What sort of law?

Ever ready to tap into the mood of the moment Media Mike apparently agrees with a 'proposal' of Police Commissioner Hyde to not only confiscate the vehicle of hoon drivers, but to "crush them" (here)

This will no doubt have some, if not a lot of, appeal in some corners of society, but is this sort of vindictive action what our justice system is about?

Would we, for example, countenance the destruction of someone's house because a crime happened to have been committed in it?

Sounds more like the world of the fascist dictator than the liberal democracy we are supposed to embrace.

We have for many years accepted that illegal proceeds might be confiscated and used to recompense victims of crime, why could these cars not be impounded and sold?

There is clearly a mind game going on here, I for one do not want to be party to vindictive retribution which serves no constructive purpose other than to appeal a vicious streak in the populace at large.

Our leaders should do better than this.

Ongoing concern

I am still worried about this censorship business (here).
My concern is not, I think, that there should be absolutely no censorship. It is rather that if art is to be deliberatedf upon then I don't think the police are the ones who shoudl be doing the deliberating.
They may be the ones who need to go in and turn off the lights, but I don't think that in the end Superintendent Plod shoudl be the one deciding what is good and bad art.
Nor do artists need to be quite so precious and get all thingy because something called 'art' is critiqued as being exploitative.
I had a look at what is left of the said photos (which bizarrely have been made quite obscene by the imposition of censorial bars across various parts of various anatomies....another point altogether) and my impression is that they are not neutral, they are over the line.
Of course as a society we can say it is inappropriate, and even illegal for children to be treated in such a way. But maybe there is a case for any nude art being 'classified' (as films are) before they are put on display.
Then it is OK for police to act appropriately, but they should not be deciding what is and what is not art.

Resilience

I told one lot of people I was interviewing last night that I had already been told to $@*& Off! once today already.

To be fair the chap was off his tree. G. Declares himself to be a brilliant mathematician (as he has done on a number of previous occasions) and then carries on about some circumstance where he is worried about someone else having an accident. "Four people died that way last year!"

When I at least tried to invite him to make some statistical analysis of that (seemed like a reasonable thing to ask a 'brilliant mathematician' to do), and also reflect on the fact that he was trying to seriously impede someone else's freedom (something he is not to keen on for himself)...well it was then that he stormed off and said the choice words.

It sort of shakes you, particularly that there are some people who you just can't (and won't ever) reach.

Contrast that with another visitor I had last week, a woman who camped for two nights on our property.  And who was also not well-balanced. Someone referred to her as a 'tramp', and I suppose in the 20s and 30s that is how she would have been pigeonholed. 

She did not particularly need me or anyone else to converse with as she was capable of having very animated conversation with herself.

My role in this situation? Just to try and be normal, I sort of think of myself as fixing a peg in order that a person who is floating may be able to grab on if even for a little while. Sometimes it is hard work, and it was with this woman. But there was a certain good humour about it.

She said things like...I like to sleep on church ground because the wicked men can't get me here. They attack a single woman.  

There was a sense of awful pain in her past.

 Then she didn't think it was better to sleep in the church, rather than outside. That wouldn't be right...She was happy to stay as long as you don't call the doctors or the police...I assured her there was no need to do this. Though there was a temptation to think that maybe this would be the short-circuit to dealing with this situation

Any way there many things...and I was happy to try and present a safe haven for just a couple of days.

She was not dissimilar in the degree of disorientation to G and there was an edge that indicated that things could go pear-shaped. As it turned out she came and went, left a note thanking me for letting her use the church (which is normally open). 

She made choices about where she would live, and they were not what most 'doctors and police' would think should be done (hence her reluctance to deal with them I suspect), but really her life worked quite well.

I was drawn to thinking that it was sort of like the aboriginal people who chose to camp outside rather than live in some Housing Trust accommodation. Her life worked well, though not what authority figures (doctors, police and clergy) might suggest.

There are lots of people like this around.