Micah Projects is running a Food Connect fresh fuit and vegetable buyers group in the form of a “pop up shop”, in an unused commercial tenancy at the Brisbane Common Ground affordable housing development in South Brisbane.
The “People’s Market” also sells freshly baked goodies from Phyllis Paterson, the resident Chef at Brisbane Common Ground.
It is run by the tenants of Brisbane Common Ground themselves, in conjunction with “The Hive Social Inclusion Team” from Micah Projects.
The market is open to the public and is located on Thursdays from 10am at 15 Hope St, South Brisbane on the ground floor. Prices are “at cost or super low”.
If your Food Connect buyer’s group has excess produce you may wish to sell on, please call Gemma Hansen 0421 472 928.
Come along and support your local community social enterprise:
South Brisbane Peoples Market, 15 Hope Street, South Brisbane
Every Thursday from 10am until it’s gone.
Get there early for the best bargains and please bring your own recyclable bags!
Westender’s Jimmy Wall got a sneak peak of The Lone Ranger 2013 remake. It is a bit different from the old TV series he grew up with, but deems it as a must-see-film for anyone that enjoys a lot of action and some good laughs.
The Lone Ranger was one of many old shows I grew up watching as kid, which is why I am always a bit hesitant to embrace remakes, especially with remakes such as the Green Hornet and 21 Jump Street. They were action TV series turned into comedy films for some odd reason.
Which is why the first few minutes of the film somewhat worried me a bit when it started off at an amusement park from the 1930s, when The Lone Ranger is a western set in the late 1800s. The camera zooms in on a kid dressed as The Lone Ranger. He enters a tent with the theme Wild West. There he sees The Noble Savage, which looks like a wax figure of an old American Indian. To his surprise the wax figure presumably comes to life and starts telling the kid a story about The Lone Ranger (Armei Hammer) and himself, Tonto (Johnny Depp).
That the story about The Lone Ranger is told by a much older Tonto is intriguing and rather clever way to repackage the story for both a new and younger audience, and also the old geezers that grew up with The Lone Ranger, like myself. A story about how John Reid (Hammer) accidentally ends up as The Lone Ranger and Tonto’s Ke-mo sah-bee, following their quests to right the wrongs in society.
John Reid is determined to revenge his brother’s death, but as a lawyer he is very reluctant to become The Lone Ranger Tonto wants him to be, a gun-slinging hero with no hesitation of killing outlaws. He eventually learns that diplomacy does not work so well with outlaws, after much frustration from Tonto. Armie Hammer plays John Reid very well and projects the perfect hero. A hero that tries to be merciful, but in the end does not bow down to outlaws.
Tonto wants revenge for what happened to his tribe, and claims The Lone Ranger has been chosen by the spirit horse, Silver, to help him and be his Ke-mo sah-bee. As usual Johnny Depp does an amazing job at playing the weird and unpredictable character. A character laced with sarcasm and witty remarks. The humour is well-balanced without making it too silly, especially when the film is advertised as an action-adventure.
With most films, they all have their weaknesses, and The Lone Ranger is no exception. About half-way through the film it seems as if the writers decided to become a bit too creative and added a bunch of twists towards the end. Not two, or three- counting the ones in the first-half of the film -but enough that I lost count of them all. Sometimes that can be an exciting tool to build suspense, but it became a bit too frequent and just ended up being annoying. When I knew the film was about to end, I still had some worry that another twist would emerge, which is not a good thing, but luckily it did not.
Another weakness was in fact how the story was setup. As I explained early on, that Tonto tells the story of him and The Lone Ranger to a random kid at an amusement park dressed as The Lone Ranger. I guess it is a bit weird if you grew up with the TV series, but the transitions back and forth seemed a bit random, even though it provided some comic relief and it was an interesting concept and approach I found fascinating.
The Lone Ranger offers a lot of action that will satisfy any action-film-junky, and to alleviate the heavy dosage of action it offers some drama. The comedy added into the mix is just perfect – when you can laugh out loud at a wooden beam that crushes the heads of two outlaws, it is done right. Not forgetting the story itself – it is an extremely good western story, even with those annoying twists. It is one of those films that has it all – fun for the whole family, as they say.
