Friday lay day – freezing in Florence

Friday lay day sees me in Florence, Italy. The G20 waste of time and real resources meeting in Brisbane is now over and the World leaders have departed or are swanning around Australia on goodwill tours aka trough sampling (as in pig snouts at the). Our conservative government deeply embarrassed itself and its electoral appeal with a petulant display of parochialism. Instead of outlining a vision for the world’s future and Australia’s place in it, our political leadership chose to focus on their internal policy disappointments (that the democratic process here is not allowing them to proceed with – all aimed at attacking the poorest members of our society). At the same time they were vigorously trying to stop climate change discussions featuring on the agenda. Pathetic really. This small-time austerity mindset was perfectly captured by The Shovel this week.

The article on The Shovel (November 16, 2014) – Abbott To Address G20 Leaders On Parking Issues In His Warringah Electorate – put it all in perspective for us.

We learned that:

Tony Abbott will use his closing address at the G20 Summit in Brisbane today to shine a light on the lack of parking around Sydney’s northern beaches.

Advisors said the Prime Minister believed it was important to ‘start a dialogue’ about the problem, which has become worse in recent years.

“You can drive around for twenty, thirty minutes and not find a park sometimes. It’s pretty bad,” a spokesperson for the Prime Minister said.

Mr Abbott is expected to canvas a range of potential solutions, including road widening, a new high rise parking facility in Manly, and a car-space share system.

“With the world’s most powerful leaders all here in Australia, this is a rare opportunity to get input, and hopefully consensus, around this important issue,” the spokesperson said.

Good to be part of a nation that is going somewhere.

At least the Euro leaders talk big about visions as they implement their mindless and destructive neo-liberal policy agenda.

Here is our PM in action during the 2013 election campaign before he was elected

This week, the government announced significant cuts to both the ABC and the SBS broadcasters. The ABC will lose nearly 10 per cent of its income as a result of these cuts.

The Prime Minister is a categorical liar!

Monday MMT Presentation in Rome

On Monday, November 24, 2104, if you are in Rome I will be presenting some MMT logic at the Roma Tre University at 15:00. I will post more details as I learn them.

You can learn more at the Rome MMT site – although it is Italian.

It would be good to see some activists in Rome on Monday.

Some more Stones

Last Saturday, I was lucky enough to see the Rolling Stones at the Hope Estate winery in the Hunter Valley, near Newcastle. It was the best show I have ever seen. Absolutely fabulous band, show and vibe. The Stones and their backing musicians (who are stars in their own right) were incredibly generous notwithstanding their celebrity.

I have been humming songs all week from their rich repertoire of classics. Here is one of them. Wild Horses from their – Sticky Fingers – album, which was released in early 1971. I used this song as a basis for my saxophone practice this week.

Saturday Quiz

The Saturday Quiz will be back again tomorrow. It will be of an appropriate order of difficulty (-:

That is enough for today!

(c) Copyright 2014 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.