OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: freda underhill
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 08:08 AM

Hi Judy and Charlie

I have just looked through them and saved some - what great photos. Thanks for going to all that trouble - I presume that if it's worked for me, everyone else will get in as well.

It's late here & I'm off to sleep

happily

freda

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: GUEST,JudyB
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 08:37 AM

Hooray! Thanks, Freda!!

And thanks for the additional info, Foolestroupe. I'm wondering if the trouble with my Verizon site is that Verizon as a company and possibly web provider is also in Australia, and I need to add a "us" or something somewhere so it knows which one to look for - I think Charley heard from someone in Britain who could see our Verizon site, so it isn't just folks in the US who could use it. Oh well - immediate problem solved. I'll work on the other one some other day.

Thanks again to everyone who helped debug this!

JudyB

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 08:54 AM

And Brett in Guam can apparently view the original website because he's still in the USA, although in a territory some distance west of Maine and New Hampshire.

I'm not sure where Roger the Skiffler is located.

Wonder what the website looks like from Iceland?

Anyway, it's time that someone else who had a camera working posted some images. Maybe they better send them directly to Mudcat for posting, unless they enjoy solving website puzzles as much as Judy does.

Hey, we did have fun and sometimes there were no pictures taken. Maybe we should start working the Journal up into verse!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, with too much time on his hands

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 09:17 AM

I've been so busy looking at the pics & sending links to others who were there I forgot to say THANKYOU to JudyB for all her work.

I intended to buy a scanner soon, but my clothes drier has just died & I gotta dry my clothes! Tho as I've been spending so much money recently (lots of To me From me clothing pressies!!) I might as well buy 'em both.

sandra

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Naemanson
Date: 30 Dec 03 - 10:38 PM

Actually Charley I worked it out once. It's about 8,000 miles.

As for my pictures I have very few of people and I distinctly remember Charley and Judy threatening my life if I showed the first ones I took of them.

However, I too need a scanner and I am not sure if my poor computer could handle it. One of my co-workers has a business wherein he builds custom computers. I'm thinking of going to him for my next desktop.

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 03:52 AM

Charley, I'm in Ascot, UK, on AOL and Windows XP.

RtS

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 Dec 03 - 08:48 AM

Thanks, Roger!

I thought you were from the UK, which I probably could have determined by accessing your personal membership file...

So we still have a mystery why our new "DSL" Verizon website isn't accessible Downunder. The Verizon tech person whom Judy finally connected with had no suggestions, did not consider it a conflict with Verizon.AU which was our best thought. We've probably run up against some kind of global firewall, either imposed by Australian authorities or little green men in flying saucers.

Maybe, I'll PM a few more Mudcatters around the world and see if we can more closely define the bounderies of this "protective bubble." We are pleased to learn that our old "dial-up" website is accessible Downunder.

Be nice to get some feedback from other Sydney folks when they wind their way back from the glorious folk music festival.

It's still 2003 around here. Happy 2004 to you!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: GUEST,JudyB
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 12:47 PM

In the rush to get the site up before the New Year, and the hassle of debugging it, I'd forgotten that I'd planned to explain a couple of things like "Wollemi Pine" and Mick Fowler - I've added details on them now (they're both on the "Around Sydney" page), and can fill in a little more information on some of the other pictures if there are any that aren't that clear. Don't know the names of all the fish - I was more interested in floating around looking at them all than listening to the talk on the ecology of the reef - but we know a little more than we wrote about most of the other photos.

I think at this point everyone can access the site through Charley's web site, and maybe someday we'll figure out why a whole continent can't reach mine.

Happy New Year!
JudyB

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 01:26 PM

Great pictures. Thanks for taking us along on your Ozzie trek. It's been a great trip!

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 06:40 AM

Judy, I had to laugh when I re-read the bit about Victoria St being the home of low-aid people again. I think only rich folk can afford to live there now!!

But without the Builders Labourers Federation & their Green Bans we would have lost all the old buildings in Victoria St & the whole street would have been covered by buildings like the monstrosity behind the remaining 19th century free-standing mansions & terraces. I think I have a pic of the edifice, if so I'll send it to you when I can. It is lengthy & also high - lots of rich folks are crammed into that building.

For those not in the know, the BLF invented Green Bans. It's a bit hard for developers to destroy buildings or trees if the union that does the work refuses!

