The "We Want Emma To Blog" Radical Social Movement pty.ltd.inc!

You've heard of "Make Poverty History", "Band-Aid", "Live-Aid", "Bush, another word for C***", and many other radical social movemements advocating for change. Well, it's time for a new movememtn. A progressive movement based on people power; and all your voices must be heard for change to be enacted. Get out your telephones and text; write comments to the blog; send emails (emma.waller@gmail.com) and snail mail; set up webpages; hand out leaflets; post embarassing photos of Emma and threaten not to take them off unless she blogs; protest in front of parliament; paint your pets orange; print comical liberal slogans on t-shirts; create spam that threatens bad sex for six years; set up automated telephone systems; throw pies and John Howard; build an army and claim it's for peace; and anything else in your power to have your voice heard. This could be the largest mobilisation of people since the dinosaurs ran from the meteorites! It's time for the "We Want Emma To Blog" Radical Social Movement pty.ltd.inc!

With your help, we can get Emma to get her lazy (but cute) butt into gear and post Blogs. I know what you're thinking, "But Byron, we only come here to listen to your humourous observations of that strange place called Sri Lanka". Though spare me your pitty, even Nigel has been asking for the intellectual insights that only Emma can provide (his words, I promise)!

EMMA: WE WANT YOU TO BLOG!

Until we do hear from Emma, here is a picture of her and Bill belting out Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody at Zhera's birthday party. For more photos from the party, check out Z's blog; for some really cool photos of Sri Lanka, check out Billy's blog; for useless information about nothing, don't click here.


Peace, Love and Social Movements with Guns,

Byron

And another thing that shits me...

Those people that know me well enough, will agree that there's a lot of things in this world that absolutely shit me. It's probably because I have an opinion on everything, and therefore have more to be pissed off with. Either way, the beauty of blog's provides me with an outlet to complain and whinge about anything and everything that pissess me off, and then to make some broad sweeping generalisations about it. And foolishly, you guys keep coming back to read about it, so to heck with it, I will continue on my rant of things that shit me.

Political Correctness. It would be extremely easy for me right now to say one thing wrong, and have everyone around me choking on a dozen donkeys about how crude and wrong and unfair and bigot-ist and whatever-ist I am, for merely mentioning the words "Political Correctness" in a negative light. But that's exactly what I am going to do - PC shits me. Now, before you start writing complaints to the editor (oh bugger, that's me and i monitor all comments - delete), which of course are fruitless... please allow me to explain myself. In theory, PC floats my boat, flicks my switch, makes me cream my daks, and all that other stuff that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside as if the world actually is a nice place. But what happens - bare with me here peoples - if PC goes to far?

The development industry tip toes around this issue, and surely must be the driving force and #1 PC sector in the world. Back in the 1970s, we dealt with povo bastards - now we have "beneficiaries". We used to give the bludgers some money to get a haircut and get a real job - no we provide "livelihoods assistance". Tents became "emergency housing". Shacks became "transitional shelters". Hovels became "permanent houses". Ghettos became "communities". Guilt-relief became "donations" or "aid" or "assistance". The dregs that fell through the cracks of society, "marginalised" or "vulnerable". I mean, beneficiaries.. WTF?!?!? I assure you in a few years time there will be no beneficiaries, but "customers of opportunities", or some other wanky series of words that have no meaning but surely can't offend anyone either (oh, except me).

The evolution of the lexicon in the development industry is taking political correctness to such an extend, that people forget what the point of this whole thing is. It convolutes the objectives of what is meant to be done; and blatantly confuses me ("sorry, I meant shelter not house.. what was I thinking?"; "of course there not recipients, there beneficiaries.. apologies, I'm just stoned"; "Did I say poor sob's? what i meant to say was financially challenged marginalised groups of vulnerable and ill-powered non-gender specific homo sapiens. sorry, please don't tell people I’m a bigot"). And I am well aware of the fact that this is not the only industry with it's own linguistics.. full of TLA's (three letter acronyms). Heck, you could probably get a Players Haters Degree [PhD] of PC. So please, I implore you.. before I get blacklisted from the internet for drawing cartoons of un-PC'ness; post a comment to vindicate me with how your sectors lexicon has gone AWOL with PC.

Now, on the brighter side..PORN. There are two reasons why I mention porn. Firstly, porn attracts hits. Unsuspecting porn voyeurs will google porn, and unwittingly cum to my site. So obviously, the more porn I mention, the higher my google-porn rating. Other great words are sex, tits, cock, shit (re topic, re german porn voyeurs), pussy, horse (re texan porn voyeurs, or the dude from 40-y.o. virgin), and of course for the PC porn voyeurs, "horizontal limbo for the fawnication of the species".

