nativity as nonsense

Ladies and gerunds, I bring you (courtesy of my intrepid sister Clare) the culmination of 2000 years of history, culture, philosophy, spirituality, craft and taste… nativity scenes from around the world. Check out particularly the rubber-ducky nativity, the zombie nativity and the bacon-and-sausage nativity. And a merry and thoughtful Christmas to you all…

http://whyismarko.com/2011/27-worst-nativity-sets-the-annual-growing-list/

assange for australian of the year

“You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can’t lead to a good conclusion.”                                                                                      – Julian Assange

Russia wants him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize; it may be an idle political sally but we should definitely start with Australian of the Year. Click on the link, then fill fields and select buttons as the choices dictate until you get to the big window for ‘tell us about your nominee’. By the way, Assange’s home if not his residence is Parkville, Victoria, and towards the end of the form you will need to nominate a referee.

Here’s what I put for the case. Copy, adapt, extract as you please. Or write your own.

Aside from his formidable technical skills, Julian Assange has shown unparalleled courage in the face of some of the most powerful, arrogant, and merciless opponents in the world. His determination and capacity to enforce government transparency is nothing short of revolutionary, and as a revolutionary he will be hated and hunted by those powers he challenges – even though, or perhaps because – the principles he is enforcing on them are their own.

Justice, democracy, integrity, open-handed diplomacy: the marks of civilisation have become meaningless logos on the sides of global juggernauts. More than anyone has been able so far, Julian Assange has shown the world how the Internet can intervene in the hypocrisies of power, and since this intervention is a necessary step on the way to true justice and even ultimate human happiness – indeed, to much of a future for the human race at all – he should be lauded as a hero.

Moreover, the man is an icon already. In many ways this twenty-first-century larrikin, so dry he’s astringent, could only have come out of Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald called him “the Ned Kelly of the digital age”, Amnesty and others have given him awards, Russia suggests the Nobel Peace Prize, but Assange remains razor-sharp, dead-cool, totally fair and exquisitely modest. Julian Assange is a true Australian hero – he does us proud, he makes us proud, and he deserves to be Australian of the Year. Furthermore, he is increasingly and urgently in need of our support.

heckling the archbishop

Damnit, SMH Heckler didn’t publish my rant about Scripture classes vs ethics classes. (Heckler really only likes trivial subjects; they certainly couldn’t've been expected to publish the furious scorpion-strike I sent them; St Andrew’s would’ve wrung Fairfax out.) Fine. I’ll edit it the way I think they should’ve, take a few liberties with word limit because I can, and publish it myself…

Ooh, I do love to see an Archbishop’s dander up. In case you’ve been down a rabbit hole, several NSW state schools are engaged in a 10-week trial course in ethics, learning how to bring evidence and reason to bear when making moral decisions. The course was developed by the St James Ethics Centre and the University of NSW philosophy department as a constructive activity for students who choose not to attend Scripture classes.

Church leaders are expressing grave concern – because up until now Religion has had ownership of that time in the school week. The Education Act states that children should not be offered lessons in subjects which could act as competition to religious classes. But surely such a restriction is unethical these days? Heavens, we’re talking about blind faith, not mathematics.

Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen has been the trial’s most vocal critic. Dr Jensen has been honest about his principal concern: if ethics, as an alternative to religious instruction, is allowed to become part of the permanent curriculum, it will draw numbers away from Scripture class to the point where Scripture may eventually be dropped from the curriculum altogether. Of course there are many who think religious instruction has no place in the public schooling system; naturally the Archbishop is not among them.

Dr Jensen has said he is less than impressed by the thoughtfulness with which the matter has been discussed in political circles. A pity he doesn’t listen to the people then – the airwaves have been thick this week with stories of Scripture classes taught by poor, ill-trained, misguided zealots who tell children they’ll burn in hell if they don’t believe. (Apparently the scrutiny that His Grace says must be applied to the ethics course is not being brought to bear on traditional religious instruction.) Many parents feel the need for some kind of moral training for their children, free of religious doctrine, and the thoughtfulness of their comments has been truly impressive.

Dr Jensen argues that Scripture is important to education whether you’re religious or not, and he’s right in part. The study of world religions and their effect on society and history is indeed important to education, but that’s a long way from Scripture class. I’m astonished to learn from all this that our proudly secular and inclusive society is still teaching Scripture rather than comparative religion. Please, for the sake of education standards, schools must bring in volunteers from universities, not churches.

