Thursday, April 28, 2011
Lonely Graves
This last photograph is of Noongar graves, separated by a hundred metres, a hundred years and no markings until 2009. Commonsense, humanity and geo-imaging prevails.
Ravensthorpe, 2011.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Kimba's Downfall
She was named after the white lion who bounded across our fizzy screens in the 1980s. The other two are orpingtons that I inherited from Bob. They lay green eggs. Kimba laid brown eggs, until last week. She came unstuck, poor girl. That's what happens when you eat dog biscuts.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
How the West Was Won #2
I read a post from a fellow blogger on how bored he felt with writers blogging about the process of writing; (how hard it all is, how to do it, how to get published etc etc.) I can't help but agree with him. HowtoWrite blogs tend to make me simultaneously glaze over and bind up - no fun at either end of the transaction.
Why not just tell ripping yarns and be done with it? Hear hear, says Toa. Deckying on a fishing boat with the likes of Old Salt, writing a history thesis and generally living a chaotic but happy life will supply A WineDark Sea with plentiful stories.
The problem is, this week I was thinking about writing much the same kind of post as the ones Tom tends to click 'exit' from. Well, maybe not a HowtoWrite but a few thoughts on the process of this blogging thang, editing and Search Politics
So here goes, anyway. If I write a post on an issue that is currently surfacing and then I edit that same post over the next few days, as the story progresses and new angles emerge - is that unethical? Probably. It could be quite misleading in an historical sense. The date of publish stays the same on my blog - and that word 'publish' is the clinch.
Online journalism can get a story out twenty four hours before newsprint, a biggie in the current news cycle. It can also provide 'user content'. That is, the payer provides the media - via the media - comments, feedback and free, insightful articles. (I'm not going to mention how much money this advancement saves the Murdochs of this world. Oh I just did? Sorry.)
A story uploaded online can be altered as the story progresses. This is quite a different situation to newsprint, which anyone who has ever read a newspaper or accessed archives on microfiche will know.
I'm kind of straying here. At some stage I really want to get back to the video stoush between the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation and Fortesque Metals Group that has been working the room this week. As I watched it unfold, I began to update on my original post and add links to Crikey articles and Supreme Court pdfs that were available. I also felt very tempted to alter the original post to reflect the challenging politics that were emerging around the story. I wasn't sure whether to edit or not and that is why I am writing now.
Apparently, no one at FMG took YAC's video seriously until it went viral. Once that happened, FMG released a counter video a few days ago to speak against the YAC's campaign. This new video is narrated in soothing, gentle tones and is nothing like the angry 'heavily edited' work of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation's film that got taken down by Vimeo after threats of legal action. Since then, the online media community, including Crikey, has gone completely silent on the issue of Yindjibarndi Aboriginal politics/contemporary paternalism/native title/taxation relief for the Big Miners.
Perhaps they are completely freaked out on thinking they may be weighing into an Aboriginal politics shitfight. Perhaps it is just the weekend, and five days off over Easter without taking on Fortesque Metals Group sounds like a good thing.
Dunno.
Which leads me to another point and it is not the looming public holiday.
Search Politics is always connected to the ethics of online media. My pithy reservations about editing my blog are rather minuscule in the face of this.
If you type in a search for 'Yindjibarndi' and 'FMG', the FMG's new counter-video will come up, highlighted, at the top of the page. Every time.
How much money did that cost?
I'm certainly not going to link it for free.
Think about it next time you click on search.
Why not just tell ripping yarns and be done with it? Hear hear, says Toa. Deckying on a fishing boat with the likes of Old Salt, writing a history thesis and generally living a chaotic but happy life will supply A WineDark Sea with plentiful stories.
The problem is, this week I was thinking about writing much the same kind of post as the ones Tom tends to click 'exit' from. Well, maybe not a HowtoWrite but a few thoughts on the process of this blogging thang, editing and Search Politics
So here goes, anyway. If I write a post on an issue that is currently surfacing and then I edit that same post over the next few days, as the story progresses and new angles emerge - is that unethical? Probably. It could be quite misleading in an historical sense. The date of publish stays the same on my blog - and that word 'publish' is the clinch.
