Stealing beauty

Looking through the card from a camera and realised this memory wasn't mine

After recognising the subject and setting, my mind ran through observations about the time of year based on the angle of light and then confirming the layers of clothing suggested it would be winter or early spring.

Then I wondered why it surprised me as much as it did?

There's an intimacy in a selfie and looking in on a scene, a kind of voyeurism that I don't think about enough to feel guilty for it.

The thing I liked most, I decided after sifting through a mess of emotions, is the lighting of the eye.

Jo's irises were one of the first things I remember about her and still give me a thrill to read their grey-blue intentions.

Some days it's like looking at the sea and seeing something leap from the sparkle.

An assault on assault rifles

Taking aim at bad deals

In 1990 Eugene Stoner (left, with his M16) met Mikhail Kalashnikov (right, with his AK-47). They traveled together and became friends. In many of the world’s wars since 1965, the two guns were on opposite sides.

The US-made M16 had a reputation through the Vietnam conflict for jamming, while the AK-47 had a cartridge so solid that it was used by soldiers as a hammer.

The M16 routinely left the rifleman defenseless. In May 1967, one Marine wrote to his family: "We left with 250 men in our company and came back with 107. We left with 72 men in our platoon and came back with 19. Believe it or not, you know what killed most of us? Our own rifle. We were all issued this new rifle, the M16. Practically every one of our dead was found with his rifle torn down next to him where he had been trying to fix it.”

If you’ve paid any attention to Australia’s purchase of F35 fighter jets, then you’ll likely recognise how the MI6 overcame technical shortcomings to flood the battlefield with such uselessness through marketing and tradeshows.

According to former US Marine officer C.J. Chivers, author of The Gun, “The M16’s journey was marked by salesmanship, sham science, cover-ups, chicanery, incompetence, and no small amount of dishonesty by a gun manufacturer and senior American military officers.” 

As the Trump government are reshaping the New World Order, it's a good time to reconsider Australia's desire to be a Deputy to the US' Sherriff.

Jonfun

Spotted a burner in the wild

Ear to eternity

Working with pastels in art class this week

The teacher was talking about Van Gogh and drifted from talking about him painting sunflowers as a gift to cutting off his ear, which I seem to remember was also gifted?

Co-becoming

In a tutorial we read this paper that listed the Country it was written about as an author

It's one of those ideas that's exciting to an academic (definition: scholarship), yet seems a bit academic to a broader audience (definition: not of practical relevance). 

I'm still collecting my thoughts, so at this point I'm probably simultaneously excited and not relevant. 

Another thing that was interesting about the tutorial was the Acknowledgment of Country was done in Irish and reflected on that connection with the landscape. 

It reminded me that the closest I feel to a sense of co-becoming is asking the Country if I can proceed. 

I imagine that is like my Celtic forebears reciting ancient words to stir yeast when cooking or brewing with the belief the bread or beer will be flat if I don't.

Hey Google

Google has started giving general feedback

Ducks in a row

Monday morning and I feel strangely refreshed

There’s been a lot of sleep over the weekend, as well as exercise and good meals.

It’s when I begin reflecting on watching a couple of films that I realise.

This weekend is the first this year that all of my children have been at home.

That weird sense of ease and everything being where it’s meant to be?

Yeah, totally.

As much as I love seeing my children becoming their own adults living on campus in Canberra, it really soothed an itch that I hadn’t identified by having them in their own bedrooms for a few nights.

I can see where the ideological lines became drawn like a generation gap, as well as the sense that they had in some ways left home before they moved out.

I also get to breathe in the culture they breathe in another place, by consuming the music and movies and ick as it sounds — breathing in their beautiful young biomes.

That sense of balance is an exchange and I am grateful for it.

Self-portrait

Art classes are one of my favourite parts of going back to school