pinkozcat
Full Member
Remember - pillage first, THEN burn.
Posts: 233
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Post by pinkozcat on Jul 6, 2005 6:12:52 GMT -5
Hi Words - I've not read The Magus; maybe one day!! At the moment I'm having a holiday from the heavy stuff and reading something very light. Janet Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum book - Eleven on Top - has just been released and I'm reading it. I love the Stephanie Plum books but find her other ones rather irritating. And I've just taken delivery of four books by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Her books are refreshingly un-politically correct and may, one day, find themselves on the scrap heap along with Noddy. I'll enjoy them while I can.
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Post by RobertGraves on Jul 7, 2005 7:11:52 GMT -5
I've read The Magus (on a plane back from London in late 1995) and quite enjoyed it. One thing I remember having an impact on me was the notion that a man can be imprisoned by the beliefs of his younger self eg a mature man may be unduly influenced by judgements/beliefs/ideologies formulated in youth that have not had adequate reflection.
A colleaque once said that she wondered why Fowles wanted to write a novel like that at all as it is quite weird.
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Post by Wyndham on Aug 3, 2005 8:22:22 GMT -5
Absolutely Robert. I'd be lost without my calipers. All people can be classified according to the candy that their head best resembles. I'm a jelly bean. Even a hot tomale. My wife is a smarty, perhaps a tootsie roll blow pop. In fairness to your daughter, I think that all children start as smarties and gradually develop into other types ( )
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Post by Wyndham on Dec 19, 2005 18:58:16 GMT -5
Any Flashman fans! Didn't know there was a new one out, but just bought "Flashman on the March", covering the missing years 1867-8. ;D The old wretch George M. Fraser had better not die before he produces the volume dealing with the Civil War years. He always skirts around them, but has never actually written about them straight out.
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Post by RobertGraves on Dec 19, 2005 23:43:32 GMT -5
I just wrote a really long post re: the riots but lost it while updating my virus checker. This one is not as lengthy - sorry.
My partner's grandmother lives in Cronulla and has complained for years about the young hooligans who travel from the western suburbs causing trouble. She never mentions ethnic groups but the basic point is that people who live in 'the shire' have been concerned re: the behaviour of tourists coming for the day at this city beach (and the closest one for 'Westies' and 'Lebs').
Two weeks ago or so a couple of lifesavers were bashed by 'fucking Lebs' and this has led to retribution on a massive scale through use of text messages being forwarded on and the widespread publicising of the growing tension. Extremist groups were involved too but alcohol would have been the critical factor in it all getting totally nasty and out of hand.
The media has been responsible for the escalation of situation. It is a fine line they tread and I fear that sensationalising this kind of conflict is really very dangerous. Also, the debate in the features and op ed pages has been less than helpful. What is really disturbing is our PM's continued use of the dog-whistle. He is never (or at least not since the late 80s) overtly racist but his actions and words give a knowing nod to those who are. His public comment - that Australia is not a racist country is all well and good - but when he denied the riots were racially motivated he was giving that silent whistle again. You might remember the rise of One Nation and Pauline Hanson close to a decade ago. She tapped into a growing vein of discontent re: Australia' multicultural society. Her policies have largely been adopted by the ruling Liberal/National coalition government.
My experience is very much one that Australians are racist. My own extended family, many of the kids I teach and their families are part of a community that does not like diversity. I think that the working class, especially white males, have felt disenfranchised for years as they slip down the pecking order. Since the 'race card' was used by Howard and Hanson many racists have been given a license to speak ill of their neighbour.
The new police powers, terrorist inspired changes to our freedoms and general atmosphere of fear and paranoia is just crazy. We are our own worst enemies as this is a very 'lucky' country in so many ways - pity we are spoiling it with some very nasty ways of being. I rue that we are more and more like an American state.
Here's an eye-witness account from Crikey.
Cronulla: eyewitness account of a lynch mob
Words and pictures by long-time Cronulla resident Benjamin Amy:
I've just returned home after spending six hours watching the disgusting afternoon unfold at Cronulla beach. I'm sending this to anyone that'll read it.
I'd seen media reports in the lead up to today's "showdown," and never believed it was actually going to happen. In particular I noticed on page three of Saturday's Herald "A lesson in beach etiquette, Shire-style" which featured a guy named Shaun – pictured with his Aussie flag singlet, tattoos all over him and holding a long-neck of beer in a paper bag.
Shaun dislikes visitors he says are rude. "They look down on our women," he says. I'd never seen anyone like that at Cronulla beach and thought the paper had exaggerated the facts about how locals felt and what they were planning to do. I was wrong. Cronulla today was filled with loud, pis*ed, Shaun doppelgangers, all of them looking for a fight.
