So I put some photos up on Flickr in the Ubuntu Artwork Group:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40566121@N07/
"Find your inner Koala": https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Catalog
So I put some photos up on Flickr in the Ubuntu Artwork Group:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40566121@N07/
"Find your inner Koala": https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Catalog
For many years now, I've fought tooth and nail to keep the
You can't stop the tide from turning.
You can't catch a moonbeam.
You can't step into the same stream twice.
You can't ... paint with light ...
But you can photograph it through a painting.
Part of a series I did on light.
I don't believe that a journalist is just a bystander. When a reporter is sent to a cover a story they become part of that story. As a reporter, I've rarely felt like a bystander over the years.
I think the reason people don't want to do hard core reporting - like police rounds - is because it makes them feel uncomfortable - they are no longer bystanders.
Not everyone is capable of doing a death knock.
Interviewing devastated young parents in the cold night outside the smoldering husk of their home in which their baby had died - I didn't feel like a bystander.
It's a little different covering lifestyle, IT, TV and entertainment - when they don't really care if you tell the story well, just as long as their name is in the paper because they're so special that they're bothering to talk to you. It's called PR.
Balibo is about a death knock.
A journalist named Roger East, played by Anthony Lapaglia, investigates the disappearance of five Australian TV journalists who'd gone to cover the Indonesian invasion of Portuguese East Timor in 1975.
Anthony Lapaglia (who's from Adelaide) is nominated for an Outstanding Actor Emmy for the American TV drama Without a Trace:
http://www.hitfix.com/galleries/2009-7-15-emmy-nomination-preview-2009-outsta...
Journalists who go to war definitely are not bystanders. They see themselves mostly as soldiers of truth, shining a light into the darkness of propaganda and misinformation.
There's two moments in the film where I heard echoes of the Australian film classic Galipolli: the end, and the moment where the actor playing East Timorese leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta tells the Australian journalist Roger East that the Indonesian helicopter hunting them down knows where they are because of information provided by the Australian Government.
( Ramos-Horta link: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1996/ramos-horta-cv.html )
I suddenly had visions of the English generals having tea in safety while the Aussie troops were breathing their last before going over the top ... it's one of those clinical but seething ... "bastards have blood on their hands" moments.
Balibo is written by playwright David Williamson (who wrote Galipolli) and Balibo director-producer Robert Connolly - and they don't mince words - they even get a light-hearted Republican dig in at the constitutional monarchy which is lovely.
But I came away from the film thinking that East Timor's story (it's now a independent democratic nation) would have been very different had the Indonesians not murdered five white journalists in Balibo.
The Indonesians ran a line which had the United States and Australia on side - they said East Timor's freedom fighters (Fretilin) were Communists.
(Fretilin link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Front_for_an_Independent_East_Timor )
They didn't send troops into East Timor - they already had Vietnam - but they apparently gave the Indonesians helicopters and support.
But whether Australia and the United States actually sanctioned the murder of innocent East Timorese civilians (women, children, the elderly and six Australian journalists) is a contentious proposition - which this movie does tend to suggest.
Like Lapaglia's character says Australians (therefore Australian editors) weren't really interested if Indonesians massacred a village of "brown" people - the Indonesians relied on that sentiment.
Figures quoted at the end of the film say 180,000 East Timorese people were murdered - as compared to six Australians but even this movie about their fight for freedom would not have been made had those five not paid the ultimate price.
On a lighter note though, I don't think anyone will lament the passing of that diehard Aussie fashion statement they sport in the film: Stubbies. Thank goodness for long boardshorts.
Done.
That tiny little fragile hope of life on Earth - a seedling preserved by a funny little robot who sees the beauty of life.
I bookmarked Wall-E from the first moment I saw the awe in his eyes as he looked at the stars.
I look at a screen for most of my waking life these days - I love it and sometimes I get lost out there in a wilds of everything at once...now...now...now...right now! YES!
Intellectual life - it's just like sport these days. People sprouting the words of long-dead philosophers in 140-character tweets.
People spruiking themselves and their companies in cleverly disguised pitches. People searching for meaning.
Someone at gym tonight said: "To hear you've got to listen, but most people are too busy talking."
Really. I'm guilty of it. How many times I've kicked myself after realising too late the significance of what someone was trying to say.
Or the significance of silence.
I turn from the tree and look through the door at the TV showing the nightly news and read the subtitles - the sound is turned down.
Funny how text has such a powerful effect.
Words like revenge and slaughter rile me to silent indignation - and this is the sports news!
Michael Phelps broke his own world record without the use of a floatation suit.
That's wonderful, not just for him, but for all those who seem to feel that, by virtue of their shared humanity with Phelps, his achievements are theirs by association.
And they don't have to lift a finger. Shifty, risk-averse folks who are quick to judge and condemn and hide. They usually travel in packs.
The same dullards go on about how bad "virtual reality" and "cyberspace" is for mental and physical health.
From my observations, it seems that all of us navigate a "virtual space" we construct in our heads - and we call it reality.
As you can see, my reality's quite different from yours.
Once I was at the physio, thanks entirely to a little computer mouse and deadlines, my eye focused on a tree in the middle distance beyond an oval.
This was a tree you could have a beautiful picnic under - and you could pretend to be Helena Bonham-Carter in Room With A View or Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma.
And then I catch myself.