So I haven’t updated in a while because frankly, I’ve been busy as hell and yet don’t know exactly what it is that’s been keeping me actually busy, but I have been thoroughly scanning the papers and there have been a couple of articles that I think I should share:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/labor-faces-pulpit-led-backlash-on-gay-marriage/story-fnba0rxe-1226213649258?from=hot-topics-home

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/gillard-backs-full-conscience-vote/story-e6frf7jx-1226215140252

Let me start by saying that that I’ve had it with the ridiculous sub-standard attitude this has had over the gay community and this matter. It is in no way acceptable to treat a group of citizens as lower beings. General society (in Australia) frowns on racism and sexism amongst others so how this ridiculous debate has lasted so long baffles me.
If gay marriage actually gets past I care not for whether they decide or do not decide to get married in the same way I care not for anyone else who decides or doesn’t decide.

Lately, it’s been hard to tell with Gillard. I don’t have allegiance to a particular major political party, it’s just interesting that lately same-sex marriage, equal pay in the workplace has been discussed so heavily. Does she actually feel that way? Was the “Marriage is between a man and a woman” discussion years ago just a facade that she was keeping because that’s what she thought she needed to say? Is she just trying to come up with something since the properly abysmal attempt to try and negotiate a refugee trade between here and Indonesia fell through and they stood there, surprised, that it had been blasted by the courts and public alike?
Hell, I guess it’s only in a lead up to an election year or the election year itself when the party in power actually does anything for anyone.

Australia truly doesn’t brings anything to the table (most of the time)

http://thegreengeeks.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-paypal-is-wrong-regarding-regretsy-according-to-their-own-policies/

http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0/

I knew it. Even if that “it” wasn’t exactly “donations” and more “What is it, exactly, that makes my transferring of money into your account ‘safer’ than the insurance I already have on all of my cards?”

Turns out: Not a damn thing.

It’s like the time I was buying my mother an iPad (blerg) for her birthday and the guy at JB Hi-Fi tried to convince me to takeout Apple’s iPad insurance @ $120 for 2 years.
Wouldn’t my mother’s quite detailed contents insurance already cover said iPad? Maybe it’s in the same vein as insurance you can take out on your mobile.
But less convincing.

My third point is to be revealed in the upcoming edition of my website – DUE OUT 17TH OF DECEMBER – JUST IN TIME FOR YOU TO GET YOUR HATE ON IN TIME FOR NEW YEARS

I can’t lie, it’s a brilliant series and I think this is an issue that has been addressed way too late. Better late than never.
It’s brutal viewing, but I think it’s something that needs to be watched and understood from a viewpoint of someone who is seeking asylum.

If you haven’t watched it, I can’t recommend it enough: http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/goback/episodes/page/i/1/h/Episodes/

Follow up thoughts, 28th June:
#gobackSBS was definitely rampant through Twitter.
What’s clear from watching the program and watching the response the following week, is the fundamental issues that needs to be addressed.

Firstly (and I think most importantly), a hard look at exactly what commercial stations are playing out about this growing “issue” (I don’t feel comfortable actually using the word “issue”, because it implies that I personally have a problem with this – which I don’t). It’s really disturbing to see what little time is put into this (and others) as a news story and as something’s occurring.
After the second episode, a friend of mine mentioned that he didn’t even know how long it took for them just to get to this land until he watched Go Back To Where You Came From. I also mentioned that, if I didn’t watch SBS or ABC, I doubt I would have known just the bare basics of their journey. It’s really an insult to the issue that it is basically down to two stations that have their own news broadcasting, out of five, who would put as much effort into an issue. It’s also an insult considering how many HOURS of news these stations broadcast. Remember that brief period Channel 10 decided to try and “rival” ABC24 by having three hours of news in the evening. How did that work out?
I think it was down to the basic fact that their topics were not interesting. I doubt any of you would recall any and want to discuss them at length with anyone else. I’m sorry that The Simpsons was more riveting.

Secondly, and this goes hand-in-hand with the first. Education. I don’t care what issue it is. It could be gay marriage, it could be refugees, it could be workplace discrimination, it could be racism, it could be disability discrmination, it could be gender bias. It’s the simple matter of:
If you haven’t known what it’s like to be in their shoes, how can you honestly make a snap judgement.

