Bonnie

Those of you who know me or Lukas may also know our family dog Bonnie who died on Sunday night at the ripe old age of fourteen. Bonnie was a German Shepherd with some Kelpie thrown in and was a sweet-natured and fun-loving dog.

She had been pretty decrepit and lethargic in recent months and was to be put down soon but it seems she got to it sooner than we did. She spent her last day lazing in the Richmond share household Lukas lives in. She also was taken for a short visit to a park beside the Yarra on a lovely sunny afternoon and ate some leftovers from an impromptu picnic hamper. I was lucky to be there that afternoon to give her a few more pats.

Here is a cute photo of Bonnie enjoying some time chilling in a garden.

Twelve Month Index

It is six months since I posted my Six Month Index and therefore twelve months since I started blogging. Same thing then as now:

“Seems I have written a lot in that time even if I only average one or two posts a week. Here is an index by subject of all those posts. Naturally the subject matter of posts overlaps more than this index suggests. But hey they are my posts so I will sort them any way I want. One thing to note is that I have been posting comments to some of my own posts, in some cases months later. In this sense, some of the oldest posts hold some of the newest content. Hence I have listed from oldest to newest (moreorless).”

Some of the category names have changed however and there is one small new category for recipes. However the innovation of tagging posts with 'labels' in the new Blogger has made these indexes obsolete. The content of the rest of this post is now deleted.

Once More Unto The Brink

Well it looks like I am a candidate for public election once more - in the 2006 Victorian State Election. I am the Number 3 Candidate for the Australian Democrats in the Legislative Council electorate of South Eastern Metropolitan. I am standing to support Number 1 Candidate Karen Bailey and to further the standing of the party in the electorate. So over the next two weeks I will be getting in some letterboxing, press statement writing, and polling place staffing (I comment on the aftermath of the election in this more recent post).

I described the new Legislative Council (state upper house) in another post. The Australian Democrats have never had any representation in State Parliament so in a sense we have nothing to loose in this election. However the introduction of Proportional Representation (PR) in this election gives us an opportunity to make ground at a state level over one or more state elections. Also campaigning now is worthwhile practice for the Federal Election which may happen in the next 12 months and at which we have a lot to lose (we currently have four senators - the same number of senators as the Greens or Nationals - but all four positions will be facing election).

We are standing groups of three candidates in each of the five metropolitan Legislative Council electorates. This small array of candidates allows us to provide the majority of voters in the state with the chance to vote for us. But they have a lot of other parties to select from and in the rest of this post I will give a personal summary of my own estimation of the ideological character of the parties on offer.

Here I present the basic ideology of all registered political parties as listed in alphabetical order on the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) site and I will use the philosophical descriptors of my Political Objectives Test to do so. Technically the test was intended for persons rather than groups but I figure that we can also apply it to the average ideology of all active members of a party. I cannot make every member of every party take my test but I can make assumptions based on the stated objectives and observed actions of parties.

* Australian Democrats: My party are progressives but have a tiresome (if historically useful) habit of using non-ideological terminology in its own self-descriptions.

* Australian Labor Party: The ideology of Labor depends on which faction one looks at. The Labor Left fit my description of socialist (note the factional name Socialist Left and the current affiliation of the ALP to the Socialist International) but the rest of the factions better fit my description of moderate. I personally think this centrist positioning makes Labor the closest thing we have to a natural party of government but it also tends to make for do-nothing governments.

* Christian Democratic Party: The CDP (Fred Nile Group) are ultra-conservative and more openly represent the fundamentalist kind of philosophy that is suspected of Family First.

* Citizens Electoral Council: The CEC can be a tricky critter to catagorise because what they say differs markedly from what others accuse them of. They combine a socialist interest in government economic intervention with an allegedly conservative cultural agenda. They have (among other things) an elitist desire to instil in all of us a love of classical art and music at the expense of 'decadent' popular culture. They are part of an international network whose policy platform is dictated by one controversial academic. They are secular yet seem to operate in an an almost cult-like manner in terms of member conduct and relations. I think the best-fit descriptor for them is authoritarian.

