Bombs, ect.

It seems silly to be writing about things like tea pots and china figurines when there's stuff like this going on.


Gone are the days in which 'terrorist' insurgents would only take a few officials hostage and carefully target government buildings to avoid civilian casualties. Today, passenger planes are shot down, olympic atheletes are murdered, entire villages are desecrated by suicide bombers and great buildings containing thousands of civilians are destroyed. The events in Mumbai are scary not only because they resulted in huge civilian losses but because they kept an entire city paralysed for days. I recently moved into a new house and the guy whose room I've taken (who is also a good friend of my brother's) flew to Mumbai a few days before the attacks. He was staying 100 metres from the Taj, and a tourist being chased by an insurgent with a gun ran into his hotel. His 'holiday' in India was sadly cut short, but he did make it out alive on a flight to Barcelona, so big up to John. Killing 200 people is such an unfortunate way to go about achieving change, especially considering India's past victories under Ghandi.

Meanwhile, the kids in yellow at Bangkok airport have shown themselves to be an example of the power of (mostly) non-violent resistance, not to mention how to piss off thousands of tourists. Thailand's Supreme Court recently ruled in their favour by deposing the country's corrupt Prime Minister.


On the home front, the Federal government is deliberating the introduction of a Bill of Rights for Australia. I think it's a great idea, seeing as we are pretty much the only country in the Western world that lacks one. But having gone through a semester of Public Law with Professor Jim Allen, I'm not going to spend another second of my life talking about the pros and cons of parliamentary sovereignty and judicial supremacy, and I hope anyone who has had his crazy Canadian views against bills of rights hammered into their brain stem will sympathise.
One thing I will talk about though are the discussions to exclude 'contentious' rights (like the right to abortion) in favour of more 'settled' rights like freedom of speech. Freedom of speech, the right to vote and other basic political rights are already enshrined in the Constitution, legislation and the common law. It would be unnecessary to simlpy restate them in a bill of rights, unless they form part of a document that incorporates rights never-before protected in Australia. Such a document would perform a more meaningful function if it included, for example, the right to abortion (which is unfairly and outdatedly unlawful in certain States) as well as other economic, social, environmental and cultural rights.

In lighter news, the Prodigy will be playing Riverstage on 20 January with Simian Mobile Disco and Hot Chip. I have also just discovered that Lick It have booked Metronomy for 16 January at Empire. It's been a while since I've been but I always have a good time at Empire. Boys Noize was especially fun.


I really want to go and see Swan Lake at QPAC. My mum used to take us every year at Christmas. I also want to see the Paris Opera Ballet perform La Bayadere next year in July.