The saddest part about my second point is that a lot of people can’t be bothered. It’s lazy, ill-informed people who join Facebook pages titled, “If Living The Australian Way Offends You, I’d Be Happy To Help You Pack” and then barrage it with quotes like:

“This is sooo true i dont mean to sound rasist much but since when was australia like stir fry full of different mixed vegies with different tastes and dislikes(meaning people liking different things to us aussies not for something due to there religion all that) dont get me wrong i dont mean to me rasist!” What does that mean. Anyone?

Or what about:
“Send then all fucking home dirty cunts.”

Hilariously, the quote above this one liked that comment. She liked it good. But like, she don’t mean to sound rasist.

At the time I’d read that page it was being barraged with a lot of racist comments – What the hell was “The Australian Way” to those commenting? Is it being white? Something about a flag. I just can’t tell.

It’s imperative that I inform you folks that, if you care to look to the left of this Web Log, you’ll find an added link to the ‘Blogroll’ names Susan Wood – A Portfolio.
It’s a resume, it’s a cover letter, it has pretty pictures, it will – at times – be witty and hysterical.

I need to get the name out there, I need to whore myself to the interwebs (not like that, nerds!), I need a job.

Hire me.

By the by, it was interesting to come across a couple of open letters. I love an open letter, it’s the kind of letter that probably won’t be openly read by the person it’s directed at.

It just seems fitting that amidst the problems going on at Villawood Detention Centre, this should be brought up.
Someone called David Harrison decided to openly write a letter to the PM Julia Gillard over his problems with race and religion. Haven’t they suffered enough?! Ironically, once again, it’s from a white person because white people could no way come from mostly English/Irish immigrants AMIRITE.

Dear Prime Minister Gillard,

I would like to express my concerns about the current situation with muslim Asylum Seekers/ Refugees/ illegal immigrants.

I am a Vietnam veteran and fought for Australia . I went to war when my country asked me without question and I am proud to say I am Australian who loves my country. I am a member of the Frankston RSL club with the largest membership in Victoria and visit on a regular occasion to talk to my friends. All the people I talk to have the same view as I do on the muslim people coming into our country.

Mmmmmmm… just reading that last sentence, you know it’s going to be good. I’m going to go ahead and say that I acknowledge and respect the time he fought in Vietnam, but for the most part, unnecessary to say.

This email will be put on the notice board and everyone’s attention will be brought to it as they enter the RSL. Your response will also be put on the notice board. The RSL has over 3,000 members.

I will also sent this to everyone that I have their email address and ask them to pass it on to all the other people they know. I guess this will get to approx 7 to 8,000 people. Maybe more.

Therefore I ask for real answers to my questions.

I hate it when someone says that their questions are “the real questions”. Every question is a “real” question. It’s better to rate this on a scale of Sensible ->That’s it.  Get The Fuck Out Of Here which, in most respects, is hilariously ironic for the tone I think we all know he’s about to take.

I have lived in the Philippines and Thailand and understand what the muslims are trying to do in the southern parts of those countries.

They are trying to get their own Islamic states and want to live under their own laws and rules. They are killing everyone that stands in their way. Men, women and children and even babies.

I’m going to go ahead right now and tell you all that I’m a Hasian (Half-Asian) of the Filipino variety and I know what part he’s talking about. He’s probably discussing the southern Philippines and I’ve been told there are terrorist factions along a particular island.  I also think I should point out that I’ve only been told of these terrorist networks which means I can’t specify the island for reference but I’ve heard more hearsay than read any news stories about any kind of crisis. But the UN has been pretty damn terrible lately so who knows.

Now Philippines is around 7000 islands, most would be obscure, unlivable islands but that’s a pretty huge number. Philippines is also a Catholic nation. VERY Catholic. Nuff said.

I also think that David Harrison is getting confused. It’s not “Islamic States” killing men, women and babies in those countries, that was “World War II” and the “Asia-Pacific Crisis”

In Thailand they are killing all the teachers and burning down the schools to force the kids to attend Islamic schools so they can covert them to Islamic/muslim.

This is already happening in Australia where the Government and other authorities are changing the rules to suit the muslims.

What. No where have I heard any legislation passing that forces children to go to schools they don’t want to. To be sarcastic, it’s not the children ho choose the school, it’s the parents, der. Where would the problem be if there were people going to an Islamic school? There are Christian, secular, Jewish, schools that cater for a specific cultural background like the Italian Bilingual School a few streets away from me. Why should they be held back?

