The Maroon Diaries

How can you 'celebrate' the armed invasion and occupation of the Australian continent for penal slavery and the attempted genocide of the Aboriginal peoples? For me and many other Australians, today, January 26, is a day of mourning, and we call it Invasion Day. The myth of Australia Day was just one of those lies we were taught by society for the purpose of suppressing its true history. Like I said on December 25th , there's no fucking way I'm going to celebrate that. By the time I was twelve years old, I was pretty well educated for a kid, and a star student. But still, after 8 years of public school education, my understanding of the 'settlement of Australia' was that it went pretty much like this - Captain Cook discovered Australia and turned up with a boatload of convicts on January 26, 1788. When they got there, there were Aborigines living there. However, they weren't really people, they were actually just native Australian animals, so it was ok...

Today was a hospital day - half the day spent at the hospital while Mr CJ has a nerve-treating procedure, performed by a pain management specialist. Hmmm sounds like fun...not...much! But I have had enough of these hospital days to give me time to apply my philosophy of looking for the beauty in the everyday, of believing it is always there to be found, even surrounded by all the disasters and dramas that go on every day in a public hospital. So today I took my camera around the building and grounds for a little tourist-in-your-own-town action. One of my favourite things about this hospital is that is has its own book stall. What a brilliant idea! It's located as obviously as possible, just inside the main entrance, and there is always something different to see here. Some days the shelves are so chockers with books you can hardly get one out without knocking the whole stand over, then a few days later the shelves might be all but bare. All books are $1 and I think I've seen ...

Today, my best favourite op shop is having its semi-regular big sale. In addition to the regular op shop being open, there is furniture for sale in the car park, books in the foyer, and another room of trestle tables heaped with piles, through which you can rummage and pay $5 per garbage bag full. Yep, pretty exciting stuff. So I couldn't stay away even though I was pretty tired this morning. I was browsing through the children's books when I got such a shock I think I actually made an audible choking sound. A children's book called Bromley Climbs Uluru by Alan and Patrician Campbell. The cover showed a photograph of a stuffed teddy bear among a landscape of red rocks. If I were telling this story to a local friend, I would just continue on and expect that said friend would immediately understand why I felt so scandalised. However, I'm aware that this blog is read by people from other countries, people who have never been to Australia, and would not be expected to...