Plumbing the depths by Bethany Gazzara

Yes, yes I said. Of course I can write something for you. When? That’s ages away. Plenty of time to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. There’s only one wincy ickle snag. To put it poetically, I am a bird without a song, an artist without a canvas, a mower without a lawn, a writer without words. Well, I guess you could say that I have words, we all do, and there are lots of them out there. I just can’t seem to find the wherewithal to put them all together in a big coherent, interesting block. Everyday, I write something brilliant in my head; in the supermarket I’m writing snappy little pieces, witty observations on life. They’re started by the fresh pro-duce department and published more...

My Job

An average workday for me starts with my entry through a heavy brown locked door. It is early and sun streams down onto the austere stretch of concrete and perfunctory shrubbery that flank the entrance to my place of employment. I fumble through my bag for my picture badge and set of keys to let myself into the large maze-like office that houses nearly one hundred patients daily. My job title is “Program Therapist” at an intensive outpatient mental health program. Monday through Friday, I conduct group therapy with depressed, anxious, and otherwise mentally ill elderly people, although the patients actually range from being in their forties up to 99 years old currently. They come from their more...

Oakbank – an English picnic in the Mediterranean

So Easter Monday I headed up by bus to the Adelaide hills town of Oakbank, where they only have two horse race meetings a year, Easter Saturday and Monday, and these two days are enough to keep the club going for the rest of the year. The first meeting was held back in the 1880, and my Mother tells me of when she used to head up there by train in 60's (the train line no longer goes to Oakbank), picnic hamper packed, it was a full days outing, even back then they got 50000 people. And the fallen log jump was there even then, slightly higher more...

Another mining disaster (from the water cooler)

Bridgeport, Tasmania is the latest town to suffer a mining disaster. The catastrophe was not caused by an increase in a build up of exposed gas, an earthquake or faulty construction, but by an obese male employee who during the shift change managed to get stuck within a newly constructed mine shaft, a service shaft narrower than the working shaft. A number of other employees where also stuck, as the new shaft was the only exit point. In discussions with the mine operators, we where advised they have a strict size limit in regards to their employees. Employees are given an official warning if their size exceeds the agreed award weight. The employee in question, who can not be named due more...

Toxic dump gives girl a willie (the water cooler)

Scientists and resident Doctors from the University of Camden are at mystery to explain the evident increase in recorded hermaphrodites in the North West of Melbourne. Hermaphrodite as a condition is where persons are born with both male and female sex organs. This condition is very rare. For years now local residents have been complaining about the relationship between increases in terminal diseases, such as cancer and leukaemia due to the toxic dump located at Tullamarine. This is now further evidence that toxic materials, especially those released in the 1970’s and 80’s when controls where more relaxed maybe having a detrimental effect on local residence. Hermaphrodite recorded more...

Can Men and Woman just be friends

A university lecturer of mine back many years ago who was a psychologist and an Indian said no! "There is no such thing as a completely platonic male female relationship, at least one of the parties at some time will think of the other in a sexual, or more than just friendship way". I tend to agree. I like I'm sure you have, met many people who say they are just friends with people of the opposite sex, and even I would say currently I have female friends, but that is not to say at sometime the thought of being more than just friends hasn't crossed my mind, although not with all. I have broached this subject with friends both male and female and most of my male friends say its more...

Australian football tragedy

The world cup of football has taken Australia by storm in the last two weeks and late last night ended in the most dramatic, and dare I say unfair of circumstances. The Socceroos had ridden a wave since beating Japan in the first game of the group stages in a dramatic come from behind 3-1 victory. A respectful 2-0 loss to the world champions Brazil followed, then the debacle at Munich in which a player from Croatia was given three yellow cards, the referee missed an obvious handball and a rugby tackle on Mark Viduka which both should have resulted in penalties to Australia. The English referee is unlikely to ever be in charge of a football game again. The final score of 2-2 was enough more...

Smile its your city

‘A smile is not just an indicator of the happiness of the smiler but is bound to have a positive impact on the person to whom it is directed. It may seem a flippant thing in this era of 'Performance Indicators' but a smiling community is a healthy community.’ Port Phillip council Recently the council of Port Phillip of which St Kilda my suburb belongs, started putting up signs to encourage the local residence to smile at each other. I thought this a rather odd thing for a council to do at first, more...

Gotta love london (and sometimes hate her)

Travel time was ridiculous - 1.5 hours for one way trip... that was making for 12 hour days and I was growing tired of that very quickly. The money was piss poor and not worth the effort (in my opinion) and the boss and I didn’t see eye to eye - he knew his hardware well, but made for a lousy manager as he didn’t have very good interpersonal skills. He was not a good manager, and I started to resent him for that, especially since I gave up so much to work for the bastard. The environment there also sucked - it reminded me of an old more...

Bread for you

I was just sitting in the lounge room with a packet of “Cherry Ripe” biscuits studying for my first Sociology exam. I was reading about poverty in particular. Some 800 million people are below the absolute poverty level where they earn less that $1 per day and their lives are at risk from starvation. There was one section on what those in poor conditions say, and it reminded me of a situation that I had seemingly forgotten for many years. I was 6 years old in 1985 living in a suburb of Melbourne. My parents were still together back then and my Dad was very dominant. My grande mere had fallen ill so we all went over to Mauritius. My mother and I went first and my Dad and brother more...

Safety...

What is safety? What is a world where all live in harmony? What is peace? What is religion, what are the fundamental lessons or guides to religion? I look around our world and I see one of such incomprehendable dualites that I sometimes find it hard to breathe. I witness, we witness every day, people of different colours, creed, countries, all fighting!! Yes fighting, on opposite sides of an invisible fence consumed with a righteousnous of what their vision comprises. So that answer must be my friend that we simply don’t know! As long as we have known and inhabited this world there has been greed, conquering, dispute!!! We live in a crazy time and yet I believe it has always more...

Under the name of Liberalism

Under the Name of Liberalism: Neo-Socialism Part II by Gary Schneider, TheRealityCheck.org 19 July 2003 The top 25% of taxpayers pay 84% of personal income taxes and the top 5% pay for 56.4%. This gradual and sustained shift of the tax burden to a small minority of taxpayers is patent Socialist policy. "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." - Norman Thomas, Socialist Party Presidential Candidate and co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Whether by design or happenstance more...

A Good Old Tooth Ache

Everyday it’s getting harder to divulge intimate details of one’s life. For instance, one wonders whether you would like to know about a recent toothache. I first became aware of it a few days ago on my late night way to where I stay. It was drizzling a bit and things were a tad slippery all around. For a strange reason, our rickshaw was stopped around the Andheri flyover and the driver’s credentials were asked for by the police. After some huddled conversation, the driver came back and started rummaging for some papers in his dashboard compartment, or whatever they call it. He was muttering some poetic abuses and a sum of Rs 50. Apparently, his licence had an objectionable more...

Plead to acheive

I often wonder what indeed is the point? Why do we all seem to have to get somewhere? I don’t mean in the sense of to the pub on time or to dinner but more in regards to the bigger picture? Where are we all aiming to be? In this day and age of the ever-expanding capitalist world what is the average working person aiming for? Have the majority who rise at dawn, just to wash, grab a quick bite and head for whatever mode of transport that will bring them to the required destination, ultimately lost the fundamental reason we exist on this planet. I don’t disregard for one moment the business person whom thoroughly enjoys the position they have come to hold in the business world. more...

A Life....

There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real! When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us. Don't go for looks; they can deceive. Don't go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile. Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do. more...

Scott Wylies Morocco 2000