Today’s otters are a blast from the past – a repost of our very first otterday post!
via Zooborns. Click through for more pictures of these fuzzy Asian Small-Clawed otter pups, snapped at the Blackpool Zoo.
Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart desires. Is there anything great happening in your life? Anything you want to get off your chest? Reading a good book (or a bad one)? Anything in the news that you’d like to discuss? What have you created lately? Commiserations, felicitations, temptations, contemplations, speculations?
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
Getting out the ‘yes’ 
100 books by women in 2016 
Hoyden About Town 
Imagine how big they must be now.
Yes, they might have pups of their own even!
Had a lovely evening with the Mimbles clan and a handful of fellow Hoydens at the Menagerie’s Annual Festive Gathering. Good to see you all again, I’m still feeling a wee bit delicate and need another cup of tea.
My darling husband just got home after being evacuated from the Westpac building in Martin Place about 90 minutes ago. They’ve been in lockdown since 10am, with all the people on the lower floors sent upstairs to be totally out of any potential line of fire, and even upstairs told to keep away from windows, therefore impossible for them to do any work at all. Everybody just watched the news on the telly all day in hopes of getting an idea of how long they’d have to stay.
I’m still in bed. I’m pretty sure Mr13 and his friend are up though, and if I’m smelling right he’s cooked ham and eggs for breakfast. Didn’t offer me any though.
I saw Bitchflicks discussing the web series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbvYWjKFvS5rX2yv-k5AJ8oxPoZ9zHcpe, and wanted to signal boost it.
I love the Mimbles clan gathering. It was the first party we ever went to where we didn’t have to entertain our kid ourselves but instead were able to let him run with a kidmob.
Between now and the end of the year is going to be intense. Wet n Wild trip to celebrate the end of my son’s preschool years. (I will report back on whether it’s a rip-off or a massive rip-off. Stay tuned.) Family BBQ. Beach trip. Carols. Trip to see other family. Older kid going to see a musical. O_O
I’m covering for absent Arts presenters on Eastside Radio tomorrow morning (Tuesday 10.30 – 12). If you’d like to hear me chat to a really cool guy who knows all about the introduction of coffee to Europe, and to the dude playing John Proctor in Sport for Jove’s Crucible you can stream us online at Eastsidefm.org
I expect you are both happy that he’s home now. Given those restrictions on movement in his building, I suppose he’s waiting for the situation to resolve, otherwise I imagine he won’t be allowed back to work tomorrow?
Arcadia, his building was closed today despite the ending of the siege overnight. I presume management thought that there was still sufficient local disruption to make it just not worth having everybody come in. It’s back to normal operations tomorrow though.
It’s been eye-opening today to read just how long people had been expressing concerns over the fraudulent and harassing actions of this perpetrator – the senior Australian Shia cleric in 2008, Romona Koval of the ABC in 2009 – this appears to have been a man who was on both his community’s and the official radar for multiple violent and harassing and manipulative behaviours. The constitutional questions regarding the case brought against him for letters to the families of dead soldiers is fascinating in one way but how he was able to be bailed following the charges brought against him more recently for accessory to homicide of his ex-wife and sexual assault/abuse of women who consulted him as a religious healer? That is the matter that concerns me far more deeply
And now the Peshawar school attack by the Taliban. I just want to turn my brain off for a while.
I will say that the organised team of heavily armed attackers provides a horribly illuminating contrast to our lone gunman in Martin Place.
I’m glad that he got out and home safely, tigtog.
Very sad to read of the deaths of two of the hostages this morning. With the breaking of the siege comes the details of the perpetrator, including his violence towards women. Horrible.
I also work in the area.
I am horrified and deeply saddened.
I am not terrified.
This was not an act of terror, as we currently use that term.
This was a terrible crime. I’m sure the hostages were terrified, and many were terrified for them.
But by all accounts, this was a lone actor with a history of violence, including, as Mary says, violence against women.
A man who seems to have nurtured a deep sense that the world and “The System” was against him. I doubt the timing of losing a case on Friday was a coincidence.
A man who was so disconnected from the cause he said he wanted to represent that one of his demands was for one of their flags.
I wish they had all survived, both for the obvious reasons and also so that there could have been a trial.
The lack of any trial (with the possibility of conviction – the coronial inquest won’t be the same and will necessarily have a different focus) makes me particularly worried this is going to be beat up into an excuse for ramped up terror laws. That this will be done in the names of the dead, the surviving hostages and their families, even if they would have disapproved or if they do disapprove, respectively.
I just hope that doesn’t happen.