When I arrived at Cronulla at about midday the crowd was fairly calm, rowdy and yobbo-ish, though not violent. The drinking had already started, there were BBQs being cooked in the back of utes, John Williamson music was blaring from car stereos and the "Wall" at North Cronulla was a sea of Australian flags, Eureka Stockade flags and boxing kangaroos. Political correctness had already been thrown aside, with some of the guys there screaming "f*ck off Lebs" (there wasn't a 'Leb' to be seen) and "reclaim the shire," and with comments like "we grew here, you flew here" and "Save Nulla, F*ck Allah" painted on their chests.
What was most unbelievable, even more so than the overt racism, was the number of people there... There were thousands and thousands of people. It was like the harbour foreshore on New Year's Eve or Australia Day. Roads had been closed and the empty space created was filled thick with people. It wasn't just twenty-something males there, there were groups of girls and women, packs of teenagers, entire families (I just cannot understand anyone taking their kids to participate in something like this), bikies, neo-nazis and surfers.
I saw a group of three well-dressed 40-ish women drinking Breezers standing atop a retaining wall chanting at the police. I saw a group of four teenage girls (typical tanned 'Northies' Shire-girls – long hair, short skirts and massive sunglasses) being interviewed by ABC radio with 'Multiculturalism Doesn't Work' stickers on their backs. I saw a fifty-year-old man wearing an 'Osama Don't Surf' t-shirt. I've never seen that many people in Cronulla before.
About ten minutes after I got there I called a mate of mine to come down and see what was actually happening before me – I seemed to be the only person who was horrified about what was occurring. While I was on the phone I saw a young Middle Eastern Australian kid walk through the carpark, about ten metres away from me. I'd seen this kid on the news earlier this week defending his right to swim at his local beach.
It wasn't long before he was being screamed at ("Leb c*nt", "Get off our beach" etc) and surrounded by a group of flag draped p*ssed idiots. The kid screamed back, fairly insistent on getting to the beach, for all of about ten seconds before he was hit by one of them and had to turn and run across the park toward Northies.
The crowd of people up the slope to the Wall had noticed what was happening and all of a sudden it was on. The mob chased this kid into Northies, straight through the traffic which was brought to a sudden standstill with the now thousands of people surrounding the entry to Northies. Imagine a group of thousands of people, and I really do mean thousands of people, all chasing one kid into a pub and then standing outside screaming the most hateful and violent trash talk, throwing bottles, jumping on cars containing children that were stuck in the crowd.
The kid they were after was about 17 and would weigh in at a huge 60kg. I could not believe my eyes that a lynching like this could happen anywhere, let alone Cronulla beach.
This was a group of people that were thinking and moving as one, a true "mob." Reason disappeared and the violently racist slurs and the bizarre form of patriotism got worse. Waltzing Matilda was being screamed like a war cry into the faces of police and Northies security guards. The crowd was still on the street, stretching across the the Wall, but would move up the Kingsway or down Eleoura Rd a bit if they thought there was a Leb to get.
We saw a group of three "wogs," two girls and a guy, all early twenties, walking along the lower walkway of the Wall. The fact they'd managed to get that far surprised me, but they didn't catch the attention of the mob until they got very near the end of the Wall, about 20 metres from where the path met the crowd. The abuse started, and then the crowd started to move toward them. Thankfully there were a group of police close by who were able to get them out safely, but it didn't stop the crowd following them out, screaming in an absolute frenzy.
This was a crowd where almost every member was involved – there were hardly any onlookers like my mates and myself, everyone was into it. I watched the ABC news tonight and the reporter was asked whether locals were approving of what had happened – he said the ones that were there were, though local talkback callers through the day were appalled, he said.
It wasn't too long before a rumour started spreading that a train full of Lebs was on its way to Cronulla (it was like an insane game of Chinese Whispers, there were stories going through the crowd that Tom Ugly's and Captain Cook Bridge had been closed, that the Bra Boys had arrived and that the kiosk at North Cronulla was under siege because it was owned by Wogs), so everyone was off to the station, via Cronulla Mall.
I can only imagine what it would have been like as a bystander in the Mall with these idiots running through. By the time we got there, teenagers were on the ground with pepper spray in their eyes, there were Nazis up trees unfurling flags, more bottles being smashed and not a train full of Lebs to be seen. Riot cops ended up pushing them all back until they were forced to return to North Cronulla.
