this week. Where oh where does the time go?! At least I feel like I have been quite productive in the last few weeks. Well, in between the temp admin job to make the cash money, sadly necessary in this world, though this particular organisation I do enjoy spending time with them and helping them out when necessary. So it is kind of a win-win.

One Love. xJ

More progress on the op shop...

 Before <<<

After >>>

Looking a little neater if we don't say so ourselves :)

xJ

Projects, projects, projects...

So I have a little bit of time up my sleeve at the moment, at least, until next week when I will be doing some temping again.

Whilst I was away on my North American jaunt this year, my Dad found MORE boxes of stuff that belonged to me when he cleaned out his computer room.  It included a box of old VHS. Some of it is stuff I taped from the teev and some is home video stylings!

This is only a tiny bit of what he found. There is probably another half dozen at least for me to go through.

Have started going through what is on the tapes as of course not all of it is to be kept.  Dubbing off/digitizing stuff I'd really like to keep that you can't get anywhere else, a few concerts and copies of episodes of shows that were never released on DVD.

  I will put more info on how we are digitizing them later :)

So I have started recycling the cardboard packaging of the ones we have dubbed because that's the easy part that can be put into household recycling. And I am putting aside the physical tapes.

The hard part is recycling the actual tapes themselves.  More on that later. But SA friends, if you have any old VHS that you would like to recycle properly, get them together before the end of the month because I'm going to commit that I will personally ensure they go to a place that CAN recycle them correctly. Nothing will happen to them if they go in your regular recycle bin at home.

More on that later.
One love.
Reclaim. Recycle. Reuse.
xJ

Challenge thine self!

So in the name of the word FOCUS and such, I have started putting together the games for the Planet Challenge: Population? You! web phenomenon.  It's in beta crappy version so far, so if you find it, good for you :)

When I'm happy with it I will share more.  I'm trialling getting the format right in my head, and on the page. It will probably change many many times. Suggestions welcome.

But yes, so you know, yeh I can challenge you all I like to complete a personal mission, but what am I doing?!

Well this month, October 2014, I have chosen to do a clean out of all my cards.

What do I mean? Membership cards.
I do a lot of work throughout the year at Box Offices, so yes, I see a lot of your wallets and phones.  A common problem I see plain as day is:

1) IPhone screens are a lot more cracked and broken than other brands of phone
2) Peoples wallets are often exploding!

This could be a number of things I am sure. Receipts you haven't cleaned out and the like, but most likely it's membership and loyalty cards.

So yesterday I pulled all of mine out and lay them on  my desk. This included a small business card file I had as well, you'll see the pile on the left.

You know what?! This actually astounded me, the total I mean. The ones down the centre are simply coffee / food places I frequent a lot whenever I work in the city here. Mmmm coffee.

I also have several transit cards from different states (ref: Myki for Victoria, and GoCard for Queensland) because I move around so much for work, so they immediately stay.

So step one October 1st. Immediately remove the ones that were relevant in CanadaLand, and put them next to your computer.

And today, October 2nd: check if the membership on these overseas cards has been voided online, then cut them up in to little pieces and recycle. That gets rid of at least 3 straight up.

It's a start.
One love.
xJ

Yes, Julie, stop rabbiting on about Planet Challenge...

Okay okay so more on THAT tomorrow, however on to what we achieved in the last couple of days...
My mum volunteers at an Op Shop called The Caring Place in Morphett Vale, South Australia.

It's one of those true op shops too, where you can find stuff for 20 cents. I've managed to spend a whole $7 since I have been helping clean up there. (I cleaned up, cleaning up?!)
It's school holidays so it is closed at the moment but needs some love.

So with the combined forces of the lads from the "mens shed" (a club for men to hang and make stuff, really - like their own shed, but community based), we began!

We moved everything away from the walls in the main shop and the boys started painting yesterday...

So many things piled into the centre from the racks... if it falls over I will roll around on the floor with laughter I swear. We stacked pretty high!

 Here is their progress that we walked in on today!

Then we started to tackle the shed behind (there are three more rooms to this op shop).

Oops, forgot to get a full shot before I started <<<<<<


Haven't done the top shelf yet, but the only thing that lives here is boxes for people if they are purchasing a lot of things >>>>>>

I practiced my mad librarian skills on the bookshelves, all cleaned, all categorised! But for how long...

Before, again half way through... note the odd shoe mum found in the shoe racks. Shoe FAIL!
<<<<<<

All done!
>>>>>>>

The Caring Place opens again on October 15th and is open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 9am - 3:30.

Come see how amazingly you can find useful things before it gets destroyed :)

One love.
Reclaim: Recycle: Reuse
xJ