They were a militant left wing union, and made strange bed-fellows with the middle-class women who saved Duffy's Forest. It was one thing for left wingers & tree huggers to lay down in front of bulldozers, but imagine the fuss when nice ladies did the same AND got help from the BLF.

The current right wing government has done a lot to destroy union power in Oz. (ps. the previous so-called Labour govt did their bit, too.)

sandra

another ps. The FINGER WHARF at the Loo might be a Pier but is has never been called that. The Finger Wharf is the Finger Wharf - even tho rich folks live there in apartments & other rich folks dine or stay in the boutique hotel that shares the wharf with the apartments. In it's working days it was the embarkation point for Australian troops leaving for WWI & WWII.

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: JudyB
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 06:56 AM

Thanks, Sandra!

I know we'd talked a little about the saving of Victoria Street while we were strolling along it, but I wasn't taking notes and couldn't remember enough details to add anything to the words on the plaque.

I've changed the caption for the Finger Wharf - not sure where I got the idea it was called the Pier.

JudyB

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:39 AM

Good notes, Sandra, on Victoria St. and Woolloomooloo. I've actually been researching these neighborhoods since the mid 1970's after seeing a documentary film entitled WOOLLOOMOOLOO in an urban studies class. According to my notes::

"In the early 1970's the inner city neighborhood of Woolloomooloo in Sidney, Australia, was threatened by massive urban renewal. The resistance by the residents; the cooperation gained from the building and trades union; the roles of the politicians, real estate speculators, and city planners; the battles with goon squads and with the police; is all effectively presented in the documentary film Woolloomooloo. Sydney poet Denis Kevans and Builders Laborers organizer Seamus Gill were in the thick of the fight and livened things up with such great songs as this one, patterned after the old sailors drinking song 'All for Me Grog.'" One of the protest songs featured in this film was this one:

Words by Denis Kevans and Seamus Gill © 1973
Tune: traditional "All for Me Grog"

Across the Western Suburbs

Oh, me name it is Fred,
In Sydney born and bred,
And the inner-city used to be my home, boys,
But it's caused me heart to grieve
For I've had to take me leave,
Now across the Western Suburbs I must roam, boys.

Chorus:

Under concrete and glass,
Sydney's disappearing fast;
It's all gone for profit and for plunder;
Though we really want to stay,
They keep driving us away,
Now across the Western suburbs we must wander.

Now where is me house,
Me little terrace house?
It's all gone for profit and for plunder,
For the wreckers of the town
Just came up and knocked it down;
Now across the Western Suburbs we must wander...

Thanks to Bob Bolton, I had the pleasure of meeting Denis in Blackheath back in 2001, sang some songs with him and raised a glass or two.

It's undoubtedly true that Victoria St. is highly gentrified now but I was under the impression that much of the low lying neighborhood behind the Finger Wharf is still low and moderate income residential, something which was not in the original "urban renewal" plan. What seems to have happened is a more gradual "displacement," with a few dramatic highrise condos sticking up like the sore thumbs they are, as you've pointed out.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: JennieG
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:22 PM

It worked for me - awesome! Sandra sent me the link, I have been away at the Gulgong festival. Warmish - nearly hot *grin*, lots of good music and fun.
I thought I should avert my eyes from those nekkid fish though.
Thank you, Charley and Judy!
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jan 04 - 06:49 AM

Charley - you're right about the low & medium density & cost housing in the Loo - Victoria St is in Potts Point, I was forgetting about the wider area & whole plan.

The Loo has a lot of Housing Commission homes, as well as Aboriginal Housing authority houses & the Talbot, and lots of rich folk, too who
own or are buying their own homes. Low cost acccomodation leads to poor people & people with various problems, and the presence of the Matthew Talbot, a large establishment run by the Catholic Church for homeless men, leads to even more transient people.

There are many folks who object to the behavior of some of their neighbours, whether in low-cost accommodation, or spending time in the parks & lanes of the area.