* Country Alliance: Can a small bunch of mates who had some concerns with current state politics and decide to get involved have a particular ideology attributed to them? Possibly. In the case of Country Alliance it can be difficult as they are deliberately keeping objectives and policy statements scant so as to give any parliamentarians they elect a lot of room to move in how they choose to represent constituents. In the past these characters may have supported candidates in the establishmentarian mould but they themselves look reactionary.

* Democratic Labor Party: The DLP is historically a communitarian party and the current incarnation of the DLP may well fit that ideology too. They focus almost entirely on right-to-life issues in campaigning but say that they also hold to other traditional DLP policy stances.

* Family First Party: Family First may present as merely conservative and may well include many members who fit this description. However the religious interests associated with the party are more likely to be ultra-conservative in nature.

* Liberal Party of Australia: The Liberals are a party of both establishmentarian and liberal elements. At a Federal level the former dominate the latter but at a state level there is a much better balance of power between these two tendencies. In this state election the Liberals are competing with the Nationals for votes in rural electorates as the coalition agreement was broken some time ago.

* National Party of Australia: The Nationals are a rural party of both establishmentarian and conservative elements. At a Federal level the former dominate the latter but at a state level there is a much better balance of power between these two tendencies. In this state election the Nationals are competing with the Liberals for votes in rural electorates as the coalition agreement was broken some time ago.

* People Power: People Power are a party of 'small-l' liberals that has been slowly forming since the turn of the century. They were founded by a former Liberal Party member (Stephen Mayne) and are seeking to draw on votes from both. They are making a splash in the media over-and-above what is warrented by size or past electoral performance and this can only be attributed to the journalistic contacts Mayne has cultivated as the person behind the political news and commentary site Crikey Dot Com (since writing this entry People Power have disbanded as a political party).

* Socialist Alliance: This amalgamation of Marxist groups prepared to work within the confines of parliamentary democracy approximates to my descriptor of utopian socialist. This party was formed specifically to participate in public elections but they seem to be making scant effort in this election.

* The Australian Greens: Historically the Greens fit my descriptor of radicals. Since having become more successful I think they have also attracted utopian socialists but that the oldschool Greens have a stronger hold on the direction of the party than those newer members of Marxist and ex Labor-Left origin.

Of course ideology is only one criteria in selecting candidates. Other things citizens factor into voting include specific performance of the party in government, media profile of parties, policy positions on particular pet issues, personal feelings regarding particular candidates, and the voting habits of peers or parents.

One thing worth noting is that this time voting for the Legislative Council is by non-exhaustive preferential. Voters can fill in one box above the line (which indicates that they want the party to distribute preferences according to lodged tickets) or they can vote below the line and only have to fill in five boxes from one to five. This is fantastic for anyone who has qualms about giving any kind of preference to candidates they find repugnant. I am very much considering using this personally.

Voyage of the Volunteers

Here is a short story I drafted back in my days with the South Eastern Science Fiction Club (SESFC). It was inspired by the space-age folk song '39 by Brian May from the Queen album A Night At The Opera (1975).

Part One

"I will miss you Mummy" said the adolescent girl with the intense grey eyes, who stood in front of Adele McEwen as she strapped on her life-support sensor-harness. For an instant it was as if Adele had never known her daughter, as though she was still a young childless trainee in the Planetary Space Agency. But then her senses returned to her and she recognized just what was happening here. Sara was saying goodbye to Adele, probably for the last time. Her only daughter, the sweetest thing in her life, and she was leaving her. But she was leaving more than just the most important thing in her world, she was leaving the world itself. Other worlds beckoned...

Adele would have plenty of time to think. Now she had to act. Mother and daughter fell into a deep embrace and stood there together for several minutes. Finally, it was Sara who disengaged from that final hug. Her mother was the commander of the Matet, a ship that was to be the first to travel to a planet orbiting another star, and she was proud of her mother.

