Finally!

After sitting on the edge of my seat all morning, listening to the rrr fm election coverage and watching the AEC online tally updates, the result we thought we could only hope for came in.

Australian's have finally shown that there is more to life and politics than the economy and low unemployment.

The most brilliant Tracee Hutchinson had this to say before the election:

"Today is the day for Australia to reclaim its sense of justice, humanity, equality and pride. Today is the day we tell each other and the world that we are a decent, good-hearted, generous people who reach out and reach down and walk tall because of it."

The coalition had been eroding our soul for too long, and thank god enough Australian's realised this and, as Kevin Rudd pointed out in his victory speech, many voted for, or preferenced, Labor for the first time. A strong message for conservatives everywhere.

National Loyalty

How far should you go for the sake of national loyalty?
Will reason and logic ever win through?
Would there ever be true integration and equal-opportunity?

From openDemocracy.

By Paul Hockenos for openDemocracy (19/11/07)

“But how important is Kosovo to the Serbs in reality? There is a dark joke inside Serbia that if a Kosovo under Serbian rule would mean (on equal-opportunity grounds) Albanians being granted one-fifth of places in the national parliament, on hospital boards, in the judiciary, the education system, then the Serbs would turn and run in the other direction. The imbalance in birthrates is a horror-scenario for Serb nationalists. In fact, many Serb citizens (and off-the-record, even politicians) acknowledge that Serbia would benefit enormously from cutting loose Kosovo and concentrating on its own problems. But saying this aloud in Serbia is treasonous.”

A quick walk in Mitrovica north

The view from just above the new church - looking over the centre of town.

Is this where they got the Ghostbusters car from?
The UAM building... I spend altogether too much time in my dungeon like office here...

View from downtown public square (that's round) up to the worker's monument on the hill.
Protest sign in centre of town earlier this year. Its no longer hanging here though...

What people are wearing in WTK

Gervy has urged me to look at what people are wearing...

Dapper white suit and a serious mullet...
Wedding outfits, but this was not her wedding... (apparantly you wear it to the next wedding you go to!)
Traditional cultural dress.... to cook flia for 'tourists' (mostly just locals from the city)

Not that I'm nearing middle age, but for those that are:

A (Secular) Prayer for Those Approaching Middle Age

Oh Almighty Charles Darwin,

We who are staring down Forty, beseech thee to aid our passage into middle age.

Protect us from a Mid Life Crisis. We Gen Xers have always been inclined to question the path we have chosen anyway, and indeed have always been inclined toward red convertibles.

Let us constantly renew our taste in music so that those ten years our junior will not be able to tease us for being old fashioned. Let us always be into at least one artist who's first album came out less than five years ago.

And we beseech thee to not leave us to rely on shitty "yoof" radio stations for these cultural insights.

We beg of you for the time and the stamina to go to loud venues and not feel the need to sit down after an hour of standing, listening to the support band. To phrase it another way: protect our knees from the ravages of time.

May we never become one of those people who prioritizes their superannuation over all else. Retirement is followed too closely by death to consider. May we have careers which enable this business to look after itself. And further let us not degenerate into to time-clock punchers waiting on their widening arses for their retirement.

Protect us from our biological clocks. May our ova be plentiful and our spermatozoa motile, up until the moment we get our shit together and finally combine one with the other.

We also beg of you to provide a steady supply of friends so that when they move overseas or we have falling outs, there is always other members of the circle indeed other circles to provide us with drinking companions.

And let not technology overwhelm us. When the things we are familiar with are inevitably superseded, may we be in a position to swap our vinyl records for CDs, our CDs for downloaded MP3s, our MP3s for whatever comes next. May we move from personal websites to forums to blogs to myspace to facebook and on to twitter with ease. May we not be confronted by some new phenomenon and decide just to give in and leave it to "the kids."

May we struggle successfully through downturns and housing bubbles, and not become a slave to a mortgage. May there never be a day where paying something off means we cannot do brunch. May we be inner urban wankers until the day we die.

And may those of us who mis-place our partners meet new, incredible people and form relationships which are the envy of all. May our children not mock us for reproducing so late, and hence being a bit lacking in the "running around kicking the football" department. To phrase it another way: protect our knees from the ravages of time.

And we bid thee, keep our ears functioning despite far too many loud gigs and thousands of hours with Rob Zombie blasting down our headphones. Yay verily for cupping our ears and saying "what was that, sonny Jim?" at the age of 42 will suck dogs balls.

For all these things we beg thy true grace, oh mighty Darwin.

Thank you. Ramen.

A quick walk in Mitrovica south

The new roundabout in the centre of town is almost finished, and while not designed in the most appropriate way for pedestrian and vehicular traffic, has turned out ok. There is a feature fountain in the centre, interesting given the water shortages the town has, and there are even decorative lights in it at night, even when the rest of town has no electricity!
I liked this shot showing the various means of transportation used here. Its just missing a horse or donkey cart...


An apartment block facade being refurbished, by a company that has a presidential candidate as its head. Elections will be held in Kosovo next week, there are around 100 parties vying for seats in local and Kosovo level assemblies and a rather complicated voting ballot for those who bother to show up and vote.


Speaking of elections, this is the Municipal building in south Mitrovica. A slightly depressing kind of a place, with dark empty corridors hiding seperate offices - open plan has not caught on here.

In case I am feeling homesick I can come and look at this shoe store and its lovely picture of Sydney Harbour... or the clothes shop down the street with a kangaroo on the window. Neither of these businesses have anything to do with Australia per se, guess they just like the name/imagery... most businesses in Kosovo tend to take some kind of well known place name or brand name with no fear of copyright infringement. One of my favourites is a burger place in Peja called 'MegDonalds' with the golden arches and all!

Today

Gervy has insisted I write more often and more about my day to day life... so here is the first hastily constructed post to satisfy her whims.

This morning I woke early to a loud gust of wind rushing past my windows, prompting me to get up to see if it was a serious storm or not, only to find snow falling on snow covered rooftops for just the second time this season here in Mitrovica.

Here is a picture of the first snow of the season last week:
The beauty of snow cover is that apart from improving the look of many of the ugly buildings around, it also covers up the rubbish strewn about the place and Kosovo starts to look like an attractive place... almost.
That's a bit harsh I suppose, there are some redeeming qualities of the landscape here in certain locations, but when you spend so much time in the cities and on the main roads between those cities, it can be hard to remember there is beauty hidden away here. Like this:



There are things to make you laugh though. Last week, as I was waiting for the winter tyres to be put on the work car (the tyres have cute little pictures of snow flakes on them!) , I took this photo:

This is in the middle of the capital city, Pristina. A group of cows walking down the street (the wrong way down a one way street too) and noone bats an eyelid. What I couldn't figure out was where they (there were about 5 of them) came from or where they were going to! As far as I could see there were no nearby fields, and no market areas, nor could I see anyone guiding them. Maybe they were just popping down the shops for some sugar?