OnTheBlink

it ain’t like your father’s GE, either

goneawry — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:47:40 +0000

AND SPEAKING OF catches…

Whether or not you all know it, a new candidate just showed up for the coming GE. This one’s absolutely efficient, open and transparent.

Truth revealer. Equaliser. Mobiliser extraordinaire…

and, best of all, a candidate who can’t ever be intimidated, silenced or detained by whatever means.

It’s the Internet, stupid.

Catch me if you can! After all, this is not like your father’s GE

pretty sure

goneawry — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 02:28:42 +0000

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NOW, I’M PRETTY sure bloggers say such things for a perfectly good reason. i think they mean to give their visitors feel a small sense of security about engaging in discussions about the the topic/issue.Oh sure, I know what it technically means; that the e-mail will not be visible to other readers. And even when they say they will hide it, it doesn’t mean they will NOT (or NEVER!) expose, to interested parties my email or IP. Both things can lead people right upto my front door. And to boot, people the likes of whom I’m so not likely to invite over for a coffee, surely. Come on. Not even the most well-connected blogger will be delighted to have these flers turn up at their homes.

That’s why, hereon, even if it’s specifically and explicitly promised that my email will never be exposed to anyone other than the blog owner, I daren’t believe it.

I mean, saw how even that gungho blogger who blog fearlessly, obediently and without resistance, handed over his hardware? Dude had with direct links to a most impressive network of NGOs, independent media and politicus. Stuff that dude meekly handed everything over without a squeak included data.

Data that had email addresses and IPs of everyone who’s ever agreed or disagreed with his views. Views that were political or otherwise. Circumspect or Otherwise. Fair or Otherwise. Wise or otherwise. It makes me worry about my comments

Oh ya, sure there’s (supposed to be) this All-Blogs alliance, presumably set up to protect bloggers. But whither the protection for commentors participating in genuine discourse in blogs?

Now, what’s a blog without commentors? How useful or effective a communication tool in public discourse will blogs be without commentors?

Thankfully, there’s still ONE place I know where one can safely scrutinise or air views critical of the government or authorities. Letters to Malaysiakini. Those flers will resist.

I’M PRETTY SURE of it.

nightfall

goneawry — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:24:55 +0000

THOUGH WE LIVE together, act on, and react to one another, ALWAYS and in all circumstances, we are by ourselves.

If you have ever had your brain going down on you, you’d know what it is like when your broken mind, desperately seeking the quickest way out, comes within a dangerous degree or two of finality and its false promise of blessed relief…

a passing

goneawry — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:09:00 +0000

T’was a cold yet sunny winter’s morning. The tender loving touches of a dear spouse were evident.

On a little plate sat four triangular bits of toast. Bite-sized and hamdressed to go with a mug of coffee, white. On the table.

And in the bedroom. Her head lay upon a soft, sky blue pillow. He’d tucked her under a soft black-white leopard print fleece blanket.

All cold. As cold as her body that lay on the queen sized bed.

On the wall, a framed certificate hung. Congratulations from John and Janette Howard for fifty years of marriage. A lifetime and more for most of us.

More than half a century ago, he’d arrived in Perth from the Netherlands. Jumped ship to seek his brother in Tamworth, NSW. This baker found instead, the love of his life.

Nearly 54 years they’d been married. Why did she have to go? The former baker asked softly, the way a child asks in bewilderment, of things not yet comprehensible.

On the deck of the small Queenslander house at Sea Breeze Road, they pecked away with their usual studied intent, at a seed laden stick.

Romeo and Juliet, her beloved budgies, in blissful ignorance. Of the passing of a much blessed and loved woman, from life into memory.