Take Dandenong area for example, the kindergartens and pre schools now do not celebrate Christmas, Easter and other world Christian events because all muslims there would be offended. Therefore the Australian kids are being discriminated against in their own country. THIS IS AUSTRALIA not some other muslim country.

Haha…. totally. You know, David, in primary school there was a couple of students who were Mormons and they didn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter either. Whenever we were able to do craft activities about Christmas and Easter they had to sit by themselves at desks doing virtually nothing because the teachers didn’t know what to do. When we were told Christmas stories they had to physically leave the room and go to a different classroom for 30 minutes because they weren’t even allowed to sit there and listen to it. Wouldn’t you say that was incredibly discriminatory of the school system? Why couldn’t we have open talks about different faiths then? I felt so bad for those kids because it’s not their fault that their beliefs are different from some other people, why should  they be thrown to the dogs (or in this case another classroom) because of what they believe in?

Another example is a school in Coburg were having a school BBQ and the few muslim women on the committee ordered only halal meat. Therefore the Australian kid had to miss out on the BBQ or eat muslim meat. Your Centre Link and other government departments are banning Christmas decorations and the worst disgrace is that these Government Departments are stoping their staff observing the minute silence on the 11 of November. How dare your department’s heads instruct their staff in this way. These are all to suit the muslims that hate our country and our way of life here.

This is discrimination against Australians and kids, which is a real disgrace.

Ugh. So many questions I’d like to ask. Firstly, how did halal meat and “Centre Link” end up in the same paragraph? I don’t understand your problem with a variety of food stuffs you don’t personally have to eat.

You’re also spending a lot of time focusing on Christmas and Christmas decorations. I haven’t found the Centrelink near me to fail putting up some tinsel and a tree. I hope you realise that not everyone considers Christmas to be about the birth of Jesus Christ, a lot of them consider Christmas to be the magical time of getting drunk, receiving booze as gifts and eating so much they pass out on the couch. Some people don’t put up decorations at all because they don’t want to celebrate something they don’t believe in, but hey, in this multi-cultural, multi-religious country putting up a tree in Centrelink is really what matters.

As for observing Armistice, that is a choice as to whether or not you want to take time out to do that. I’m sure if Hitler were alive he wouldn’t want to observe the day that his plans officially all went to Hell from his padded cell. Some people genuinely forget because we’re too busy having panic attacks in our offices trying to have it all. I think I’ve only ever been made to observe it in school.

Another stupid thing your Government has done is bringing the Sudanese to Australia . This is a Christian country however your Government has accepted the refugees from the northern  Sudan , which are muslim, and not from the south which are Christian. How stupid. Now every Sudanese woman I see is pregnant to get the baby bonus. Again our taxes at work !!!!!!.

You and Kevin Rudd allow and welcome the Muslim boat people and allow them privileges the Australian people don’t get. Boats are coming every day and there are another 10 to 15,000 muslim people waiting in Indonesiaand 10,000 in Malaysia that will be coming here. The Sri Lanken muslims are on boats now as we speak coming direct here.

How many do we have to take before they start bombing my children and friends. You know and I know it won’t be long before we get the same problems and bombings as other countries.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE THEN !!!!!!!!!!

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?! Get your act together, David! There was no need for that many capital letters and exclamation marks!
The country you flee from is IN NO WAY representative of ANYTHING. What they all have in common is they are fleeing for the fucking lives! When there is the choice of staying in your homeland and getting killed or finding a means to get the hell away – which one are you going to choose? Bombing his children and friends. What overly-dramatic bollocks.

My suggestion,

Oh good.

When the boats come here, have the captain and crew charged and jailed for people smuggling. A long jail sentence of 7 to 10 years as this will be a deterrent to other people smugglers.

Then fly the boat people back to their own country. We spend over $400 million to build the detention centre on Christmas Island and many millions in keeping them and giving them things that many Australian can only dream about. The muslims destroy the centre on a regular basis, which costs us taxpayers many millions of dollars to repair it. Then we repair it again and again.

Now your government is going to build another near Darwin at cost of over 90 million and 70 million to run it per year. Is this a joke on us taxpayers?

Or is this your Government just saying welcome to all muslims.

