ENVIRONMENT IN A BLOG ACTION DAY

White water rafting, logging, swimming and recreation.
My gloom and doom chautauqua is as follows. Pictured is a lovely river valley in Sumatra where dramatic tropical storms thunder and roar. Possibly each night a deluge occurs there. Free, fresh, pure and abundant water falls out of the sky.
Five minutes is all it would take to fill a water tank. (Above-ground swimming pools are an alternative container) Instead, naturally, the locals like to make money from the sale of bottled water. We see a flow on effect and, environmentally, tourism is very difficult to justify anywhere as it uses up fuel and energy at every turn and leaves empty bottles in its wake.
(PS I like to see a motorcyclist on that suspension bridge, although it is accessed by a set of steps...nevertheless..)

The same for the millions of bloggers who all use up electricity.

Currently the water from the taps in Newcastle is totally drinkable. We have a splendid water dam full capacity near the clean isolated Barrington tops. Costly technology is used to purify the water. We pay water rates. Yet this is not good enough and our society is right into bottle water.

A good health promotion message, doing the rounds, is that water is the drink of choice for children. Childhood obesity and dental problems are preventable.

WINNERS

Champion motorcyclist Casey Stoner in one camp and then Anderson and Troy Herfoss in another camp are some of the success stories one reads about and they earn enormous amounts of money in Europe etc and the USA.

The Honda Supermoto or supermotard or motard (according to Wikipd) are designed for both on and off road use and need to be capable of surviving jumps etc. As street legal bikes they have some fans around here on our roads.

MEMORIES

Rainbow Warrior and The Endeavour (replica in dry dock) when they visited Newcastle in the past. Both legends. The latter is associated with the colonisation of Australia. A Rainbow Warrior came to grief. I noticed discussion over which team to support in the World Cup and all sorts of obscure things surfaced.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

This is how we live. Or that's what I could have written in the eighteen hundreds . A house off Brown Street, Newcastle. After a suitable, traditional makeover it will be a different story.

COPPERPLATE

Even our oldest homes are relatively new. Here is part of a handwritten conveyancing document of March, 1893, dealing with gentlemen of the Northumberland Permanent Building Investment Loan and Building Society of Newcastle in the colony of New South Wales and various other parties.

Four thick, rich pages make up the document which is bound together with black cotton and is marked with a seal at several points. I imagine it went to London because it was witnessed there at 17 Gracechurch Street and was taken to the Notary Public of London
Four months later, two pounds stamp duty, was paid here in Sydney, NSW. The time frame seems quite good considering a very long voyage intervened and that it involved solicitors.

WHERE'S THE RUSH HOUR?

A bus shelter for a post industrial suburb. These bold and stylish, strong and expensive bus shelters are from the City Council. Oddly it is doubling up as a rail 'station' during track work when buses replace the trains. (In fact, an enormous amount of work is done on the chemin de fer.) The shelters are often vandalised. This one has been done over and the transparency of the glass has been lost.
Public transport deserves support. Use public transport?
'I could do that (Mr Howard)'
Quoting from the save energy campaign. That's as good as it gets after our failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

IN THE KAMPUNG

Is this the best bus shelter I've ever seen or is it a place for secret men's business? In Sumatra.

CELEBRATING FLIGHT

A fly past by a group of keen pilots had aircraft going everywhere!
An Air Force base for Catalina Aircraft was once at Rathmines on Lake Macquarie.
Crews trained there and joined WW2 efforts in reconnaissance, bombing and all that, up as far as Papua New Guinea. Women worked as mechanics as well.
A fly past and entertainment seemed to be commemorating those deeds. The wings on these aircraft have boyancy devices and the prop is set high up to keep out of water.

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

It's school holiday time and the beachside beckons. The school year draws to a close mid December. Redhead Beach.

We hear the rhetoric now at Federal election time and the biggest hoax. Feds act with benevolence and disdain over funding matters. Revenues belong to them. They are mistaken that way and should have little else to do than redistribute the funds. Money: that's what it takes to run the state and funds rightly belong to all the services we have.
The Feds are not at the coal face where real people work in hospitals, prisons, schools, highway construction. At arms length they dispense wonderful one-off grants to finance this or that as if we are so lucky. How come they can reserve funds to toy around with and buy votes? Their budget must be very flexible.
Funds are earmarked at will so that they can expand into more affairs such as technical education and indigenous matters, to justify their existence. This fragments services such as occurs in health. Really, the existing providors deserve better. Any threats to use funds as blackmail is un-Australian.
Defence and the big services are probably valid Federal commitments. It is obvious that these departments operate without any questions asked about spending. How much do the diplomatic services cost? Who knows? How well does it compare to the states financial management of more important priorities?
State and federal cheques and balances sure are a strange means of 'organising' our existence.

