Anita Heiss: Is She Black Enough For You?

Given Tim Wilson's new career, reading Anita Heiss' memoir Am I Black Enough For You? turned out to be very topical.

My review can be viewed here.

We Are Global Voices! We Bring You the World

We Are Global Voices! from Global Voices on Vimeo.

The world is talking. Are you listening?

The video says it all!

Make a Pledge for Asylum Seekers on Human Rights Day

A video from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre for Human Rights Day 2013:

Make a pledge:

"I pledge to fight against cruelty to asylum seekers. This means:

• no splitting up of families, when they arrive by boat, into different groups
• no pregnant women should be forcibly separated from her husband and children and sent away to have her baby alone."

Textor's Twitter Farce Follows Revelations of Australia Spying on Indonesian President

"...we now have #Textor’s Law: the most social media savvy spin doctors are only 140 characters away from their inevitable brain snap. It has something to do with wishing you could eat your words."

My latest post for Global Voices looks at the extraordinary twitter moments of Mark Textor
Twitter Farce Follows Revelations of Australia Spying on Indonesian President:

It has taken a “conservative political and communications strategist” to catch the imagination of netizens during the current diplomatic standoff between Australia and Indonesia over spying revelations. Indonesia's president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has tweeted to protest phone tapping by Australia's Defence Signals Directorate, which included his and his wife's phones in 2009.

On 20 November 2013 Mark Textor, pollster and political tactician for Australia’s ruling Liberal Party, experienced one of those twitter moments: ‘Apology demanded from Australia by a bloke who looks like a 1970s Pilipino porn star and has ethics to match’. [The misspelling is his own.] It was an apparent reference to the Indonesian foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa.

His deletion of the offending tweet did not save Textor from embarrassment.

[Reactions from the Oz twitterverse...]

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Sorry I won't be around to tell 'em I told ya so.

For those who are still interested in the state of climate change science, a concise video from the IPCC Warsaw COP19 meeting:

For more please see: The actual probability of Earth going to hell in the next few decades

I know we are constantly being told that we will not persuade anyone with evidence or with scary stuff. So do what's recommended and use narrative. Tell them the one about the big bad denier who huffed and puffed...

Global Voices' Andrea Arzaba has a tale from Warsaw worth sharing: COP19: Fasting For The Climate:

Yeb Saño, leader of the Philippines delegation at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change in Poland (COP19), has decided to stop eating until he sees real solutions from negotiators at the summit. He wants the process to bring “climate justice to the poorest countries,” and links Typhoon Haiyan, which has left more than 4,000 people dead and 4 million displaced, to climate change.

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Tony Abbott Downplays Sri Lankan Torture Allegations

From my latest post for Global Voices Online:

Australians have been flabbergasted by the contrast between two conservative Prime Ministers over Sri Lanka’s human rights record, namely their own PM Tony Abbott and the UK’s David Cameron.

Cameron put Sri Lanka on notice over war crimes allegations. PM Abbott was far more conciliatory:

"The Australian Government deplores any use of torture. Sometimes, in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen. The important thing is to act as quickly as you can to bind up the nation's wounds."

Many onliners took these remarks at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo [CHOGM] to be tacit approval of human rights violations including torture.

More: Australian Prime Minister Downplays Sri Lankan Torture Allegations

Climate Action Rally - Melbourne 2103

According to The Age, "Up to 30,000 Melburnians gathered in Treasury Gardens on Sunday to call for stronger action on climate change" on Sunday 17 November 2013.

A glorious solar day at Treasury Gardens.