Firstly, I can’t even begin to discuss how much money it would cost to continually fly them back to certain death. I’m so glad you’re not in any position of power.
Secondly, I’d like to point out this article I read today http://www.smh.com.au/national/increase-migration-or-waste-the-boom-20110424-1dt2u.html even without this article I’m going to go ahead and tell you that if their visas weren’t held back and so slow to process they would probably work harder than any Gen-Y person I know, therefore investing more money back into this country. I know many people who are Australian citizens who wouldn’t give the time of day to certain jobs because those jobs are “beneath” them or what about those people who remain professional students just to avoid getting real jobs. “Oh no, I can’t work at this time of the day because it means I can’t go and drink” or they’d rather drain taxpayer money on the dole because that just seems easier.

What added value are muslims to Australia

They don’t work just take our taxpayer dollars.

Well you’ve already decided you’re not going to give them a chance so how would you know?

Don’t want to call Australia home.

Really.

Don’t accept our Christian culture.

So do many Australian-born citizens because it’s not a “Christian culture”. Terrible argument.

Don’t want to speak English.

Well that’s very ignorant. In many foreign countries learning English is mandatory because they know if they have a better chance at work. When you go to a non-English speaking country on holiday, do you give a damn about learning even a small amount of their dialect. No. Didn’t think so.
I’ll just let the rest play out.

Don’t want to abide by our laws.

Don’t want to integrate.

Don’t want to go to our schools.

Don’t want to play sport.

And many other don’ts.

Every school in Australia is an Australian school so what the hell are you on about?

What country doesn’t want to play some kind of sport?! Have you ever watched an Olympics? Have you seen the Sudanese runners? They. Are. OUTSTANDING. I don’t oppose to them joining the AIS and representing our country at the 2012 Olympics

All this race/religious rage is making me sleepy.

I recently went on the Clean up Australia campaign in 2 locations with hundreds of other people attending. Guess what!!!! NOT ONE MUSLIM OR SUDANESE THERE TO HELP. All were in their public houses relaxing and watching TV at what they think are stupid Australians working.

All the TV footage on the shocking Queensland floods with all the people helping to trying to clean up. I did not see one muslim or Sudanese helping. NO

WHY, they only care about how much money and benefits they can get out of Australia .

Do you ever see muslims or Sudanese living in cardboard boxes or cars with their children? NO, they are all living in our public housing FREE but Australians if they can get one have to pay.

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE AND NOT ONE SUDANESE OR MUSLIM?! YOU’RE SHITTING ME. OUT OF HUNDREDS. Well I haven’t been to one either.

I think if you took some time out of your wanker-thon and checked the Centrelink webpage you’ll find that everyone is entitled to the same kind of benefits. There’s no “Refugee: instantly $1500 a day” clause anywhere.

I don’t know why you think it would be better for you to see a refugee living out of a cardboard box with their children like that somehow justifies them living here? What is wrong with you? Where did you read that they were getting free accommodation? Oh I see: Nowhere

I wonder what his thoughts are on Aboriginal rights. Wouldn’t you like to see an email about that? I would. Oh wait. That would mean he’d have to admit he comes from a immigrant heritage.

Shame. He finally gets to the questions and it’s all about money. Typical. I’ve already typed up my thoughts on immigrant productivity and profitable growth if they could be put into the workforce. If you want to read the dross/questions click here: http://acrsl1.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/letter-sent-to-prime-minister-julia-gillard/
If you want to read an open response letter from someone who’s actually thought things through click here: http://theantibogan.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/response-to-david-harrison/

Racism and religious arguments are such a waste of time to both listen to and be a part of. It’s terribly ironic the way I had to tell both my very conservative religious mother and my very anti-religious boyfriend “Who cares?”. I have so many other things to worry or think about that I really can’t give a damn. When someone decides they’re going to express very racist and arrogant views: That damn will be given.

In the past hour of so that I’ve been watching it go viral and viewing the comments, it’s incredibly difficult to see anyone who doesn’t support the eventual Scott Pilgrim/UFC-Style fatality. It’s united people who have been bullied everywhere to go “FUCKK YESSS”. I am one of them.

