organised religion makes me sick

please take time out to see this award winning documentary.

the rape of communities by the church are not confined to history books. it is ongoing. this is how mass religious wealth & the all churches power is/has been accumulated at the expense of others in a systematic campaign of genocide.

sun sets on the mish

the mission. a name which inspires jeremy irons & robert de niro on movie screens & rabbit proof fences closer to home. a shameful collective history of hoards of indigenous people the world over shepherded into reservation like communities on the hub outskirts by whatever colonist flavour of the day accompanied by justifications in triplicate.

euphemistically renamed "willow bend village" this precinct of condo is one of many littered all over regional australia as a reminder of the not so recent segregation of black & white in australia. in condobolin only fifty years ago an impenetrable chain in the local cinema separated the aboriginal patrons from the rest. do not feed the animals.

now affectionately known as "the mish" by locals, i was privileged to drive through & walk around under the auspices of film location scouting what is now essentially a quiet outer rim suburb adjacent to the winding river known as the coogee & a preferred haunt of indigenous youth in the summer months. the place of escape, return and coming of age. 

although the street pot holes are reminiscent of district 9 there were no barricades here, but a quiet semblance of supportive community & people just getting on with life. still it was hard to take photos, mostly my phone stayed where it should. in my pocket.

the church is long since deserted. government installed solar panels gleam like sulking hot coal soldiers all in a line on the identical roofs quietly harvesting the ample sunshine which the residents flock hungrily to block out the winter cold, shunned with ironic pumped-up air con inside. 

faceless walls with no windows salute the rising sun to peer over fences into the undeveloped wasteland where errant eucalypts gallantly grow like weeds in the scorched earth. noone can see from inside. the beginning has been witnessed already, it is to the setting sun in the west the houses look.

world famous in condobolin

copyright: condobin argus

so here's a really unflattering pic of me & a handful of talent lurking in the depths of the outer regional rim of NSW. my students. we were thrown together under an intensive timeframe & created a film together a week ago for the play now act now programme [it will be up on the site from september 01].

it was a lot of fun, they blew me away with their passion for story telling and we made the local paper. not a lot happens in this small town.

there is actually something that looks like tumbleweed blowing down the mainstreet but it has massive prickles. the scarred indents in my legs & arms bear testament to this fact after scrambling along the ground, mobile phone in hand with jack [on the far left] under the blustering sky like a paratrooper in search of the perfect shot. which we got.

i'll update when the film officially goes live. we could use your votes. if you like it.

soylent green politics of gentrification

with urban squeeze comes gentrification. the two are inevitable & uncomfortable bedfellows. property developers after a fast buck even in times of arguable recession are the enemies of equitable housing & low socio-ecomomic urban communities.

money is an incredible motivator as is population growth which provides a precurser for dense urbanisation in areas previously considered unfit (for wealthy white "pioneers").

in some city areas in sydney & the world this has resulted in displacement of existing inhabitants. the shabby & old [often toxic] juxtapose against shiny upwardly mobile cuckoo architecture.

generally those most prone are indigenous or ethnic minorities who have traditionally resided on the industrial fringes of the city where noone before wanted to live, [once too] close to transportation, where rich diverse communities were built as best they could.

alexandria & redfern, sydney are experiencing just such a development revolution. the former homes of industry & low cost housing primarily occupied by pensioners, aboriginals & welfare beneficiaries are becoming increasingly minimised as architects, developers & town planners move in to rape & pilage, lure the natives out with blankets & alcohol before sterilisation & the importation of a new wave of cashed-up settlers. warehouse conversions are de rigueur. social conscience gets a face-lift.

this trend can recently be demonstrated in the very hip williamsburg, new york. the latinos who've been there for multiple generations can no longer afford to live in their hood as city improvements & consistently low rents have made it attractive for the nouveau hipsters who then in turn make the area more desirable, utilise the amazing "undiscovered" spaces and drive up rents.

but where do these lost civilisations go? do they like the streetwalkers & homeless people during olympics time get trucked to some western badlands or nazi labour camps to work-for-the-dole where noone can see? westernized post-modern leprosy valleys. out of sight, out of mind.

in many countries it's a punishable crime to be poor. people are incarcerated for vagrancy. what can you do when your home is taken away from you by fancy types & you just can't afford to live anymore? poverty crime is a reality.

is soylent green made out of poor people?