Rob Machado
Wally Froiseth - Fins on Paipo
The Headland
Ocean beach
Snoring, heavy even breathing
‘ Grandad!’
Sharp intake of breath. Grunt.
‘ Grandad!’
Loud snort, muffled oath.
‘ Granddad!! ‘
Full and rude wakefulness
Early morning, dark and still with only the high perched kookaburras saluting a sun that was still far below the horizon. Half an hour before earliest light thought grandfather Tom as he turned in his bed to see what the young fellow wanted. He flicked on the bedside light.
‘ Whatsup Tobes? ‘
Toby stood by the side of the bed, close by the side of the bed with his hands clenched tight and Alf in close attendance.
‘ What are you doing in the house Alf? ‘
The dog smiled up at Toby and wagged his tail twice. Not my fault Boss, I’m with him.
This massive cyclone in the Indian Ocean was captured by a satellite on Monday.
According to NASA:
After forming as a tropical storm over the Southern Indian Ocean on November 14, 2009, Anja strengthened to a cyclone one day later. By November 16, 2009, Anja was a Category 3 cyclone, with maximum sustained winds of 105 knots (195 kilometers per hour), and gusts up to 130 knots (240 kilometers per hour). Anja was located near 14.7 degrees South and 68.3 degrees East.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on November 16, 2009. Far away from any major landmasses, Anja sprawls over the Southern Indian Ocean, her long arms spiraling outward, and her eye easily detectable.
Chesterman Beach
It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning.
Charles Dickens
on Youtube via Look and Sea
Aboriginal Lands
This is an abbreviated and edited version of an article written by Chris Graham, founding editor of the National Indigenous Times newspaper, for another Australian newspaper the Sunday Telegraph, July 12, 2009. I edited the original for a more general and international audience. The article is not available online but I think it is of great importance, hence, the reproduction here. Full article (scanned).
“The gap between black and white has increased over the past decade in the areas of health, housing, educational outcomes, child mortality, imprisonment rates, and even child-abuse notifications.
Some suggestions to improve things …
1. Educate yourself and others and accept a few “home truths”. The problems in Aboriginal Australia are entrenched They came about as a result of decades of government neglect. They will not be solved quickly or easily. Facts about Aboriginal disadvantage are all over the Internet and readily accessible. Make an effort to become informed. The annual excess mortality rate of Aboriginal people in Australia (that is, the number of Aboriginal people whose death each year is avoidable) is worse than it was for Iraqis during the first Gulf War.
2. The solutions might no be politically palatable, but that doesn’t mean they’re not solutions. The international experience is very clear on this: Aboriginal people must own and drive the solutions. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter what the government “intervention” is, it will fail … We send in the Army when we want to fix Aboriginal problems. We need to stop and think why? The US, Canada, and New Zealand all have treaties with their indigenous peoples. Australia does not.
3. Stop the denial. As a nation, we have a problem with racism. We need to stop and think on the front, too. We’ve also argued with the United Nations against the removal of “Nigger” from a sports oval grandstand in Toowoomba, Queensland. We’re a nation that doesn’t understand the offence caused when we climb Uluru. This is regardless of the fact that we also accept the place as being of great spiritual significance to Aboriginal people. Yet can you imagine the reaction if a bus load of blackfellas turned up to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra (capital) and began abseiling on the roof?
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, Oregon, USA was completed in 1881. Tillamook Head, is a 1,000 foot high headland 20 miles south of the Columbia River. It took 525 days to finish building the lighthouse. The isolation, constant storms, and blaring foghorns at “Terrible Tilly” proved a challenge for even the most seasoned keeper. A few went insane. Terrible Tilly shone her light for 77 years before being decommissioned. Oswald Allik, who manned the light for two decades, turned off the light for the last time on September 1, 1957. The final, accompanying entry penned by Allik:
An era has ended. With this final entry, and not without sentiment, I return thee to the elements. You, one of the most notorious and yet fascinating of the sea-swept sentinels in the world; long the friend of the tempest-tossed mariner. Through howling gale, thick fog and driving rain your beacon has been a star of hope and your foghorn a voice of encouragement. May the elements of nature be kind to you. For 77 years you have beamed your light across desolate acres of ocean. Keepers have come and gone; men lived and died; but you were faithful to the end. May your sunset years be good years. Your purpose is now only a symbol, but the lives you have saved and the service you have rendered are worthy of the highest respect.
In a restaurant I know - where no one ever goes
put the lights way down low
the candles all aglow
in a restaurant I know
where no one ever goes
so keep on rolling by
and whispering that song
its been like this before
never quite as long
and waiters down the side
talk of women in their lives
and peel the cellophane
off packs of 25
and way out off the beach
a mile away at least
a sailboat on the reach
the water underneath
Kemp Aaberg