Here’s a question for Phillip Ruddock: Why was Mohammad-Hassan Manteghi Borujerdi, now known to us as Man Haron Monis, given asylum in Australia in 2001, when he had a criminal record in Iran, a fact which was apparently drawn to Ruddock’s attention by Iranian police and Interpol?
@Peter: I am really conflicted on this.
He was given asylum because he was persecuted in his home country. I don’t know, does the government only give asylum to people that don’t have a criminal record? What was his criminal record in Iran? Can we really only give asylum to people we deem ‘good’?
If his crimes were related to ill-treatment of women, seriously: do you think that would have given the govt pause for thought? You beat your wife? Please continue your high- profile career as a footballer, we’re sure it was just a misunderstanding.
I’ve read the statement from the magistrate? saying Monis was released on bail because the evidence in his trial for the murder of his wife was unreliable. Presumably, the statements of all the women who state he assaulted them are unreliable too. Take crimes against women seriously.
Monis was a refugee. He may have experienced who knows what trauma in his life. How did that contribute to tipping him over the edge?
I am more than happy to sledge Phillip Ruddock (let’s have a thread for that!) but I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this. Sometimes, bad things happen because we did something good.
Tragic all round.
We should probably put all the siege stuff in one thread – what do you think?
Back to the spirit of Otterday: this week, I am the proudest mama alive, as my wee’ un is now a primary school graduate. Despite certain obstacles in his way, he took out Dux and shared the Science Prize. On to high school and more adventures!
(p.s. I am also super proud of myself for basically finishing the Xmas shopping and wrapping, and having bought, labelled, and organised the school supplies. Roll on a more relaxed end of year/January than usual, I hope.)
Congratulations to your son Lauredhel. Sounds like he has a great base to start high school from.
I have yet to wrap and label and indeed buy some presents and the list of stuff for high school has been on the fridge for weeks.
Agreed, a separate siege thread is a great idea.
And congratulations to Lauredhel and son on graduating primary school, and with dux and the science prize! Moving on from primary school is a huge moment. The carer who looks after my autistic son at kindy had her third (and youngest) child finish primary last week, and didn’t expect any big feelings about it, then realised walking out the school gate on the last morning that it was the last drop off, and burst into tears.
My youngest goes to primary school next year, having been accepted into a special(or sometimes called small) class. There will be only 8 students, and it runs through the state school system. But we’ll be leaving our older son where he is, so there will be practical considerations/annoyances, plus all the feelings that come with having someone official make allowances for your special needs child. Relief! Shit, it’s definitely not all in my head! What if he never gets better! Hurray, someone else sees what I see, I haven’t been exaggerating/imagining things!
The community, political and media response to the siege is better discussed on the Media Circus thread, I reckon. I’ll add a postcript to make it more obvious to any new readers that it’s the better space.
p.s. Yay for the Lad, Lauredhel. And a super envious yay for your level of organisation this year.
I ended up posting a new Media Circus thread.
Mindy: let’s face it, you know where the list _is_. That’s winning life in my book.
Arcadia: I’m glad your youngest is getting accommodations, and I hope they’ll be exactly what he needs! I know a lot of those feelings you’re describing (re: things I don’t post about publicly) – they’re strong, aren’t they? We deal with a lot of self-doubt.
Arcadia:
I know the “What if he never gets better?” feeling. My oldest was diagnosed with autism at age 4. (The second opinion was Asperger Syndrome, which had just been added to the DSM.) Thanks to a wonderful, wonderful therapist, he was finally able to hug and be hugged at age 5. He’s now 24, and has finished college in engineering (well, all but some paperwork which has been dragging on for over 10 months), and I still worry that he won’t be able to ever live on his own. All I ever see him do is surf the web. He is going to a “job club” for ASD young adults, but it seems that the idea of apply or interviewing for a job is more anxiety than he can cope with. I worry, but there’s not much I can do at this point, except feed and clothe him and give him hugs. He’s got the family trait that he’s going to do what he’s going to do (and not do what he’s not going to do) and there’s not much we can do to make him do any different. You watch your baby bird fly off and all you can do is hope he doesn’t end up in some predator’s stomach.
(Actually, I’m more worried about child #2, but AFAIK he’s not autistic, so I’ll save that for another post.)
Hey there Hoydens, I only just noticed you were back! I’ve had a rather eventful month and a half which included hurting my back (just a pulled muscle thankfully), turning 40, and the death of my grandmother. Then I had a mad rush trying to get all my work and Christmas stuff done two weeks early so we could go on holiday.
Now here we are in rural Queensland, staying with my parents. The weather is unpleasantly hot snd steamy, but it is very quiet and insulated from the bad news coming out of the rest of the country. In the last four days I have read three books, made half a beaded macrame necklace, and finished three games on my phone. I must be relaxing.