The irony of the situation didn't seem to be sinking into anyone's head either. This all started last weekend when two lifeguards were bashed by a Lebanese group of guys who apparently are aggressive, rude and disrespect our women. Talkback radio has been filled all week with locals calling in and saying so. I agreed with a lot of it, I'd seen these guys before and I'd been intimidated by them. But what I saw today was far scarier than the Leb guys could ever be. Behaviour far more more aggressive than any ethnic I've ever seen. Rudeness?
Apparently Nando's had to be closed by police because two ethnic guys were eating their lunch at a table inside when part of the mob arrived to scream at them for doing so. Over the road at Macca's there were drunk guys on the corner screaming the foulest of language down the mall. These are guys and girls preventing ambulances from leaving.
This is a group of people happy to smash glass bottles in their own beach sand! I saw a group of guys trying to get their footy out of one of the Norfolk Pines by throwing beer bottles at it. As for "respecting our women"... where's the respect in surrounding a teenage girl (Anglo and alone) and harassing her from one end of the Wall to the other?
And I just got this off the Herald's coverage: "He could not comment on a report that a girl of Middle Eastern appearance had been pushed over and was kicked repeatedly as she lay on the ground." What the hell?!? The behaviour today by the locals involved and all those with them was far worse than any previous incident at Cronulla caused by a so-called ethnic outsider visiting the area.
There were clearly a lot of non-locals involved. I think that once the text message story got into the media it became a city-wide talking point and made the numbers present today worse, attracting people who were either just racist or just wanted a brawl. The sight of surfers and Romper-Stomper-like neo-Nazis running together towards the next hopeful brawl is not one I'll quickly forget.
But many locals were involved, and for the most part loving every minute of it. There were plenty of units and apartments decked out in Aussie flags with parties overflowing into the streets, proud to be a part of what was just a disgusting day. How so many people could be getting pleasure from this was just impossible to comprehend. It was part machismo bullsh*t and part mob-mentality but it was mainly just ugly racism. It no longer had anything at all to do with two lifeguards getting beaten up last weekend, it was all just hatred towards a group of people who weren't even there.
The sight of the Australian flag being over-used like it was today was embarrassing. Watching that crowd of thousands chase a single 17-year-old was sickening. And to watch watch so many people think that what they were doing was a good idea was just staggering.
It was the most shameful thing I've ever seen, no matter what happens next.
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pinkozcat
Full Member
Remember - pillage first, THEN burn.
Posts: 233
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Post by pinkozcat on Dec 20, 2005 0:08:39 GMT -5
Still on the subject of mob violence but back to current reading matter - I'm struggling through Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini at the moment and finding it all a bit too political, although seeing the French Revolution from the 'plebs' side is interesting (as opposed to 'The Scarlet Pimpernel').
I recently re-read Captain Blood and thoroughly enjoyed the rather lighthearted look at pirates in the Caribbean; Scaramouche is altogether a different kettle of fish. I last read it when I was at school and, of course, saw the movie. I must confess that I don't remember any of it and suspect that the movie veered away from the bloodshed and sheer nastiness of the book.
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Post by RobertGraves on Dec 20, 2005 3:02:22 GMT -5
I just finished Bret Easton Ellis', 'Lunar Park'. Okay - ultimately not very satisfying with some nice prose and an interesting postmodern perspective on truth for the novelist. I'm halfway through Michel Houellebecq's, 'The Possibility of an Island' which is very challenging on a number of levels but no where as good as 'Atomised': www.houellebecq.info/english.php3
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Post by RobertGraves on Dec 28, 2005 16:37:05 GMT -5
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Post by RobertGraves on Dec 28, 2005 16:40:21 GMT -5
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Post by Wyndham on Jan 16, 2006 7:58:16 GMT -5
Well, just finished Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. Good, but a little melodramatic. Worth a look, for those interested.
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Post by Aravis on Jan 24, 2006 2:31:09 GMT -5
I liked Lewis' "Main Street" very much. Reminded me of my town at the time.
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Post by Wyndham on Jan 24, 2006 8:57:34 GMT -5
Lewis is one of my favorites. I like Main Street too. My favorite though is Elmer Gantry.
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wordswordswords
Full Member
"There's no harm in hoping." - Voltaire
Posts: 178
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Post by wordswordswords on Mar 18, 2006 17:09:02 GMT -5
I'm working my way through A Whistling Womanby A. S. Byatt.
So many characters that I've had to keep a list of them!
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Post by Wyndham on Mar 18, 2006 18:45:07 GMT -5
Any good Words? I'm ashamed to say I haven't read anything by her, though my wife's deceased mother was a great fan (consequently, we have five or six of her books). Should I start cracking them open?
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Post by RobertGraves on Mar 18, 2006 20:32:14 GMT -5
Not read that one either - but Possession is in my personal top 10 in any genre.
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