Vic's quest for enlightenment?

I don't read or watch the news. Partly it's a time thing. But also things that get reported piss me off. So I avoid it.

I saw some news on television last night and thought - hang on, I'm completely unaware of what's going on around me and maybe I'd better rectify that situation. Not necessarily so that I'm a more world-concious being. I'm not. I'm caught up in my life and the people that I know. I'm more easily upset by reading a blog post that says someone who I have never met (but feel I know because I read them daily) is in pain. I'm more easily upset by something like that than I am about hearing that some country that I can barely remember the name of from early high-school geography is about to blow up the citizens of some other country. There's too many in the people in the world, anyway.

As for terrorism - don't start me. Actually do start me. The only way anybody can stop terrorism is to eradicate the word from the dictionary. And then it'll be defined by some other word that means virtually the same thing. There will always be terror, and there will always be those who use it to their advantage. Fuck, wouldn't you? If you felt you were boxed into a corner?

I'm not a heartless bitch when it comes to these things. The thing that chips into my little stone wall of empathy is actual people. Take September 11. I watched the coverage. Mainly I was unemotional. Shit - basically something big has happened that will cause a chain reaction of other big things. What do I get to do about that? Sit there and watch the coverage. Fucking yay. But the people. Seeing people jumping from a building to certain death in order to avoid being burned alive? That struck me deep, because I could identify with that absolute terror in a way. I cried then, and then only. For those individuals.

And then there's the "celebrity" news. Fuck off with that, too. I don't care if a star of some movie I might have seen is pregnant. Or has spilt up with their husband. That shit happens all the time. Why are they so special? Who wants to hear about some celebrity twat's battle with alcoholism? Unless you're as rich as they are you won't be able to come through it in the way that they have, because you simply don't have access to that kind of treatment. A private treatment centre that you can admit yourself to? Fuck off and line up.

Similarly there's news on sport. The Aussie Rules football finals are coming up. I call it aerial ping pong. I have no interest in a game where the players seems to chase each other round the field in a pack like a small swarm of bees. I couldn't care less about the lead-up to the big game and who is playing and who is sidelined. The game will happen. Somebody will win, somebody will lose. Fucking yay.

And then there's the science news. Japanese researchers have produced a see-through frog? Now that pisses me off. That's playing god. Breeding something purely for research is messing with the natural order of things. What for? Why do it? Basically it comes down to stopping death. That also is messing with the natural order of things, and like I said before - there's too many people in the world anyway. I make that argument, but really I should stick my head back up my own arse, because I'm on painkillers developed through scientific research and in doing that I'm messing with the natural order of my body.

Basically, I want to be more informed so that I've got something to talk to people on a general level about. A conversation starter. So that I can appear a little more broad than music happenings and who is fucking who in the coffee club circle in my local town.

Wish me luck, it probably won't last long.

Australiana with a twist.

In an interesting snippet:

Female koalas indulge in lesbian "sex sessions", rejecting male suitors and attempting to mate with each other, sometimes up to five at a time, according to researchers.

The furry, eucalyptus-eating creatures appear to develop this tendency for same-sex liaisons when they are in captivity. In the wild, they remain heterosexual.

Scientists monitoring the marsupials with digital cameras counted three homosexual interactions for every heterosexual one.

[...]

"Wild koalas brought into captivity clearly display homosexual behaviour on a regular basis. A total of 15 heterosexual and 43 homosexual interactions were recorded in separate animals. Homosexual behaviour was restricted to females only."

Monitoring with digital cameras?

Kiruna, Sweden

How's this for focused on your local industry!

Sweden's northernmost town of Kiruna will move its centre a few kilometres away to save it from sinking into the ground due to underground cracks created by iron ore mining, officials said on Tuesday.

In order to continue to operate the lucrative mine, in the next few decades, the town centre will need to be moved, including all major buildings, the railroad, the railroad station, the terminal, the newly-built highway, homes, water and sewage systems and electrical systems.

Greater Kiruna has 23,500 inhabitants.

...

But here's the bit that I find funny/disturbing/heartless:

"The railway is the most important thing since it is closest to the mine. It is a prerequisite for the mine to be able to continue its work, since iron ore traffic makes up 90 percent of transport on the railway," Hannu said.
Read the rest of the article here.

It is the biggest iron ore mine in the world, which started as an open-pit mine but went underground in the 1960s. It is also the most modern mine. It seems they've known about the cracks for a while, as it was predicted in 2004 that within 20 years the city would disappear into the mine. It just seems to be a lot about industry and very little about planning.

Here's another bit, from mining-technology.com

LKAB has invested some $50 million to dewater part of Lake Luossajärvi in order to access 100Mt of ore beneath it. The KUJ2000 haulage level has been extended to the area, and mining began in early 2003. The former lake bed has been forested in order to prevent dust emissions from the dried bed silt.

- Dammit! There seems to be a lake in the way. What do we do?
- Well that's easy, mate. Get rid of the lake.