My new blog – “Unlearning the Problem”

Unlearning the Problem

The Last Post – Watch this space

 

This is the last post I shall write for Paradigm Oz.
 For everything there is a season, and P.Oz’s has passed.  It was my second excursion into the blogosphere, the previous one being co-writer of Kalkadoon.org.   Paradigm Oz was always an experiment, it began as a Palm Island News agency but circumstances changed and I [...]

The Progressive Spirituality movement.

This post was inspired by the recent ABC Compass program on the Uniting Church in Australia, “The Uniting Church” highlighting a divergence of opinion within the church between conservative Christian traditionalists and a new movement emerging called “progressive spirituality” (P.S.).  P.S. is challenging traditional Christianity at its core by questioning key doctrinal concepts such as the [...]

12 months of Paradigm Oz

It is 12 months since Paradigm Oz started, the point at which I had planned to evaluate my experiment.

12 months ago Paradigm Oz was planned as a news agency to be based on Palm Island. My partner and I had been working with a few Palm Islanders in the previous year developing proposals for sustainable [...]

Maori and peace activists rounded up in N.Z. anti terror operation

                                                           Maori Sovereignty activist Tame Iti was one of the 17 people arrested yesterday.  Background on Tame Iti here
Yesterday New Zealand Police broke into several houses, raided a Maori community and arrested 17 people including peace activists and charged them with various firearms offences.
The raids were the culmination of a police operation which had been [...]

Hearts and minds

As readers may know I am an occaisional writer for the greenish leaning “Dead Roo” blog. I have also begun writing for  “Leftrights”, a leftish leaning blog.
My first post on Leftwrites is entitled “The Eurocentrism of Australian Socialism”
Here is my most recent comment on that discussion……
The point of real connection with Aboriginal Australia is [...]

Laughing at Aborigines now – An Aboriginal woman’s perspective

UPDATE – This post has suddenly become very popular.  New visitors to Paradigm Oz should be aware that this was posted before the new allegations against Noonan were put on youtube (post on that issue here ).  It was not written as a response to the youtube allegations. The complaint refered to was a complaint to [...]

Central Land Council (N.T.) -Fact sheets on the Australian Government Intervention in the Northern Territory

From the Central Land Council
The short and easy guide to the Commonwealth intervention
*alcohol,* five year leases, *bail, *buildings, *business management, *town camps, *welfare, *community stores, *permits, *publicly funded computers, *pornography

Peter Garrett – Whatever happened to the revolution?

“Whatever happened to the revolution?    We all got stoned and it drifted away”    So sang Skyhooks in the 1970’s about the demise of the anti Vietnam war movement.
The 70’s revolution may seem to have disappeared in a puff of strange smelling smoke but it really went “underground” into the public service and mainstream capitalism and got [...]

Sydney terror threat thwarted in lead up to APEC.

                                                                                                                           Terror suspect prevented from boarding plane at Sydney airport on Saturday.
A 91 year old pensioner with suspicious political affiliations was caught up in Australia’s front line of “The War On Terror” on the weekend. 
 The pensioner,  Mr. Gough Whitlam, was on his way to meet with Aboriginal terrorists in the Northern Territory, possibly at an Al [...]

Laughing at the “disabled”, Michael Noonan exposes his naughty bits!

CAUTION!                                                                                                                          Some academics may be offended  by the film footage in this link.     Michael Noonan’s Naughty Bits
The controversial Bris Vegas film maker, Michael Noonan, has been accused of producing “misanthropic and amoral trash” and exploiting people with intellectual disabilities who are not competent to make decisions for themselves in his PhD thesis “Laughing at/with the [...]

The N.T. Intervention – a perspective from the other side of the front line

I have just included a new link on the link list – “That Manunga Linguist”
This blog belongs to a linguist working in Southern Arnhem Land and, amongst other things, is documenting the Federal government’s intervention as it happens on the ground.
An excerpt from “The Intervention” 
“The meeting started with a representative from Darwin’s FACSIA office running [...]

new website launch – “Queensland the Cruel State”

Negligence one day, cover-up the next! 
Before you visit Queensland be sure to checkout   “Queensland the Cruel State”
This website is designed to warn people with impaired capacities, their families and travel associates of the dangers of Queensland’s guardianship laws.

“Unlikely Travellers” screening at BIFF

*update*  my review of “Unlikely Travellers”
The contraversial film “Unlikely Travellers” by Michael Noonan is being screened in Brisbane on August 12 as part of the Brisbane Independent Film Festival (BIFF). 

Still laughing at “THE DISABLED”

The previous post looks at some of the theoretical issues surrounding the criticism of Michael Noonan’s film project “Unlikely Travellors”.
The following short clip is from Noonan’s work.  This is entitled “Unlikely Skipper”

This clip made me smile! 
 It is clearly the persons disability that is the focus of the humour – he is [...]