Some folks just write to newspapers, some try to help but one night recently a pack of rich hoons attacked a group of homeless men, doing some nasty injuries. They dressed in black Matrix coats (very theatrical!!), wore dark glasses & used clubs to show they were serious about this threat to their neighbourhood. They also contacted the press later saying they were professionals (of what I wondered) & defended their actions, blah blah - saying all the kinds of things low lives say to defend the indefensible. I wonder if they won converts to their way of thinking.

sandra

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: freda underhill
Date: 03 Jan 04 - 07:14 AM

Hi Charlie

I was in Woolloomooloo on New Years Eve. There was a street party down close to the harbour, and a lot of people were about. The area is beautiful and is a mix of gentry & urban poor.

In the late 80s i used to do cartoons for the BLF (builder's Labourer's Federation) which was the union which had implemented all the green bans. It was an interesting time, when politics was acted out on the streets. Unions, developers, police.. the police in sydney were very corrupt in the 70s and it was a tough time.There was a journalist called Juanita Neilson who ran a local community newspaper in the area. she documented all the goings on and was murdered (her body was never found).

freda

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Jan 04 - 09:23 AM

Freda-

I remember reading about "Juanita Neilson." There is certainly nothing romantic about an investigative reporter getting murdered. Too bad "they" got away with it.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Naemanson
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:19 AM

"They" always get away with it.

I learned recently another lesson in how he rich get richer. It's not just that they don't "waste" their money but that they have figured out how not to pay their bills. I have two friends here who were hired to go to the bahamas for a specila construction job an some rich bastard's second or third or fourth home. Now he owes them for the rest of the job and he's refusing to pay. One of the guys has a friend in the FBI and is talking to him about ensuring that this guy gets an invasive body cavity search every time he flies into the USA.

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:34 AM

Brett, I used to know a bloke who worked at (Oz) Customs who told the story of sitting next to a loud obnoxious drunk coming back from the Middle East some years before. The drunk was from a culture that does not take alcohol & he didn't speak English either. (ps. it was years before the current climate of suspecting nationals of different cultures & appearances)

When they were close to landfall, the attandants handed out Customs cards & the drunk threw his at my friend. No please, or any comment, so my friend politely filled it in & handed it back. Knowing that this bloke had a very short fuse, we did wonder how he had put up with the invasive behaviour for hours.

While he was in the queue he saw a few of his mates, so quietly told tehm that he had filled in the card for the still noisy drunk & had ticked off everything - yes he had drugs, yes he had been on farm, yes he had foodstuffs. etc. They all smiled.

So did we when he told us.

sandra

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Naemanson
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 09:53 PM

Ah yes, it's nice to hear when the obnoxious ones get taken down a peg or two.

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: GUEST,A student Amanda
Date: 26 May 04 - 12:25 PM

I want to find out how about the snake,Mute Fate,one the deadliest snakes that kills you silently.Do you have pictures on it or infomation?

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Naemanson
Date: 27 May 04 - 12:05 AM

I never heard of Mute Fate. Can you elaborate?

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 May 04 - 09:55 AM

Bob Bolton needs to deal with this request. Could someone alert him?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 28 May 04 - 12:00 AM

G'day Charley,

I'm afraid "... the snake,Mute Fate ..." sounds a bit metaphorical (if not metaphysical!) compared the real-world ones I mentioned back in August last year.

Many of our venomous snakes have quite a few vernacular names ... but those tend to be a little more direct that our GUEST's quest (especially when you decided to rest on a long hike, as my father once did, and you sit down on a nice comfortable-looking pile of dried leaves by the track ... to discover you have actually sat on top of the camouflage of loose leaves heaped up over a Death Adder [Acanthorpis antarcticus] waiting to prey on passing small animals. Dad reckoned it would be a toss-up who made the best time in opposite direction - him or the Death Adder!)

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 May 04 - 09:06 AM

And "Good D'y" to you, Bob!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: Snakes
From:
Date: 09 Jul 04 - 09:06 AM

Seeking names of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world.

Subject: RE: OZ Foray from Maine & Guam-Late November
From: GUEST,ClaireBear
Date: 09 Jul 04 - 11:10 AM

In case A student Amanda still wants to know, I've just retrieved the information that the story "A Shipment of Mute Fate," written by Martin Storm and made in 1949 into a radioplay for the "Escape" series, concerned a bushmaster (a South American pit viper) loose on an ocean liner.

Can't speak to the 10 deadliest snakes question, but surely that can't be hard to find out, given the Internet? Or just ask at a reptile store...