Empress Nasi Goreng

Show us your favorite philosophical quote.
Submitted by Chicago Shadow.

Australians will have seen this numerous times already.  Everyone else, it is pretty funny.  It turned out later that "Clare the Bogan" (as she has been dubbed by the media) made the whole thing up.  The guy who really did get shot is not impressed at all. 

The new philosophical quote on everyone's lips at the moment is "Chk chk boom!".   

Share a song for Sunday morning.

Really more of a Monday song.  My excuse is that it is already well into Monday in Australia.  Isn't Stevie Wright gorgeous? 

Do you hold grudges against people? Tell us about an incident if you do, and if you don't, tell us how you rise above it.
Submitted by Sophie.

This poem by WIlliam Blake is a good illustration of why it is not good to hold grudges against people.  I rarely do myself.  I just can't be bothered.  I would rather grow and save my 'apples bright' for those I care about. 

A Poison Tree

by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told him not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears

Night and morning with my tears,

And I sunned it with smiles

And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright,

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine -

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

And in the morning, glad, I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.  

Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake

My son took this when he was lounging around in my bed playing with my phone while I was trying to get him to get up and get ready for school so I could go to work.  I kind of like it as it shows the morning chaos from quite a different perspective. 

Get out of bed young man

I also don't usually show the light fittings in my photos.  They are really pretty wild in this house we are renting (that is one of the more conservative ones). 

Oh and if anyone has been wondering where I have been lately, the office net nanny has started blocking access to Vox.  Apologies for not commenting on anyone's posts lately.  I don't think I am ever going to be able to catch up now. 

Thailand turns into Indonesia - and vice versa

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/thailan...

Thailand likes to call itself The Land of Smiles. And for a while after the advent of democracy in 1992 this seemed to be unusually accurate for an official slogan. Democracy seemed to flourish. Even during the traumatic Asian economic crisis of 1997 the generals stayed in their barracks. Growth quickly returned. The tourists flooded in. Foreign investors smiled on the Thais, who returned the favour. In the parallel universe known as Indonesia, the picture was more ominous. Its slogan, Unity in Diversity, seemed an exercise in dark sarcasm. Diversity was hammered into frightened unity by its military dictator, Soeharto. When the Asian crisis forced Soeharto out of power in 1998 the outlook only seemed to darken. A succession of simpletons and underperformers took the presidency. The economy was moribund. Islam woke from its long slumber under Soeharto and seemed to be asserting itself. Its diversity would now be repressed by the Muslim majority, it appeared. Indonesia's prospects seemed to go from bad to worse. Terrorists bombed tourists in the peaceful holiday destination of Bali. The Petri dish of Indonesian Islam seemed to be breeding a newly virulent form of violent extremism. Investors gave the country a wide berth. If Thailand seemed to represent sunrise in South-East Asia, Indonesia appeared to be the region's nightfall. Today we see an extraordinary role reversal.

Interesting opinion piece.  I don't follow Asian politics as closely as I used to and have only been vaguely aware of what has been happening in Thailand.  I wonder if the Indonesians on Vox agree that the situation in Indonesia is starting to improve?  It is 13 years since I was in Indonesia proper (a short holiday to Bali doesn't really count).  I was working in government there during the dying days of the Suharto administration so got to witness some of the corruption and lethargy first hand.  I even spoke to older Indonesians who claimed that things were better under the Dutch than they were under Suharto.  I would love to think that this description was an accurate one:

"Indonesia in 2008 is a stable, competitive electoral democracy, with a highly decentralised system of governance, achieving solid rates of economic growth, under competent national leadership, and playing a constructive role in the regional and broader international community."

 

Indonesia flag (with clipping path)

 

Show us a picture of your mother.

This is a recent picture that my son drew of my mother (his Granny).

Granny drawing

Here is what she really looks like. 

Mum bike lesson

Mum + kids

These are three of the double paged spreads from the Myer Mothers Day catalogue:

Pamper Mum

Convenient cooking

Happy cleaning

Anyone else see anything wrong with these pictures? 

What a perfect Mothers Day 'Myer Mum' must have, ie, painfully tweezing almost every last hair from her body, then using hot irons to straighten her  remaining hair (the stuff on her head), followed by a bout of cooking and washing, and topped off with a session of pushing the vacuum cleaner around the house.  Sadly that probably is what I will be doing this Mothers Day (ie, not the tweezing and hair straightening but the cooking and cleaning).  How did Myer know?

Incidentally I visited a friend (another working mother) last night and she told me she had just completed her pre-Mothers Day dummy spit.  The phone rang while I was there asking if she would host the extended family Mothers Day lunch at her place the next day.  We both agreed that the perfect Mothers Day for us would be for everyone to just clear out and leave us alone.  At least I could clean the house without people messing it up and squabbling and whining in my ear.     

What's the worst part about your job?

Ummm....the silly hats? 

Vegemite scroll

It is a kind of bread roll with cheese on top and vegemite baked into the inside.  Very handy as it saves having to put the vegemite on, yourself.  Design Shark, I dare you to try one when you visit Brisbane.