Busy, Busy. Crazy fucken busy.

Dreaming bout forests an wild gardens. Dreaming about painting and having time. Happy being an anarchist on the outside, happy working with people who aren’t. Happy being a bitch. Still alive and still fighting patriarchy & capitalism where-ever I find it.  Tiny tips of bulbs poke up thru the ground, but this isn’t Narnia Dorothy.  Winters chills bout to get fiercer.

I know I put this on Facebook too..very lazy..but one of my fav’s at the moment. I played it at least 3 times at work today and now it’s going on my hot-keys (radio speak).

Dedicated to all pigs, cows, chickens, sheep and hicks in chilly, frosty southern New Zealand.

Since the National Government brought in cuts to counselling for survivors of sexual abuse and assault, out of 1137 applications for counselling only 178 were accepted. That makes 959 survivors of sexual abuse and assault, brave enough to reach out for support on their journey towards healing, who had their applications rejected in the last 8 months.

What a day.

Link Here.

So during the Football World Cup domestic violence increases in Britain..and then I suppose it decreases again after. But it doesn’t go away, it doesn’t just stop and start depending on the World Cup being screened. So what do the current ads like this one, link here, currently being played in Britain and created by the Police Association in the UK really achieve?

Like a line of ambulances at the bottom of Niagara Falls, very little. But they normalise and individualise the problem, excusing the painful issue of domestic violence as a male drinking problem, reminding women that they should really be expecting it, and to be prepared because they won’t see it coming first. Abit like a civil defence warning.

“Police are warning offenders they will be prosecuted.” Yep, that’ll be sure to stop it. It’s always worked before.

Oh my how I love those Government ads.

To my darling feminist “sisters” in the blogosphere,

Please remember to decontaminate bullshit before regurgitating it.  Sometimes blowing things up helps.

Many thanks,
Jo

We have two new arrivals in the family, Jose` and Zeb, kittens from a litter of six which we found so irresistible they came home with us from a friends place. They will make a considerable contribution to my status of Crazy Cat Woman, and bring the number of felines living with us to five.

My Grandmother used to say if you have 1 child you might as well have 3 and if you have 4 children you might as well have 6 and if you have 7 then go ahead and have 9..she was Catholic.  I’ve decided that 3 children is well and truly enough for me and will never realistically contemplate 4 though perhaps now that I have 5 cats there could be room for 6 and I’m beginning to understand her philosophy, it really wouldn’t make much difference at all and could only really add more cuteness.

Whilst I’m sharing pearls of wisdom from my Grandmother here’s another one… “There’s only 3 good things in this world, Red Wine, Sex and Children.” I think she meant in that order too. She did like her things in 3′s..makes me think that perhaps there was a little more of the witch in her than she would care to admit.  She lived to the grand old age of 99. I don’t think she ever liked the queen much. Really.

Another awesome unschooling/parenting site that I’m adding to my blogroll,  the Parenting Pit ..my fav article is this one.. From Control to Connection
I guess for me it’s about connecting with my kids at home rather than actual homeschooling fulltime. I try to create an environment where they can express their feelings and make autonomous choices (within reason). Home should be a space without punishment and rewards, but about learning with an understanding of natural consequences for actions that is respectful of them as people and other people. This comes from an understanding of how grown-ups have much more power than children in this world so it isn’t right for me to use this over them, but to support and nurture their choices and growth while giving them the necessary information to make informed choices.
I’m well and truly over the over-controlling and punishment/reward style of parenting that is being promoted in the mainstream through programmes such as The Nanny and the likes of Nigel Latta..  The Fundy Post has an interesting post on this too..

The idea that the ownership of National Parks by the Crown equals ownership of the land by everyone is a false belief held by many Pakeha (white, born in Aotearoa) New Zealanders. The most recent Government moves towards mining National Parks up and down and all around the country, even against a huge opposition by the people, proves this. So why is the Government wanting to turn “our clean, greener than green and very pretty” National Parks into mining industry disaster areas? Cos there’s money to be made!  For all of us!?

Nahh, don’t let them fool you into believing there’s any for us. The only real money, beyond the pennies they will grudgingly dole out for wages, will be to line the pockets of the shareholders and their billion dollar corporations, who will right about now be rubbing their sweaty palms together at the thought of the willingness of “our” Government to exploit the natural resources of Aotearoa and destroy our local environments for them.

So who will really benefit from more mining in New Zealand?  Don’t believe their lies, it’s won’t be us! Who benefits from not returning Te Urewera National Park to Tuhoe ownership? Not us. It’s never been ours ever, and who knows what the Government really wants with Tuhoe Native Reserve, Te Urewera.

links…Crown’s tactics cost Tuhoe and subMedia poor-fuckin-earth

I’m saddened but not so surprised by the the lack of support and solidarity that the Greek Workers Struggle has received from Anarchist groups in Aotearoa. We seem to be more concerned with nit-picking and being critical of their movement, something Anarchists in general are good at so, like I said, I’m not surprised! Especially funny how its Anarchist-Communists telling off what they call Insurrectionist-Anarchists, who they claim are responsible for the Bank workers deaths, really great divisive tactics there..and the excuse for this is that it’s critical self-analysis. But it’s not. It’s Anarchists  in another part of the world, who have had nothing to do with the Greek struggle, laying down their ideologies on how they think it should be happening. And it’s all theory, none of us here have ever had an “Anarchist-Communist Revolution”, most of us barely even get out from in front of our lap-tops and maybe that would be a more worthwhile criticism of NZ Anarchism. Face it most of us are completely out-of-touch with what the “working” people that we apparently care so much about actually think and want.

So why lay that stuff on them now? I really don’t think it should be up to us over here in NZ to make the call about what happens in Athens at the moment. None of us were or are there. Most groups have said that they weren’t involved in the fire bombing of the bank, and still are continuing on their struggle and organising in many different ways, they have asked for international support for getting the correct information about what is happening and for people to join them in the struggle in whatever way they can..They have been self critical and are reflecting on what happened, and I don’t think this is our role. I think we need to show solidarity and support for them and their struggle at this time because this is what they are asking, they don’t need any more crap thrown at them, they are getting enough of that from the “Media” and other right-wing and liberal groups. We understand already that it wasn’t an intention to harm any workers in the bank and that the bank had not ensured the safety of its workers at this time when it should have. Was this purposeful? It seems to have been. Should Anarchists over here be wagging fingers at the Greek Anarchists at this time, I don’t think so.

<some of this is taken from a comment I made in an Indymedia thread, but i won’t link, it gets really bitchy and that’s just me>