To view the video Click Here

With only three days until the national Anti-Bullying day or.. Bullying Awareness day (Ok so I just don’t know what it’s called), how apt that this video should go up just in time. Upon reading the SMH article written, the situation highlighted obviously needs an un-biased attitude and expert advice from Professor Kenneth Rigby of the University of South Australia warning that what we’re revelling in is the violence of it all.
I have to say that the first thing that went through my mind was less about the violence and more about how it takes balls to stand up to the people that make your life shit. Especially if, for instance, you’re a teen and have zero confidence in yourself and that confidence was being continually shattered, not forgetting the fact that you see them every day. There are probably adults who watch that video and regret not standing up and saying something to their bullies. I’m one of them.
There are probably kids who deal with being tormented and now have the confidence to tell the people who torment them exactly where they need to go.
Coming from a person who has seen and been a part of a long assault of bullying, I’ve watched people not be able to express what they really want to say, keep silent and you find out years later they had suicide attempts, violent and psychological self-abuse and stunted socially well into their adulthood. I’d rather see them punch their bully in the face than see them silence and leaving them with a lifetime of psychological and physical abuse their bully wouldn’t even know about or care.

I now remember exactly why I quit. It’s a bitter battle between how many times a day is normal to update on Twitter to try and rouse followers, rouse a higher readership and point them to the direction of SOSP’s facebook page vs having time to complete the tasks needed for the website of which I’m tweeting about.

It’s not a new subject and God knows how many times I’ve already bitched about this on previous entries that I had deleted in lieu of starting the site – but God damn. God. Damn.

I’ve decided it’s time for me to come down hard on a couple of things that have been bugging me about the website for a while. But just to get it out of the way – why is everyone a music writer? When I first started this website and put the call out for writers it was just amazing to find that people were so dismissive about the other headings. I feel I’ve spoken about this before.
Perhaps I have. It still bugs me.

It’s come to me having to put down some laws on word limit, which doesn’t sound entirely terrible – but it had become a little out-of-hand and, myself included, became a bit too obsessed with the subject-at-hand forgetting that realistically, the readership probably won’t read to the end of our articles.

On Sunday 27th, I went to Soundwave at the Sydney Showgrounds. Excellent day and entirely satisfying (Please Soundwave, don’t ever move back to Eastern Creek). This was such a better layout and more organised than Big Day Out.
Now I’ve decided (for the sake of the website) to ‘like’ so many pages I’ve seen some terrible music writing which I now one day dread having the task of bringing in the tough “Really? This piece of crap?! WRITE IT AGAIN” love.

This was the article that really made me rethink what I’ve put into my website on occasions and how entirely embarrassed I am about it:

http://www.thevine.com.au/music/live-reviews/live-review,-photos-_-soundwave-festival,-brisbane-201120110228.aspx

There’s little use defending it. I have no idea what relevance the burger stand provided and why the writer couldn’t spend 20 minutes researching bands before the day if he knew so little of. It’s just basic preparation. This in particular really highlights now necessary it is to take a couple of moments to do some research and possibly YouTubing some clips of the biggest bands he’s unfamiliar with.

If this were an interview with anyone you would have to be pretty bold to go straight into an interview without any preparation. It’s the one’s who haven’t done homework who end up asking the question, “What’s your favourite colour?”

I resigned from my job approximately 18 days ago. It was difficult, but I think there came a point where going to the office and then taking the work home with you every day and getting a generous one weekend off a month was getting on my nerves after 11 months. 11 very long months, indeed.
Indeed.
There came a point where I may or may not have had a nervous breakdown in December which lead to the halt of my website for a month just to get myself together.

So far it’s been refreshing to be able to READ A BOOK in peace.

On a different note. If you haven’t been to www.regretsy.com you really are MISSING OUT

Some people would say, “It’s a shame that you seemed to have lacked content about the history of the good ol’ American apple pie that you had to outsource it from a livejournal by doing quick search in Google”. I know I would… did.

It is hard to source content material when you’re not considered formidable to be sent press releases and it’s hard to gather material when your writers don’t get back to you after initially giving you the surprisingly enthusiastic “I do it!” response, enthusiastic “I’m working on it!” response and then suddenly you don’t hear from them again (seriously, what the hell?).
But to blantantly steal it? They must have been talking to my year six teacher who very much revelled in telling us that “an essay is just copying from an encyclopaedia”. Apparently, it was also ok for it to be written… er… copied word-for-word.

I know it was year six, but whoa, did it put a dent in how I wrote essays through my formative high school years.

I loved her excuse , “honestly Monica, the web is considered ‘public domain’…”
Ahhh, now I’m aware, my Arts section for November is looking a bit wary…