Dr Simon Longstaff, executive director of the St James Ethics Centre, says all material to be used in the ethics classes will be made available to churches for use in their own classes. I’m sure they’ll jump at it – or maybe ethics isn’t really their thing. Certainly Dr Jensen refused the invitation to have input to the course when it was being developed last year. How much richer and wiser a culture we’d be with both comparative religion and ethics classes in the permanent curriculum. I only wish we could get church leaders to sit in.

my dad’s deeper than your dad

Give a man a fire and he will be warm for a day,

set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

I kid you not; this is the signature on my father’s email. May be just my gallows humour (inherited, I believe) but I took it literally at first: if you actually set a man on fire he certainly would be warm for the (very short) rest of his life. Then I realised it was offering the ideal of lifelong inspiration. Bless him.

the Original Cynics emerge (more or less) fully formed

So, it happened last night, in front of a small, eccentrically-dressed crowd, upstairs at the Friend In Hand. It was a private party, Vee Malnar‘s birthday bash – an annual event on the boho calendar, at which she and all her crazy friends (yours truly included) get on the mic and/or their instruments for a few numbers. I know Vee through Justin, who plays in her band.

So we did our four numbers, and I think I can modestly say we were the buzz of the night (woohoo!), and somewhere in the middle I introduced the duo of myself and Justin as two of the Original Cynics, a loose collective of artists across many fields who together believe in, well, very little other than the importance of certain freedoms. “My name is Jaqi Loveday Pascoe and this is Mr Justin Credible…”

Thing is, I didn’t actually consult with any of my various collaborators before naming them as a collective. Hope they all still want to collaborate. Hope they like their name.

The original Cynics were a philosophical movement in ancient Greece, lasting from about the time of Socrates right into the 5th century CE and influencing the early Christians. Around 350BCE they were led by Crates of Thebes, and soon also by his wife, Hipparchia of Maroneia. (Yes, I’ve blogged about them before, when announcing the renaming of my Kombi.) These were seriously cool people, with grandly sensible beliefs. Look ‘em up in Wikipedia via the links above. And then let me know below if you are happy to consider yourself – or would like to be considered – One of Us. Bear in mind, of course, that we aren’t simply blind followers of an archaic philosophical dictum: I chose the name because a) I like the confusion of meanings around the term ‘cynic’, b) I love the pun on original sin, a primitive and dangerous doctrine that should be subverted whenever possible, and c) I share with the Cynics (and, I think, most of my friends) scepticism, honesty, a contempt for wealth and its wilful ignorances, and a good Greek respect for rational inquiry. And, it was said, “they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it…”

the usual

I have been remiss – I am overdue to blog, and to respond to comments. If you knew how hectic this year has been already… I’ll tell you, but not tonight; it’s too late. But soon.

Meanwhile, I caught most of Obama’s inauguration concert on SBS tonight, and I’m moved to the pooter thinking three things:

1. Humans, and particularly Americans, are weird.

2. African-American culture is the bomb right now, and will be for the next four years at least.

3. The way Barack Obama talks, the way he looks, the way he smiles… would anyone flinch if I suggested this man might be better for the world than the Second Coming?

Whatever that is. Maybe he is the Second Coming.

rock’n'roll hipparkia

Blissed out for the new year by four days, three nights in the Kombi amid carnival tents and music, high wooded hills and cowpat-studded grassy fields, with a wholesome brown, tannin-scented creek to swim in.

The Kombi has been undergoing a slow evolution of identity since the transition of ownership from Drew to me in October the year before last. Drew was adamant on Jonah’s lack of gender, which unfortunately, in the twisted little human minds we all possess, tends to imply masculine (somehow we think gender is ultimately all about the womb – without one, gender is irrelevant and we’re all, ahem, men). Slowly though, the Kombi is becoming a discernibly feminine space – and no, I haven’t suddenly gone all chintz and frills. But there is a crocheted afghan made by my great grandmother, and a hand-sewn patchwork quilt from further back in the family. There is a pretty blue sarong to cover the doorway, the tins in the kitchen shelves are changing, you get the idea. The Kombi, in this time of transition, has gone by the name Jezebel (a favourite old tag of mine), but this name’s sticking power rather depended on a colour change – a powder-blue Jezebel doesn’t really gel for me. I’d planned a respray in wine-red, but I’ve decided against, for the moment. It’s expensive to do it well, and the present colour is the original, which counts for something valuewise among enthusiasts.

