Conversation over a haircut

photo from stock.xchng

I made one of my infrequent visits to the hairdresser. She's pleasant to chat with, and accepting of my lassez faire, low maintenance attitude to hair. My ignorance of product. We compare stories of my children and her grandchildren. I update her about work and it starts her talking about refugees and migration.

Politics and religion. And immigration. #thingswedon'ttalkabout

She tells stories of people she knows from other cultures - all friends, all sympathetic portraits.

Then asks my opinion about refugees. And Islam and fundamentalism and burqas. She took my hesitation as an invitation for her opinions. No worries, I can do listening.

And she's quite happy to share.

Deep down, it's fear. Fear that refugees are extremists in disguise, that they'll get powerful before we realise it and they'll rip us all off by defrauding Centrelink. That burqas hide disdain and contempt for us. That refugees are different, they're not us and we might not like living next door to them.

I preferred her stories of people she's really met.

But sitting in her space, I found it hard to collect a coherent response. Since than I've formed a few ideas, but it's a long time till my next haircut.

I want to tell her about most of the refugees I've met. That they've been victims of religious persecution rather than perpetrators. That they don't want to leave their home country, they have to. In order to survive. That they spend months, years, days on end, mourning and missing their homes. Grieving the wives or children or siblings who were killed. Trying to forget the wounds they've received or the horror-filled memories seared into their brains.

That most of the Arabic speakers I've met are from Christian minority groups, and that the Iranians are those who have protested the Islamic state. That the idea of refugees promoting fundamentalism, or racial hatred when they bear its scars is oddly ridiculous.

That when she talks of pride in Australia and protecting our Australia, maybe the pride and the protecting rob of us the opportunity to be a nation of strength of character and true compassion.

Just a few ideas. What can you add?

Unblogging

Here's my plan. I'm carving out a new artform in blogdom...

Unblogging

Here are the features that make an unblog:

• Pitiful stats - I still look at them, just not very often (my ego cannot bear much)
• Undersharing - a beast rarely seen in social media and blogging
• Reluctance to give advice
• Allergy to lists
• No posts about blogging - except the odd ironic one
• Inability to stick to a blog genre
• Erratic comments - my policy is, comment if you have something to say
• Refusal to post about topical issues or important dates
• Failure to find an audience
• Images only barely related to the text
• No bloggy friends, a complete reliance on real life ones
• Random, unplanned posts at irregular intervals
• Half-baked series ideas that rarely get completed

Now all I need is a thingy (you know, a button) that says "I'm an unblogger" and you could all join the revolution.

OK it's not really a button, it's just a picture. But go on, steal it anyway, just make sure you point the way back here.

The Ship Song

There are a couple of reasons to share this video. It's been made as a tribute to the Sydney Opera House, the most iconic building I've ever been in. It features some of the best musicians/performers in Australia (imho), and it's a song written by Nick Cave, that I love.

I admit that there are tears in my eyes when I watch it. I walked down the aisle to this song almost 13 years ago.

The sac around the policy gland

John Clarke and Brian Dawe tonight. He's right, the inflammation of the pericompromise is everywhere.

I laughed.

via tastefully offensive (and 22 words)

also via tastefully offensive

A Catalog Poem

Leaving

Gone from the window, sheer drape gently sweeping.
Gone from the table, leaving no reply.
Gone from my lap, slipping down, turning, running.

Gone. Wisps of farewell.

Gone to the sound of laughter in the garden.

Gone with clatter of running in the hall.

Gone to the scraps of re-conversation.

Gone, I follow senses, thoughts, more.

Gone, I sit.

 

Linked to TheHighCalling.org with

L.L.Barkat's The Work of A Poem.

 

 

New Blog

I have started another blog. Check it out here.

It is a 'work-related' venture, and I'm excited about it.

Today's post is about negotiation skills. I've just re-read it and realised it the tips translate to negotiating with kids - except for 'psychotic' read 'having a tantrum', and for 'medication' read 'vegetables'. ;)

And I am suddenly aware of how slow I can be to answer the 'mu-u-um' call. Prompt responses might win me more negotiating room!

I love this old Sesame Street clip. Especially the cameos. Check Jeremy Irons.



I'll leave you to figure out a deep meaning for it...

Rain poem

RAIN

There are holes in the sky

Where the rain gets in

But they're ever so small,

That's why rain is thin.

Spike Milligan

I learnt this poem from my grandparents, who loved to read us Spike's poems. It reminds me of visiting at their place...
air filled with the smell of sawdust and varnish
sitting on paisley flannelette cushions
eating home crumbed fried flathead
bobbed haircuts courtesy of Emily
Hardy's laughter
goodbye dances in the middle of the road
treadle Singer sewing machine
all sitting in the fold-out sofa bed watching Charles marry Diana
they never smoked, but had an ashtray that spun the ash away

small, idiosyncratic, precious memories prompted by the rain today. Does that happen to you?

Opinions #2

Opinions are like a packet of chips...

Great to share with your friends over a beer at the pub,
but a stranger sitting next to you on the bus is not quite so keen to be offered them.

(Newsjack, BBC 4)

Some of my favourite songs

A purely self-indulgent post. A reason to look at YouTube.

I've listened to these songs frequently in the last 12 months. The albums are in my slots of the CD stacker (it has officially got 6 sections now, which means I need to rationalise my choices!)

Matthew Barber - Settle My Accounts

M. Ward - Never Had Nobody Like You

Bob Evans - Don't You Think Its Time & Nowhere Without You

Josh Pyke - Middle Of The Hill

Opinions

Opinions are like grandparents...

everybody has them and they're just a bit more rascist than you're comfortable with.

(Thankyou Newsjack, BBC4)