Sara knew that what she was feeling now was little different to what had been felt by the loved ones of all the explorers that had gone before, those who had visited the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, those who had established an orbital station around Venus and who had colonized Mars and the Moon, those who had first left the bounds of Earth, those who had charted and united a world which had once been a disparate collection of isolated strangers. This was a personal sacrifice that had to be made. It was Sara who had told her mother that she was free to go. "Daddy and I will be fine" she had insisted. Sara knew that space exploration was her mother's dream and she wanted Adele to fulfil that dream. Sara left her mother and father, Randall, to make their own final farewell. Her last words to Adele were "Look at the beach, Mum, there'll be a message there for you."

The spaceport was situated near the shore in a temperate zone of the Earth. It was wonderfully sunny, a fine day to be at the beach. Sara walked along the sand till she came to a point that she knew could be seen from the shuttle bay that Adele would be in. Holding a branch of driftwood in her hand, she wrote something in long furrows in the sand. She looked up the hill towards the spaceport. Sara felt that she must be amazingly mature to be fifteen and to willingly let her mother go into the cold dark expanse of space.

Tears began to appear on Adele's face as she looked through the large glass windows of the spaceport, down towards the shore. She could just discern the letters in the sand, which conveyed the simple message of "I love you". On the beach some minutes later, the wind blew over Sara and took her own tears away as the shuttlecraft in which Adele now rode flew into the bluest of skies. The vicinity of the spaceport was restricted to staff and relatives of the volunteers, however the historic departure of the Matet was to be telecast to the entire world. Sara run inside the public reception facility to watch the large video screens with an assembly of many others.

The voice of an announcer proclaimed that "Today, 20 May 2139, will go into the records as one of the most important in the history of exploration and indeed in all of human history. Today the Matet will take its crew of twenty volunteers on an heroic voyage to another star - Barnard's Star - and another world. They will spend most of the voyage in temporal stasis but once they arrive at their destination they will awaken to a new land that they will survey and, if the conditions are suitable, seed with the molecular building blocks of life. Once this is done..." This was all bullshit. Sara only wanted to see the images, the projection of the Matet in which Adele would spend a year of her life, or rather, a year of her voyage in consciousness. The rest of the time Adele would be in hibernation. Meanwhile, for the Earth an entire century would pass until the starship returned.

Sara could see the Matet now. It looked like the skeleton of a gigantic steel fish. A long spine connected the habitat module (the head) with the fusion engine (the tail). Along the length of that spine were other attachments, most notably the gas and solar wind collectors, yet to be unfurled. The shuttle entered into a docking bay in the habitat module - it looked like something being swallowed by the fish. Finally, the solar sails unfolded like exotic fins and the engine began to glow with the power of the stars. The Matet would travel at an amazing speed, but one that was several times slower than the speed of light.

Now, pre-recorded farewell statements from the command crew - including one from Adele McEwen - were playing over the telecast, but all that Sara was aware of was the image of the Matet as it slowly but surely receded into the cold expanse of space, away from the warmth and comfort of Earth, its only origin and home. For Sara it was both the most beautiful and the most horrid sight she had ever seen.

Part Two

"Look at it - it's beautiful!" So exclaimed one of the younger crew members of the Matet. It felt as if they had been away from Earth for an entire year, whereas they had in fact been gone for a century. It had taken just under fifty years travel time to the planetary system of Barnard's Star, about a year spent in researching and tampering with the environment of the most habitable world, and just under fifty years spent on the return journey to Earth. The great bulk of all this travelling had been spent in artificial hibernation. Now they had awoken to the sight of an immense sphere of swirled blue, green and white. It was beautiful after the cold harsh blackness of space, or the mottled red-brown of that other world.