And now, after another good and happy outing – and this one so tranquil and yet so stimulating – my holiday darling has finally found her name: Hipparkia. Hip? Oh definitely. Park – well, der… and yeah. Or rather yah… :)

And yes, of course there is a legendary female role model involved – you can look her up in Wikipedia under the more conventional Latin spelling Hipparchia. She was a Cynic philosopher from the Greek golden age of philosophy, and an altogether remarkable woman.

ancient conversation

“When I look on you a moment, then I can speak no more, but my tongue falls silent, and at once a delicate flame courses beneath my skin, and with my eyes I see nothing, and my ears hum, and a wet sweat bathes me, and a trembling seizes me all over…”
(Sappho)

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
(Jalal ad-Din Rumi)

the public acknowledgement of reality

Oh. My. God.

I can’t believe I’m doing it again.

I keep asking myself why I do it, and I keep coming back with the same gleeful answer: because I can.

It appears there is a virtually unlimited number of handsome, bold, intelligent, engaging young men out there keen for some fun – and often something more, some warm/hot/cool experience – with an older woman. And when I say young I mean they’re in their twenties. I look 30-something but am 46. Now darlings I know I’m bragging, but while my life isn’t really all that unusual, it’s just not the sort of thing you often see mentioned in print. And as a result, this not-so-unusual reality doesn’t get much public acknowledgement.

And I’m all for the public acknowledgement of reality. So here’s mine.

In the 12 or so years since my divorce, there have been something less than 20 lovers in my life, one of whom has been older than me. (He, incidentally, was quite botanically batty, but then so were several of the others.) They range in age from 21 (when I was 41) and 22 (just recently) up to a year or two younger than me. Length of relationships varied from a night or a few weeks (3 months is a nice affair, I find), up to several deep friendships of overlapping years and varying intensities. The longest lasted over 10 years as a primary partnership, travelling together, living together, living not far apart. He was 10 years younger than I; the next longest, still going at six years… he’s 16 years younger.

Is there something unseemly in this lifestyle? Or perhaps particularly in the public confession of it..? If my sexual history had been like my mother’s (may her god rest her soul) and her mother’s, and as mine was intended to be – I met my husband when I was a virgin a year or so out of school, we have two children -  would it then have been perfectly fine to tell you? Guess it would’ve caused no blushes. Unless you’re the kind of person that blushes at the mention of virginity. In truth, I barely recognise that as a sexual history; it comes from a time when you weren’t supposed to have one. But I was a kid during the revolution.

Are these musings prompted by the cover of this week’s Drum Media, where Tim Rogers and Charlie Thorpe do a John and Yoko love-in for Homebake? (Note Tim’s ironically turned wrist… mm, Tim Rogers, tops the list of people I’d like to meet in Sydney.) Homebake’s slogan this year: Peace. Love …or something like that, deadpanned Bernard Zuel. All more arch than the Bridge. Peace, Love? What decade are we in? What do these words mean post-’80s, between the ecstasy and the drug dogs, post-Tiananmen, in the ugly scramble for the planet, post-Bush/9/11/Guantanamo? Peace, Love and my sweet purple furry hotpants. Homebake, reduced to stylistic nostalgia; how are the mighty fallen? Sure, I doubt any of the amped-up rentacrowd thugs that turn up to this mass gathering on the chance of a bit of biffo so much as paused for thought.

Yeah, anyway, so some brave ideals were upheld in that decade of love: most proved absurdly untenable. But I have this one that seems to work for me. Does this make me wicked, or a freak? I wonder who thinks so, and why? Does it make me some kind of female Don Juan? Casanovella? My friends would snort at the idea; I’m more often seduced than seducer.

No, seriously. I rarely go looking for it, but with so much on offer, what’s a girl to do? I laugh up my sleeve about the supposed man drought – I wondered for a moment whether I should write to the Herald and explain that the lads must all be at my place, but it’s marriageable (or at least breeding-ready) men in their thirties that are apparently in short supply, and while I count three of them among my dearest friends I’m hardly holding them from the market.

But these men in their twenties… ladies, do not miss out. They are fit and skilled and ripe for adventure, open-minded and curious and insanely good fun – and they mostly move on before you get sick of them. Though at least one of mine has become a lifelong friend.

Vive la difference. Vive la tribu.

:)

you don’t see the half of it

My god but it has been wild around here lately. Until this year I never posted private blogs; there have been five since mid-May. The unspeakable poetry of my private life.

And you didn’t think I had any ;)