political

today i joined a march against the violence in gaza; now i'm listening to the radio and the news is full of the continuing israeli ground offensive: more devastation, more civilian deaths including a family of seven in a refugee camp, killed by an israeli missile. the people of gaza are trapped with no electricity, no water, and no way to get out of the line of fire.

you may not have noticed, but new zealand got a new government at the weekend. as in the USA, the people voted for a change - but here the change is a swing to the right. the national party, in opposition for nine years, has swept to power on the promise of a "more ambitious" new zealand, which involves not just tax cuts but "regular tax reductions" - as well as more spending to cushion the expected blow of the recession.

I consider myself a pretty avid traveler. I grew up traveling to many different places and my family opted to take our own routes as opposed to big group tours. I’m often embarrassed when I see other Americans in foreign cities looking loudly for the nearest hamburger, sporting t-shirts freshly bought from street vendors of the city we’re in, and laughing at different customs. I am proud in many ways of my American identity (although that pride seems to be diminishing in recent years) however I’ve also always been able to blend in to local customs. (Except in Asia perhaps where I am clearly an outsider, but could be from seen as from the majority of western countries.)

i am not sure what to do with all the photos from tibet that i am receiving. tanks and soldiers on the streets, dead bodies, monks protesting. one that appears to be chinese soldiers preparing to dress as monks: their heads are shaven and they are carrying orange and maroon robes folded neatly in their arms. what is that about? what might they do disguised as monks? in another, a white woman holds a sign that reads "China, would you shoot me too? The world is watching."

i'm in sydney this week with my grandmother, and this morning we got up early to watch The Apology broadcast live on TV.

i'm briefly back in wellington, touching base with my community here and planning to type up a pile of notes from the my years of cyberformance experiments to take back to brisbane and wrangle into a coherent thesis.

Sarah Thelwall has just completed a residency with Proboscis. In her paper Capitalising Creativity recently published by Proboscis she discusses how publicly funded, not-for-profit arts organisations might liberate themselves from their subsistence model of existence. The consequences for arts organisations of the current funding crunch for arts organisations are also discussed in the much quoted Mission Models, Money report,Towards a healthy ecology of arts and culture.

it's election day in australia and the opposition labour party has swept in to power, ousting john howard's liberal (conservative) party after 11 years in power. prime minister john howard has even lost his own electorate seat. throughout the campaign the two major parties had been polling neck and neck, but it's already a clear win for labour without all the votes counted.

the brisbane writers' festival has begun & today i went to two events: first a talk by writer/illustrater shaun tan, and then a talk entitled "girls and islam". shaun tan is best known (in australia) for his illustrations of children's books such as the rabbits (which featured in the 070707 UpStage festival) and his latest release, "The Arrival", a beautiful wordless graphic novel. his talk was really interesting - from his childhood in perth where he was known as "the good drawer" at school, to his development as an artist and a glimpse of his creative process. his work often addresses the theme of belonging, the migrant, finding a place in a strange/alien world.

a couple of months ago, the howard government in australia declared a state of emergency in northern territory aboriginal communities, claiming that widespread child abuse required nothing short of massive state intervention - including confiscation of land - to ensure the safety of aboriginal children. this is the same government that, since its election in 1996, has been steadily eroding state assistance to these remote indigenous communities, including passing an amendment to the aboriginal land rights (northern territory) act last year which explicitly states that "The principal objectives are to improve access to Aboriginal land for development, especially mining".