My dear friend Sally rang me from hospital last night. She fell over in the city, and has broken her hip in two places. She’s had surgery today, but will be in hospital for some time.
If you’re also a friend of hers, she’d love a visit, and if you don’t know her so well, I’m sure she’d appreciate some good wishes comments on her blog.
Fe and I went to the protest yesterday, armed with our cameras. Fe was determined to stay impartial and professional, I thought I would try for as long as I could. But when one lone woman was surrounded with bile spewing rednecks, I had to take a stand and join her. Sarah, whoever you are, I thought you were very brave. Sarah said, “I wasn’t worried, the racists are most likely sexist too, and would never hit a woman”.
I was disgusted that the police had been close by when the refugee supporters found an APP supporter in their midst, but stayed away when the APP turned on Susan. I wondered if the police were truly as impartial as they are supposed to be, and I was still wondering when I snapped this picture.
Notice anything? The butt of his weapon?
The rest of my pictures are here.
Edited to add a link to Fe’s amazing pics.
And “John”, a Today Tonight poll is only going to reflect the ideas and aspirations of a not very educated group that get their opinions from “Today Tonight” and the Telegraph, etc. I won’t enter into an argument about the facts of immigration, but I would be happy to listen to your views once you have spent a month on a leaky boat, trying to save the lives of your children. Then we can talk about disadvantage, selfishness, and racism.
Sydney Morning Herald coverage here.
I got this in my inbox yesterday – and though I have serious reservations about taking Inigo to a protest that has the possibility of getting violent (not that I think this will, but I need to protect him), I really think it’s important to stand up for people who have no voice of their own.
Unfortunately Mark has to work tomorrow, so does anyone want to join me? Will be at Pearl Beach overnight with limited phone signal, so text me if you’re interested 🙂
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Please forward this rally to ALL people who would be concerned about the
far-right taunting asylum seekers, many of whom have fled war and persecution,
while they are locked behind the razor wire
UNITE AGAINST RACISM
Refugees are welcome – racism is not!
The Australian Protectionist Party have called a rally attacking refugee rights for this Sunday, April 11, at 3pm outside Villawood Detention Centre.
The APP are anti-refugee, anti-immigrant & racist. They letterbox leaflets that scapegoat Africans, Muslims & immigrants for crime, unemployment & other social problems. However, the major parties are also to blame – they have given a green light to racism, by also demonising refugees & using migrants as scapegoats.
Racism kills. Refugees are still being deported to their deaths. Attacks on international students and immigrants are increasing.
We need a peaceful show of support for refugee rights, for equality and justice – and to let all racists know that their hatred is not welcome.
Rally Sun April 11, 2pm
At Villawood Detention Centre
15 Birmingham Ave, Villawood (nr Leightonfield Stn)
Please forward this message, organise your friends, bring placards and banners in support of refugees and against racism.
Supported by: Refugee Action Coalition, Latin American Social Forum, Sudanese Human Rights Assoc, Social Justice Group, Socialist Alliance, Solidarity, Socialist Alternative, Resistance.
For information, to add your support, or if you have ideas for the rally, please phone Paul 0410 629 088 or James 0438 718 348
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The racist APP’s rally call:
I am still working on my Easter post (too many pictures, need to work out a less labour intensive way of posting, so this is a practice post).
I got this link in my inbox the other day. I rolled my eyes, and prepared to be bombarded with misinformation, and clicked the link.
And was amazed. Finally, a mainstream parenting website “telling it like it is” about baby feeding.
Go, read. If you’re interested, of course 😉
Oh, and a PS. Yesterday was my first headache free day without medication. I still feel like crap, but touch wood, I’m on the mend. Thanks for all the well wishes!
The brain continues to explode, tomorrow will be day nine. That is more than a week, right? Anyway, I seem to have found a drug regime that works, and I am mostly functional.
And the cake? The work of a new found friend, who heard I was feeling poorly, and just dropped around with cake. I’m keeping her 🙂
Full Easter post, with pictures of our adventures to come.
Who suffered a profound loss recently.
Woke up feeling ok this morning. Not brilliant, but not so bad that I wanted to throw myself at Mark’s feet and beg him to stay home and protect me from my firstborn.
We went to playgroup, and everything went downhill from there. By the time I got home, I wanted to die, my head was throbbing, and the pain was awful. But I had to give Inigo his lunch, then get him to sleep. Since I am still breastfeeding him to sleep for his daytime nap, I thought it might be best to hold off the heavy duty opiates….
So then he didn’t sleep. It was agony trying to rock and sing him to sleep, tears streaming down my face. Eventually I gave up, took a large number of pills and took him to daycare (thank FSM for Lan, having such a fabulous carer so close to home has never been more appreciated). I drove him around for 10 minutes until 2pm (which is when I had arranged to drop him off), and almost collapsed on the footpath outside her home while I was saying goodbye to Squish. I could tell that she was concerned about me driving (I was too), so I went straight home and crawled into bed.
Three full hours after taking the pills, I can now sit upright and tolerate light. Tomorrow, he is going to daycare at 9am, so I just have to look after him from 7am till 9am. Wish me luck.
It’s definitely not a stroke. And probably not a brain tumour. It could be a migraine, but I’ve never had one before. Which leaves the generic “virus, it will probably last for about a week”.
Which we’ve all heard before, but when you’ve just spent 24 hours in so much pain that you think you could puke, there are moments when tears spontaneously spring from your eyes, and merely bending over to look a 2 year old in the eye brings an explosion of pain like a super nova, and two panadeine fortes don’t even take the sharp edge off the pain…
This could be a very long week.
There is a breastfeeding carnival on at the moment, a whole mob of people posting on the same subject and linking back to each other, and I thought, in my own little way, it would be nice to participate.
So, here we go, reasons why I love breastfeeding.
1. I am lazy.
2. Really, really lazy
That’s it. I mean, saving Inigo from asthma and allergies was also a motivator, and there are a brazillion other reasons why it’s worth persevering, but for me, laziness is a compelling factor.
No washing and sterilising bottles. No getting up in the middle of the night to warm the bottle. No trip to the supermarket at 9pm because we’ve run out. No scraping together loose change because we’ve run out on the day before payday. No finding three week old dregs under the sofa. No begging cafe staff for hot water for warming. No measuring. No pouring. No mixing. No hassling the kid to finish a bottle, or denying him if he wants more. No stressing about dental caries. No extra environmental burden. No worrying about traveling through Asia and access to clean water.
Now lots of people don’t breastfeed, and don’t worry about these things, or have different priorities, but this is my list. And as a breastfeeding woman who had to artificially feed her son for a few weeks, I feel that I am qualified to talk about this. I’m also a woman who struggled to get breastfeeding established for the first 11 weeks of my babies life, so it’s not like I think the whole thing is easy – but I definitely recognise the advantages of breast over bottle in my life.
Disco Knitter 