Lock The Gate Alliance has labelled the coal seam gas (CSG) industry as dishonest and untrustworthy after the release of a new report which shows that the CSG export industry will cause wholesale gas prices in Australia to triple.
In February, the CSG industry said that proposed new rules on coal seam gas mining would lead to higher energy prices in NSW and their website states that the CSG industry could reduce wholesale electricity prices.
However, the new report by The Australia Institute reveals that gas prices are st to rise dramatically across eastern Australia because of plans by the gas industry to start exporting gas from Queensland, leading to export parity pricing in Australia.
“This new report by The Australia Institute shows that the greatest threat to gas prices on the eastern seaboard is the CSG export industry itself,” said Carmel Flint, campaign co-ordinator with Lock the Gate Alliance.
“It proves that the scare campaign being run by the gas industry against community opposition to coal seam gas, claiming it will lead to energy price hikes, is a whole lot of hot air.
“There is no doubt that the primary driver of gas price increases in Australia is the gas industry seeking bigger profits by exporting Australian gas to Asia to exploit higher prices.”
Shaun Murray, Darling Downs Coordinator for Lock the Gate said, “This report suggests that even if the CSG industry is allowed to continue the wholesale industrialisation of rural Queensland, the massive gas export projects are just going to drive up prices for Australian consumers.
“These price hikes add to a long list of problems associated with the CSG industry, including the damage being done to our farmland, to our aquifers, and to the health of nearby communities. It’s very difficult to see any net benefits for ordinary Queenslanders.
“Now that the energy affordability argument in favour of CSG has been comprehensively debunked, our governments should act quickly to implement a moratorium on this damaging industry,” he said.
“Julia Gillard: Australian blokes have done their country down” – Telegraph UK
Julia Gillard has been driven out as Australia’s prime minister by a brutal and unfair misogynist culture
The UK media can comment on misogyny in Australia, but Australian society is not yet ready to look at itself. It seems the male owned media and the men of Australia, and women anti-feminists, many of whom are women who in more or less subtle ways look to male patronage, are not yet ready to go beyond reactive denial and face a very dark aspect of Australian culture.
I ask you to substitute race or disability or gender in your arguements about sexism and misogyny in Australia and discern if you feel any twinges of shame at the positions some of you are defending.
And is this list sophisticated enough to engage in this debate, or will it retreat to entrenched positions.
I also ask you to reread Henry Lawson The Drovers Wife and ask if we’ve progressed much since then. I fear we have edged forward very little.
And lets not be so cocky in our criticism of Islam, where the female victim of rape is punished for bringing shame to the reputation of men in the culture, and other so called ‘honour killings’. Germaine Greer once commented that one of the most important roles expected of ‘gatherers’ was to protect the ego of the ‘hunters’ in the socalled ‘hunter’ ‘gatherer’ view of gender roles.
I watched a documentary recently on corruption in Sumo wrestling in Japan where contests were rigged around betting scams. It took years to crack the corruption. One commentator put it down to 2 words for truth in Japan, one meaning the actual truth and one the convenient truth. Saving face for the deeply entrenched male sumo culture meant the actual truth could not be discussed, only the convenient truth that sumo heroism was incapable of negative behaviours and societal critism.
Mendacity requires scape goats on which to heap all that cannot be faced which must be driven out of the community so the convenient truth can continue.
The convenient truth that sexism and misogyny played no role in Julia’s demise displays an inability to challenge the blokey hegemony of Australian society. Are Australian men not up to challenges to their behaviours and their self image.
Julia is a typical scape goat, all that is blackest in Australian sexism and misogyny has been heaped on Julia’s head and now she’s been driven out, all can return to the convenient truth and the discussion about what we all just witnessed? – there’s powerful forces for no discussion but to take the easy path and just move on. The blood letting, the sacrifice has absolved us of self critique.