Secondly, porn is a great scientific-proven way to differentiate between cultures, classes, races, religons, and whatever else is a proven method of discrimination. So, after hearing about the much vaunted Sri Lankan porn that usually consists of 'Adult Only' western films, and having a workplace that encourages extra curricular learning (a.k.a. they have broadband), I thought I might download some Sri Lankan porn. Obviously in this patriarchal society, there are going to be two very different versions of porn. The picture below is a frame snapshot from a porn video made by a guy:

And of course women not having much ability to view porn, the picture below is what women use to get porn:

[Candy, that ones for you! 8)]

Peace, Love, and Sexually Frustrated Porn Voyeurs.

Byron

I never knew crocodiles were squishy?

I love travelling, but I hate to travel. I reckon at the moment I am spending a good 20 hours a week travelling in public busses (or if I am lucky, I do manage to hitchhike with wealthier INGOs). And it might be a little island, especially if you are comparing to Australia, but there are more potholes in this place than curry houses. If Walt Disney was still around, I am sure there would be a ride in Disneyland where you jump in a tuk-tuk with zero suspension, drive down the streets of Sri Lanka and ride the bumps like you’re on your daddy’s knees. With the multitude of cows on the road, national highways with three quarters of a lane, suicide bus drivers, ill-maintained “vehicles”, and the notion of actually giving way to cyclists (I will never understand why a roaring bus will screech to a sudden halt behind a cyclist waiting for the oncoming traffic to cease before overtaking, yet is happy to force a truck off the road and seven passengers to have heart-attacks to overtake another bus?); you’re lucky to average 30km/h. But all of that, one can get used to. It’s the five and a half hour bus ride from Ampara to Kandy with a guy sitting next to me in the featel position throwing up for the ENTIRE trip while his friends laugh at him and poke him for more; it’s the eight hour bus ride from Matara to Ampara stopping seventy four times in each village (and even farms) while being shunted into the wall (“death by a thousand shunts”, the next day I was black and blue on my elbow and shoulder); or the booking of a seat for the seven hour bus ride form Hambantota to Ampara only to find that you need to stand most of the way because a) they don’t understand “Who the F* stole my seat!?”, b) there is no such thing as a ‘reservation’, and c) “you’re white, can’t you afford a car?”

And while I’m at it, don’t think that Tuk-Tuk’s are any better. They can be as bad as taxis in Melbourne, except there are no windows so instead of the stench arising from the underarm, it comes from the putrid spewing of pollution from other traffic. And Sri Lankan tuk-tuk drivers have learnt that if you say, “No sir, I don’t know where you want to go”, then people walk off. So, instead they look at you and go “Yes yes, get in”, drive around for half an hour and then stop to ask the man at the rotti-store where it is. Of course, he doesn’t know either, so he will point you in some random direction. By the end of the whole affair, you do get somewhere.. and even though in Batticaloa it took me literally one hour,
six bridge crossings and several kilometres to get to my hostel, which I later found out was 500 meters down the same road as my office. And yes, I paid for all of those bridge crossings, “But I am a poor man, I did not know you wanted to come here, I thought you wanted a tour of the city…”. Although there is nothing I can do about the travel, at least you can laugh at my misery.

It’s good to know that so many of my loyal readers, mum, dad, are environmentalists. I have had raving reviews (“yeah it was alrigh’.. I s’pose”) about the two dogs caught in a bind, so I thought I would continue my love affair with animals; and what better way to tie this in with travelling, than to have a look at local road kill. I thought it would be much worse the road kill here, but being Buddhists and all, they sort of dodge the cats and dogs, opting to hit weirder less common animals. Let’s start with pure photographic pleasure – a monitor lizard. Here’s one when it is alive.

And here’s one after a seven ton truck with no brakes comes screeching down the road.

Niiiiice.. straight to the pool room.

This ones a little bit more obscure.. a river crocodile. Now I know you would like to think it could still be alive.. but take a closer look, and you will see the blood spattered around it’s face as it lies in the ditch. I assure you, it’s not going anywhere.

As always, been a pleasure. Today, not only did we give shit to poor people who don’t know away around their own towns, but we also managed to make fun of dead animals that could kick your ass if they weren’t hit by a rolling heap of metal. Excellent.

Peace, Love, and Squishy Things,

Byron.

"I have to learn to stop hating people with guns, just because they have guns"

(c) Emma Waller 2006.