While currently witnessin' a sort of discontinuity or rapid change in the economic base will a transformation of the superstructure follow on? Or are we only talkin' about a steady trend?

'Ya all kno' how culture, art, religion, political institutions - all the ideologies - are more resistant to change but according to Marx will be transformed. At least, that's what this simple blogger-mom read. Our traditional attitudes are supported but are also subverted by the economic sphere. What does it all mean?
Will it be a different story where, according to the rhetoric, there's only a middle class?

.....what we produce is always miles ahead of what we think......
another tenet:

Mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve ....we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. Marx.
(Appignanesi & Garratt 1995)

Young Cricketers. Strathfield has an Indian community.

Below, Indonesian batik.

It's Inflatable Man, another type of puppet acting as a scarecrow to move flying foxes away from vulnerable and significant trees in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Flying foxes were seen and heard high above us.
Zoom in. Fruit bats or flying foxes hang upside down, genus Pteropus belonging to the Megachiroptera sub order. A fox that flies! More fascinating links are on Wikipedia





Indonesian batik

Amorphohpallus titanum. Titan Arum. Bunga Bangkai (Bahasa Indonesia).

Sumatera. Well known world-wide for its bizarre gigantic 'flower', this plant is now becoming rare partly due to harvesting from the wild. The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney is collaborating with the Indonesian Botanic Gardens with the initial aim of demonstrating that this plant can be successfully multiplied using locally applicable vegative propogation techniques.

A successful venture such as this with Indonesia is great news. Other cross pollination of ideas, arts and entertainment would be very welcome. It could help minimise any troubling notions that arise between our two countries.


A stylized puppet from Indonesia.
Wayang kulit are shadow puppets 0f carved leather.
This example could be based on the wayang kulit or on the wayang klitik which, I believe, are the flat wooden puppets of East Java.
A puppet performance may be based on the Hindu epics: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata or on any social or political topic as I understand it.

No zoom was used in making this!

The original Police Station and lock-up is now a gallery and museum.

A Room Down South is the current exhibition of wonderful canvases in the medium of digital montage 'polished' to perfection.
Ramonda Te Maiharoa is the artist who finds inspiration in remote southern Aotearoa.

A quiet Saturday afternoon, Hunter Street East, Newcastle.
A chef was leaving on motorbike.

The narrative is in the windows of old, long before the arrival of the printing press.
The Monarchy as seen in technicolour transparency and The Divine Right of Kings - All Saints?

Scene in the Newcastle suburb of New Lambton.

Previous quote:
Einige Feen sind Hexen gerworden. Richtig oder falsch?

Diwali Festival 2008

This may have been the custom of photographs prior to the wedding day itself.

Flurofriday at Honeysuckle, Newcastle, focused on safety in the workplace and I saw fluro work clothes, hard hats, b-b-q and NXFM during the lunch break.

from the Nicholson museum.

Harry Potter imagery. Latin. Magicus. Monsters......as well as a....
Magic staircase..........and........
Seeking out the Philosopher's Stone.
Gothic fantasy at Sydney University.

A school with a difference. Did Harry Potter have a role in the rise in non-government education and the privatisation of schools hereabouts?
The existing schools lose their wide diversity including mix of ability when students are sent away to a private school often in another suburb and the local community is diminished.
Children from a non-English speaking background remain together in a school in some degree of isolation. All of which is nothing new to the experts but is new to me.
While Church and state are separate, if the government schools could include a totally meaningful component of religious study then church schools would become unnecessary and all kids could enjoy a state school education that is non-divisive and is a microcosm of society.
New computers etc all round are fine but loads of support staff and basics and facilities are very important in government schools particularly when they have to take up the slack. It is difficult for them to be compared with the fresh brand-new schools of the private sector.
However, many would say it is too late for all this and status, fashion and high achievement at any cost are held dear by parents.

Anyway, on another point, be thankful that the Harry Potter movies are not Hollywood productions.

I ask is this really the domain of left wing, Marxist, Post Modern Critical theorists?

(Reproduced for research purposes)