Well let’s challenge that. We’ve never had a better case study than the last 3 years of our first woman prime minister, one who put her faith for success as a woman in competance, which turned out not to be enough.
Lets not settle back into convenient truths. Do we have the guts to look sqarely at the behaviours of Abbotrt, Rudd, the media and give Ausrtralia the opportunity to become more sophisticated in its sexism debate. Like it has done with race and disability.
I ask the men on this list, how would you feel about Julia’s treatement if she was your daughter?
And don’t forget the misogyny in the Armed forces revealed the same week as Julia’s demise, and the Royal Commission into sexual abuse which is breaking through the convenient truths of the Catholic Church, and other institutions.
As environment ministers await the final economic analysis on a national container deposit system(CDS) – a just released study has confirmed significant savings for local councils.*
“Some members of the beverage and packaging industry have attempted a scare campaign saying that councils will be disadvantaged by a CDS. However this latest study* backs up the findings of the last 5 government-initiated reports – local councils will benefit by reduced collection costs. As well there is a significant increase in value of remnant material in kerbside because the bottles and cans each have a 10cent deposit,” said Jeff Angel, National Convenor of the Alliance.
“The study has important implications for the economic work being done for environment ministers who will soon decide whether to adopt a CDS.”
“It calls into question the findings of a recent report by the Equilibrium group for Sustainability Victoria**, that claimed some metro councils would be financially disadvantaged by a CDS. This study stated there could be no change in collection costs. However the new data clearly shows this is wrong. It also omitted payments to MRFs made under the Boomerang model.”
“Controversially, the Equilibrium report failed to include savings in sorting and processing in its primary findings – strangely, an appendix in this report did calculate such savings and found local councils would save a net $4.59 million per year!”
“The beverage industry and their allies should stop disseminating misleading or incomplete analysis. The demand for a national CDS will not go away with such studies and the more there is a delay in a decision – the more industry will face the risk of multiple state based schemes as Tasmanian now looks like being the next state to go it alone.”
* The study by Anne Prince Consultants (2012) shows that the absence of glass bottles in kerbside collection due to a CDS allows improved compaction rates and less transport and labour costs without adversely affecting resource recovery. ‘Optimum Compaction Rate for Kerbside Recyclables’
**Equilibrium (2012), ‘The financial impacts of Container Deposit Legislation to local governments in Victoria’
More than half of Queenslanders are so concerned about water prices, they would consider cutting off water access at certain times of day to keep their bills down, a new Oxfam Australia study shows.
But despite worrying about their rising household bills, 40 per cent admitted they still wasted water and took having clean, safe water for granted.
The survey of 1000 Australians examined attitudes to water to coincide with Oxfam’s Water Appeal, which is raising funds for the international aid agency’s water, hygiene and sanitation programs for people living in poverty.
Oxfam Australia Chief Executive Dr Helen Szoke said the research found that Australians believed water should be a basic human right for everyone.
“It is no surprise Australians expect water to be available at reasonable prices, but we are very lucky to have clean, safe drinking water as one in nine people around the world don’t have access to safe drinking water at all,” she said.
“In some countries, a family will survive for a day on the same amount of water we use to flush a toilet.
“Oxfam is working with communities around the world to provide sustainable sources of clean water and education about hygiene and sanitation practices.”
Highlighting just how unsafe water can be in other countries, the Oxfam survey also revealed nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of Queensland residents had been sick overseas, with half of those illnesses caused by drinking unsafe water.
The majority of the people who became ill from drinking dirty water overseas took between three days and a week of annual leave (56 per cent) to recover and a further 38 per cent took between one and two days.
Dr Szoke said communities without access to clean water and sanitation lost many more work and school days than Australian travellers, given their water-borne diseases and infections kept recurring because they were forced to continue drinking dirty water.
In developing countries, where poverty is rife, more than 443 million school days are lost by children overseas because they are suffering water-borne diseases.
“Providing access to a sustainable source of clean water that women don’t have to walk hours to reach will change the lives of many families living in poverty,” Dr Szoke said.
