Same Sex marriage rally

Protesters march in George St (Sydney's main street).
Protesters march along George Street (Sydney's main street).

Went to the Same Sex Marriage rally at Sydney Town Hall. One of the speakers, Katrina,  said she’d been warned that the Salt Shakers were there – who hate gay marriage – and they were taking photos to allegedly try and misrepresent the crowd as being smaller than it was. [You can see from the photos on their website that every family is heteronormative. There’s always someone out of the norm, though, that’s life. They must straitjacket all of their family members and friends, trying to squeeze and mask the quirks so they can fit a “normal” definition. I agree with their Cronulla riots analysis, though.]

Just ignore their propaganda, as there was a great turn-up, despite it being stilfing hot. A few speakers, then we marched off to Bathurst St and back in a big square to Town Hall. The police closed off the main street of Sydney, George St, for the march, and the traffic was held up but most motorists were tooting their horns in support, rather than getting stroppy. It was a great atmosphere.

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Advanced marketing course

Did an Advanced Marketing course the past two days, Sydney Uni. Learnt a lot of new terms and jargon. We had to do several team exercises and think up marketing campaigns. The most interesting bits were how to conduct an experiential campaign and the various ways of measuring a campaign’s success. I was very impressed by the quality of the other students. I have a pretty certificate.

Chatted with a lovely lady at the course who used to present “Relationships and Intimacy” courses at Hillsong.

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Pollywaffle to become extinct!

The best chocolate bar ever.
50 grams of scrumpliciousness.

Yum! But no more Pollywaffles. 😦 A favourite Aussie chocolate bar with marshmallow in the centre. They were sold for 62 years here. Nestle is going to stop making them cause Kit Kats are more popular.

This is what happens when a multinational takes over an Aussie company — they don’t bother promoting the Aussie products and then ditch them. Thanks Nestle!

Run out of Fanta Lemon in Iceland

Hold the Ice-land.

Iceland has no McDonald’s and now no Fanta Lemon. They’ve also cancelled their Comedy Festival cos noone can afford to buy tickets.

With 300,000 people, they reckon they’ve got a sweeter deal from the IMF bail-out than Argentina. And they’ve got mineral resources and an educated workforce. Housing prices have deflated. The foreigners were the first to get sacked so they’ve all left. Iceland’s  resources are being sold to foreign investors at cheapo prices. Utilities are being privatised.

While younger Icelanders are fleeing, older ones with houses and commitments are stuck. One blog post I read said each Icelander should be paying 80 per cent of their gross income to pay back foreigners who lost money in IceSave. The foreigners (Brits and Dutch) aren’t even getting ALL their money back.

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Concentration camps – book review

Viktor Frankl, 1949. Was No. 119,104.
Viktor Frankl, 1949. Prisoner No. 119,104.

Due to the neo Nazis being in Chippendale, I refreshed my mind yesterday on concentration camps by reading Viktor Frankl’s account of his time in Auschwitz and Dachau and others in Man’s Search For Meaning.  It was completely dire. He outlines the various ways people mentally coped.
He took the fatalist approach and a couple of times he made what seemed to be the “wrong” choices but luckily, those ended up being the right ones and he survived. (eg. to go on a truck or not; to look after typhoid patients and die of that …) It was impossible to know which way to jump, everything was so unpredictable.

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