Family can be so awkward.

My (now ex-) wife kept her name when we got married, back in the mid 80s. Her Grandmother would make cryptic comments about "being married but not acting like it" which everyone would sort of shuffle past and ignore.Until she made the comment to The Governor at a Garden Party she'd taken my wife to as her plus one. Ms Ford was a little taken aback and said "Molly, what on Earth do you mean?" Molly explained that her granddaughter had kept her name when she got married, and the Governor said "Well, Molly, so did I, so if it is good enough for me, I think it is all right for your granddaughter." Molly never made awkward remarks about our marriage again.

I'd helped Molly work her way through the protocols on which version of her regalia to wear, and the Protocol Officer gushed to her about how pleased he was to see somebody wearing the exact right kit for the occasion. Molly told him that I'd guided her through the protocols, and he begged her to convey his effusive thanks to me. One of my proudest moments as a herald.

Baby it's cold outside...

Back in 1983 I was an engineering student and I had a classmate who wore sandals, except in Thermodynamics Labs (what we would now call PPE rules). One day Brisbane had a rare near freezing morning, and a bunch of us stood around outside our first class speculating on how he'd respond.

Yes, despite the frost, still in sandals.

Toe Socks. Rainbow coloured knitted knee length toe socks held aloft with bicycle clips...

Real Life is way weirder than fiction.

Politically I am neither Left nor Wrong

I'm an Anarchotechnocrat who understands Otto von Bismark's use of state welfare to defuse the rage of the middle class and hunger of the poor. I have Fabian leanings because the better the welfare system the lower the crime rate. As a technocrat I acknowledge that there have been insufficient jobs since the coming of the tractor decimated rural labour forces after WWI, so eventually we need to either abandon consumer economies or implement some variety of UBI.

I regard Marx as an idiot, and not a useful one. As I speak English, I find most American pontification on politics and economics to be meaningless babble. They throw around words like socialist and communist without the vaguest idea what they mean. While a number of countries have fallen under the control of groups styling themselves as the "Communist Party", as far as I am aware there has only ever been one Communist State. For a couple of years, post Mao-ist Albania was a functional Communist State coupled with a Socialist Economy. Unfortunately the experiment was aborted by a raging infection of #Crapitalism and pyramid schemes squeezed all of the wealth out of the nation.

A quick thought

We can categorise many of the most problematic of our fellow citizens, the most gullible and ill informed as:

People whose total number of biological grandparents, living and dead is below 4...

Let's directly address Indigenous Deaths in Custody.

When someone commits suicide but it is hours before the body is discovered, that's criminal negligence. If they were on suicide watch it is manslaughter, if the cameras in the hall "malfunction" it is conspiracy to murder.

Ethical Humanism

I have raped as many people as I feel the urge to, zero. I have murdered zero people, although admit one or two sorely tempted me. I have acted where possible to not harm other people, and to reduce harm to others where I can. I have, when not desperately poor, supported artists and musicians, where I can.

I have shared my skills and knowledge with others, and have devoted time to enriching my community. This has, as it always does, lead to accusations of corrupting the youth of Athens. I have blasphemed my Goddess and acted in heretical manner against her rules, as she directs us to, despite not liking hotdogs all that much.

I have caused people to think, to question, and challenged them to be the best version of their possible selves. So, according to those who sit on Hillsong's side of the table, I am unspeakably evil.

Compromised Coppers

Good cops quickly realise that tomorrow they could be in a life and death situation with a corrupt/evil cop behind them and if they have formed an opinion that the Good Cop is less of a threat to them if allowed to die or as the victim of a friendly fire incident, well...

So they join for all the right reasons but then find to do any good, indeed to just stay alive, they have to actively support the corrupt and evil. At least enough that they are reassured that their criminality is not threatened.