Metrosexual

Mark Latham has written a book. And the former leader of the Australian Labour party doesn’t like metrosexuals. He cries because the macho’s are dissapearing in Australia.

I quote: “Australian mates and good blokes have been replaced by nervous wrecks, metrosexual knobs and toss bags. Instead of calling a spade a spade, our national conversation is now dominated by weasel words and the pretence of politeness”.

I don’t really understand what all the fuss is about.

Samantha Harris

This weblog is not only about aborigines. But I have to show this picture of an aboriginal model: Samantha Harris.

The Bulletin: ‘Dream time’

Aborinigal PR

The Australian newsletter Crikey has published some interesting articles about aborigines and its PR-strategy. Crikey asks some experts if the aboriginal people would be better off if they invested in better PR. Reconcilliation Australia or other aborigines-experts answer the ideas. It’s interesting stuff, but unfortunately I don’t have enough time to read them thouroughly. If you have time, read it!

I like the suggestion of Bronwyn Morgan: “Change Australian history curriculum throughout the education system to position white settlement in 1788 as one point in the 60,000 year history of people living in Australia, rather than the starting point of Australian history”. He’s so right about this.

Noel Turnbull says that a PR-campaign is too little, too late. To tackle the problem, Australia should go deeper than PR and change it way how it looks to aborigines culture and the Westernized country. Kirstie Parker, on the other hand, is not opposed to a better PR.

“It is not us that need a makeover but our image so, as long as we get to call the shots, there’s no real reason to be threatened by or frightened by the idea. I’d call it “bush cunning” to use all available resources”, she writes.

And then there is that New Zealand perspective on the topic. He says people have to live with each other. He met some Australians and chatted about aborigines, but none of them has met one.

The last hyperlink is a text written by Jackie Huggins (Reconciliation Australia) in The Australian.

Crocodile tears

Jack Marx of the Sydney Morning Herald doesn’t understand why the dead of Steve Irwin gets so much attention in the Australian press, and why some newspapers see him as a hero while he was slashed two years ago. It gets not only a lot of attention, but some media really go hysterical. Marx has written a great column about it:

“But what winds me up about celebrity death these days is the manner in which the frauds in the media fair blow their loads in the “outpouring of grief” that has became standard issue since Diana’s sick and prolonged exit. Footage runs in slow motion as pianos tinkle, while every columnist with the imagination of a duck jumps up for their own gooey turn at the pulpit in a free-to-air funeral service that never ends.”

The weather

Warm, cold, windy, drought, rainy; the weather is an ideal topic for some chit chat. But the weather is some good stuff for photographers as well. Enjoy Australian weather with the Flash-album ‘The Weather – Images that shape our nation‘ on the The Age-website.

Marvellous pictures…

Aborigines from South-East Australia

Paul Briggs writes in The Age an op-ed about the aborigines in South-East Australia. He says that these people are less accepted as aborigines than the ones in the north of the country.

“Much to our bitter sorrow and loss, south-eastern Australia’s Aborigines have no opportunity to take identity for granted, and no opportunity to celebrate their culture in the environment of diversity and multiculturalism that the nation purportedly values”, he writes.

But there are 200.000 aborigines living in South-East Australia. That’s approximately the same amount as in the rest of Australia.

“We are stigmatised as a ‘deficit’, having nothing to offer or share, and represent nothing to celebrate in mutual joy with the mainstream community.”

Briggs wants that the aboriginal culture is as important as any other culture in Australia.