this was sent to me by a friend. It makes interesting reading…

TPPA – The mother of all Trade agreements and why you should care

The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is being negotiated in secret by 12 countries including the US, Australia and NZ. “Six hundred US corporate advisors have had input into the TPP. The draft text has not been made available to the public, press or policy makers…..The chief agricultural negotiator for the US is the former Monsanto lobbyist, Islam Siddique.”

It has the potential to remove Australian Governments’ power to create laws. Read the rest of this entry »

Why I’m voting for the greens

Something vaguely resembling Ruth emerged in the doorway as if from nowhere and held out a five dollar note. Her face looked like one of those patchy dogs with shades of grey and brown where the punches had hit. ‘Go down to Mings and get me a packet of Kool, you hear me. Here, take this, now bring me my fags, Kool, a packet of Kool. What’d I say?’. ‘Kool’, I said to myself, fresh is the flavor of Alpine, this is Marlborough Country, Benson and Hedges, when only the best will do, and isn’t that all the time. Read the rest of this entry »

The mashed potato of the school day was over with again as the sensations of the day crashed down on me step by step along the path all the way home. Didn’t need a brain because my feet knew where they were going. Passed by the big expanse of beige. The older kids, big vinyl bags slung over shoulders, interactive sounds of challenge and bravado as they poured out of the technical college a few doors down from my junior school and spewed out into the street, onto my footpath.
I kept walking, shoes off, straps of my sandals in hand, the heat of the path causing a burning sensation as sun kissed the soles of my feet via the footpath. I stepped a while on the sun dried scratchy beige that was meant to be grass but was well over due for a drink and I busted for a Sunny Boy, cold frozen orange ice popping from the top of one of those pyramid shaped packages and turning my mouth orange, not to mention what it probably did to my brain. But I didn’t have one.
Across the tarmac, black sticky goob tar latching onto my eight year old feet like fly paper. My feet quickened across the surface, hopping up onto the semi-grass nature strip, shoes still swinging on fingers, prickly bindis spiking my feet from the dead old grass, sun crisping me, beckoning yet more freckles and turning my white body a progressively raw shade of pink. I squinted, still catching roses in my nostrils, trim lines of flower beds in front gardens numbers sixty-three, forty-seven, seventeen.
At the corner a tram rumbled by on a rattling straight line to mysterious places unknown out there in the disappearing distance of the hazy city center with its towering buildings. Around the corner, press the button, and press, and press and and and and presssssssssss. The lights spoke back changing from green to red and I crossed in between the movement of cars, standing in the spaces, navigating my maze, car horns filling the space between my ears. Past the motorcycle shop with its glossy lickable metalica and painted handwriting that glided like a dream over rounded surfaces hugging shiny silver metal.
Ming Wah, Cafe Milk Bar. I could read words and make the sounds to them and this one felt good in my mouth and rang softly in my ears with poetry. Ming Wah, Cafe Milk Bar. It had timing and rhythm and rhyme. And it smelled strange. And it was dim and beckoning with its checkerboard floor and red tassel things hanging from the ceiling, little pictures all around and gold plastic with scrolled shapes curling. Ming Wah, Cafe Milk Bar. It had allure.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

The numbers on the clock radio read 8.29pm when the first in a stream of tonight’s doorbell chimes sounded in the cacophony of sixties rock and seventies kitsch spinning black and vinyl on the record player. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi ho Silver, away!
Lone Ranger, you were not Read the rest of this entry »

Coles and Woolworths are Australia’s largest poker machine merchants, reaping mega profits from the misery of Australians whilst posing as ‘family friendly’ supermarkets. Read the rest of this entry »

Barry Humphries is one of those faces that has haunted me for years. I have had to see his face on TV, in newspapers and magazines, on billboards and each time I remember him in our house, in my room, in the early 70s when I was a child. And the smile from the billboards never quite jells with the leer I remember. So reading about Barry Humphries’ Farewell Tour this June 2012, I felt, finally no remorse for the finale of an iconic Australian entertainer. Read the rest of this entry »

In defense of Crossley, McDonald & facilitated communication
Crossley, McKay and Biklen, from ABC Ramp Up 24 May 2012, reporter Stella Young.

Following Andrew Rule’s feature on the relationship between Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald in the Herald Sun in recent weeks, Crossley and her supporters want to set the record straight. Read the rest of this entry »

When my first book, Nobody Nowhere, became a major international bestseller, my Australian publisher, Doubleday received a submission from Chris Eipper for his fiction novel he was hoping to get a publisher for. His submission was rejected. I then received a letter from him via my UK publisher (I was now living in the UK) informing me that he was involving himself as a researcher in my case. I also received copies of letters he sent to each of my publishers and to the multitude of journalists who had interviewed me. I also heard from Autism Victoria that he had contacted them to try and discuss my diagnosis with them. Read the rest of this entry »