MORE THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL

Basic instinct. Newcastle is on the flight path of the Bogong Moth, soundless, nocturnal, mass migration, they spend summer in the southern alps and winter to our north. The city lights must be irresistible and some lose their way and touch down to be found all around town seeking out a hiding place from the daylight. For other facts and this link describes them well.
The lighting at the Sydney Olympics attracted scores of them and one showed up perched on an opera singer in the closing ceremony.
The media has featured moth tasting because the moths were eaten by humans in early times and they are an important food for several native animals from around the dim crowded southern caves.
The substance, Arsenic, has been found in the moths. Insecticide legacy?
The food chain has significance. We are interdependent.

THANKS FOR CREATION LITURGY

Bach and bark at Christ Church Cathedral, yesterday in the evening. A children's choir introduced a holistic perspective with this song..........

We've been living off the land, Shall we return it's grace?
...I know you've seen a change in me
You make it harder to survive.
I can see it in my skies, the soil, the seas.
Will my rivers cease to flow?
How will my flowers grow?
Do not forget how much you needed me...
...If we are all to live forever, we must plan..

From ABC Sing 2007 Natures Lament words and music by Debra Byrne

STUNTS AT SUPERMOTO

As well as the racing, these two guys were taking to the air.. I can't emulate the pictures in the glossy magazines but it was fun.

SUPERMOTO X FMX & STUNT RIDES

On the grid. Today was held a round in the SsanYong Australian Supermoto Championships at Newcastle Kart Club (The Herald). The track has a dirt section as well as tar. (Incidentally SsanYong is a Korean automotive and motorcycle company as far as I know)

GROUNDED

Aeronautical still life. A jet engine near Fighter World and the Air Force, Williamtown.
I heard it's fifty years since the Russian Sputnik was launched. Communication by satellite has become pervasive. Does this very web site depend on them?

And then, Rugby and the World Cup Quarter-Finals, live from Marseille, (free to air TV) last night, bought us a close competition with a sad ending for the Wallabies. Well done, English 'rose'.

KEEPING ON TRACK

Love them or hate them, the Olympics are something out of the ordinary and Sydney 2000 was a good chance (or indeed the only chance) to see the games. Going back to that time the clear sky was azure, and the famous names were on all sides and Cathy Freeman was our star in the 400 metres.
The Tae Kwon Do events were affordable and Lauren Burns was one of the success stories there. Tae Kwon Do originated in Korea and is another aspect of that curious country. Korean communities in Sydney have a visible presence and any number of shops, such as those in Strathfield, specialize in everything Korean. Surely many would agree that their food is unique.

SPRING

Spring garden in West Wallsend. The varieties include some I rarely see in this coastal area. 'Exotics' is a rather fancy term to use for all the 'imported' flowers.
Already, the next few days are declared to be a time of extreme fire danger. By law nothing can be burned outdoors.

NIRVANA

Taking a needed break from the mysteries of meditation and mindfulness and the role of direct action.

HOUSE ARREST AND PROTESTS IN MYANMAR

A tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisioners in the east and in the west and for justice in Burma.
See www.free-burma.org for a blogger campaign. Write to your politicians and seek their influence on the Burmese junta. (At this particular time I can't make the necessary links.)
As well as the widespread violence, Suu Kyi, is under house arrest in Burma (or Myanmar) and the length of detention has just been increased. She was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while under house arrest.
I am in good company with this as Laura has drawn attention to this cause recently.
Post reprinted from several months ago, sorry.

THIS IS NOT A GRAFFITO

But the gang's all here. Newcastle City Council Works Gang on location.

DAILY PHOTO HAS A GRAVE THEME THIS OCTOBER

In a Bronze-Age theme park, embedded, sentenced to a burial mound. Awaiting transformation?

October First, public holiday, the Queen's Birthday long weekend. Our head of State.
This nation is not a republick.
UPDATE: It is really Labour Day holiday in this state, at least Sally (Sydney) is on the ball! Yet, she's gracious, I got away with the bad spelling. Just as well I'm not undertaking the new Citizenship Test!