Shades of grey were all that Adele could think of for a moment. Had she stayed on Earth she would now be dust and bone, just like her husband Randall, just like her daughter Sara. As it was, to all intents and purposes she was just over 45. Who knew what had come to pass on Earth since their departure? Her native curiosity was momentarily quashed by a sense of futility. This was no longer her world. Anything that had once given her comfort must now be gone. All she had now was this mission, and that too would soon be over. Then what? She could take some administrative or academic position and become something of an isolated recluse in an ivory tower. She could become a media personality and be surrounded by a succession of friendly yet tiresome strangers. Neither of these options were appealing. Her sombre mood soon changed. It had to. Adele was still the commander of the Matet and she had the morale of the crew to consider. "Well crew, we're home... get read to unpack your bags" said Adele, successfully mimicking confident cheerfulness.

A flotilla of ships, some old and some new, had come to meet the Matet. The crew took a shuttlecraft to another ship, a huge sleek silver-white craft that looked more crafted than constructed. It seemed that, in a century, technology had advanced to such an extent that spacecraft architects could now attend to aesthetics as well as functionality. The Sektet took in the shuttlecraft and its crew were escorted to a reception facility.

"Welcome home, Commander McEwen" said a strangely familiar looking mature-aged man. "My name is Bastian Ramos. I am the executive officer of the Planetary Space Agency. Would you like to come to my office to discuss the results of your mission and the reculturation of your crew into Earth society?" Adele nodded agreement. In the office they sat. The decor was different in this century, but still recognisibly human. "You are all heroes, you know Adele... may I call you Adele?" "Yes, of course" came her reply, "but tell me, what has happened while we've been away?" Bastian smiled and went onto tell Adele of the completion of formal unification of the political structures of Earth, well underway at the time of her departure, of further colonization of the solar system, and of the development, in just the last 18 months, of a successful faster-than-light drive. "Oh, that makes me wish I was born a century later than I was... exploration will be that bit simpler... I could still have my old life" Adele trailed off sadly. "I'm so sorry, Adele, I wish things could have been different" said Bastian, "but there is something I can tell you that may be of interest."

"What, have we made contact with aliens?" This Adele remarked with a wry smile. "Well, unless you did on your expedition, then no, extra-terrestrial life remains a mystery. It's something else." Bastian paused, and seemed to compose himself to say something difficult. "Adele, I am your great grandson." This man, who looked somewhat older than she, was her great grandson? Adele, visibly affected, said "Oh, um... tell me how... tell me about our family." Bastian went onto tell Adele that Sara, at the age of 30, had a daughter of her own in 2154. Adele had been the same age when she had given birth to Sara. Sara became a successful journalist and wrote a number of popular texts on the history of exploration. Her daughter, Crescensia, became an aerospace engineer, designing, among other things, the Sektet, and had a son, Bastian, in 2184, also at the age of 30. It was in that same year that Randall died at the age of 85. Sara lived for another 33 years after that.

"I remember Grandma very well. She was the one who inspired me to go into space exploration, though in the end I only became an administrator. I've never been further than the Moons of Saturn. Still, it has allowed me to be the first to meet you, now that you have returned to us. After we've dealt with some official matters, I'll take you to Mum, your grand daughter. At 85 she's getting on and she's determined to meet you since, after all, she's been waiting a while." Her grand daughter Crescensia? How would she cope with being called 'grandma' by that old woman? Bastian interrupted her thinking, saying "then we can have you meet my children, and the grandchildren and great grandchildren of your husband." So, Randall finally did remarry. She had told him he could. He had doubted it at the time, but now she was happy that he had changed his mind - all the more relatives for her to meet now.

This was all too much to contend with at once. Adele looked into the eyes of Bastian and now knew why he had looked familiar. They were the grey eyes of Sara, strong but tender at the same time. After a moment Adele averted her gaze and looked at the wall of the office. There was a picture there on the wall, a photograph, an image of a beach, so long ago and yet so fresh in her memory. That beach... that message in the sand... Sara seemed so tangible still. But there were others to meet now. Adele had a century of life to catch up on. She had better get started.