Online journalism can get a story out twenty four hours before newsprint, a biggie in the current news cycle. It can also provide 'user content'. That is, the payer provides the media - via the media - comments, feedback and free, insightful articles. (I'm not going to mention how much money this advancement saves the Murdochs of this world. Oh I just did? Sorry.)
A story uploaded online can be altered as the story progresses. This is quite a different situation to newsprint, which anyone who has ever read a newspaper or accessed archives on microfiche will know.
I'm kind of straying here. At some stage I really want to get back to the video stoush between the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation and Fortesque Metals Group that has been working the room this week. As I watched it unfold, I began to update on my original post and add links to Crikey articles and Supreme Court pdfs that were available. I also felt very tempted to alter the original post to reflect the challenging politics that were emerging around the story. I wasn't sure whether to edit or not and that is why I am writing now.
Apparently, no one at FMG took YAC's video seriously until it went viral. Once that happened, FMG released a counter video a few days ago to speak against the YAC's campaign. This new video is narrated in soothing, gentle tones and is nothing like the angry 'heavily edited' work of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation's film that got taken down by Vimeo after threats of legal action. Since then, the online media community, including Crikey, has gone completely silent on the issue of Yindjibarndi Aboriginal politics/contemporary paternalism/native title/taxation relief for the Big Miners.
Perhaps they are completely freaked out on thinking they may be weighing into an Aboriginal politics shitfight. Perhaps it is just the weekend, and five days off over Easter without taking on Fortesque Metals Group sounds like a good thing.
Dunno.
Which leads me to another point and it is not the looming public holiday.
Search Politics is always connected to the ethics of online media. My pithy reservations about editing my blog are rather minuscule in the face of this.
If you type in a search for 'Yindjibarndi' and 'FMG', the FMG's new counter-video will come up, highlighted, at the top of the page. Every time.
How much money did that cost?
I'm certainly not going to link it for free.
Think about it next time you click on search.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
How the West Was Won
I should be working but have spent most of the morning transfixed by footage of a meeting between the richest man in Australia, his lawyers and the Yindjibardi people of Australia's north west. Twiggy wants their land ... but only for the next few generations or until the iron ore runs out.
When the Yindjibarndi people began to prove difficult, citing the proposed agreement as unequitable and offensive, FMG called a Native Title meeting and stacked it with a paid, voting splinter group. FMG also paid the lawyer representing the splinter group. This lawyer chaired the meeting when an independant native title chairman walked out.
A public discrediting of traditional owners' Native Title testimonies followed, including that of a 105 year old man who was present. One agenda motion called for the dissenting claimants (four out of the seven) to be removed from the entire decision-making and voting process.
The footage of this meeting gets more and more appalling. I have never seen anything like it. Thank goodness it was filmed. This is the real, dirty face of Western Australia's 'resources boom.'
You can find the video and more information about the Yindjibarndi people's fight here.
Note for today: Vimeo pulled the video last night, saying they'd been contacted by FMG lawyers concerning defammatory and misleading statements about the FMG CEO ... but if you follow the link above, you can still see it streaming on You Tube. To read the YAC response to this situation, go here.
For Crikey's article on the FMG public relations officer's overnight editing of Wikipedia pages, go here.
http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/wardens_court/2010WAMW18.pdf
Image: Fortescue Metals Group's Andrew 'Twiggy' Forest and Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation CEO Michael Woodley.
http://yindjibarndi.org.au/yindjibarndi/
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sunday Morning Story
Clad in a nighty, with bed hair and pillow-creased cheeks,
I run, carrying a rake,
chasing two big dogs
up the street.
up the street.
One looks like a wolf,
the other a Struggletown mutt.
Two of my best hens flap in their jaws.
The grassy verge
is snowy with feathers.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
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