An Open Letter to the Abbott Government

Now I normally don't write letters to politicians, but occasionally some things get my goat so much that I feel obliged to break my own rules. If you feel as I do you're welcome to use my text in your own letter.

The Hon. Tony Abbott, MP Prime Minister of Australia

Senator the Hon. George Brandis QC, Attorney-General
The Hon. Scott Morrison, MP Minister for Immigration and Border Protection

Dear Prime Minister and Ministers

I'm alternately shocked and saddened by the depths to which the Australian Government will plunge in its asylum seeker and refugee policy. I call on you to embrace the fundamental Australian value of a 'fair go' and reverse the un-Australian policies of this and previous governments.

The conditions that asylum seekers are being kept in are worse than those we keep people who have been convicted of the most heinous crimes.

We are now asking refugees to abide by standards of behaviour in regards to harassment, intimidation and bureaucratic compliance that even members of parliament would have trouble abiding by. Any person (citizen, refugee, resident or visitor) who breaks Australian law should be held accountable, but that is the purpose of the criminal justice system.

The worst part is that the 'problems' of boat people, queue jumpers and deaths at sea are largely of our own making. We've restricted the opportunities for people fleeing persecution to apply for a visa and enter Australia by air. We've confiscated boats and imprisoned crew, ensuring that only the most unseaworthy vessels are sailed and then abandoned.

By providing safe, alternative means to seek asylum we could largely eliminate these problems, for example through relaxing visa restrictions in known asylum seeker source countries. Processing asylum applications should be swift, transparent and fair.

Once here refugees should be given the opportunity to integrate into the community and contribute to our economy. The expense of welfare payments for refugees is exacerbated by not letting them work.

These policy measures may or may not be reducing the number of refugee arrivals, but that is beside the point.

This Government and its members have often preached about values and morals. The blatant disregard of individual rights, the despicable treatment of other human beings and the demonisation of a group of people who have few means to fight back all for the purpose of winning a few votes shows us the true morals of this government:

To win at any cost, even if that means selling the souls of the Australian people and condemning others to a hell on earth. 

PS for Ministerial and Departmental Staff: I'm not interested in a pro-forma response or one written by a junior bureaucrat, so please don't send me one.

Herräng Resources

Well I'm officially feeling nostalgic about summertime craziness in a small town in Sweden. Registration for 2014 ain't that far away so in the first of a few posts I may or may not write about Herräng I've put together this (incomplete) list of resources about the centre of the centre of the Lindy Hop Universe.

Official Sites

Official Website (I'll note that they've done a major revamp this year)

(and it would appear that Heaven's Kitchen has a website too)

Social Media

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn 

Blog Posts

I've tried to concentrate on blog posts that have been written in the last few years. There's plenty out there from before then.

Lloydian Dance - Reviews of every camp since 1999 (warning - reading these can be a huge time sink - especially if you've been to Herräng before. Lloyd is also a person of very strong opinions, so tune out if you're easily offended)

It's the Way That You Do It - What's Herräng and 10 Things to Know about Herräng 

Ickeroo's - Top 10 Things To Bring With You to Herrang

Small Dancer Ramblings - Herräng for Dummies (also see this post on the 2011 camp)

Jazz up your life Singapore - The Ultimate Guide to Herräng 2011

Rikomatic's 2011 Herräng series - Day 2, Day 3, Swing Kids, Carling Family, Floorcraft, Flu, Final Day, Food.

Norma Miller's HDC 2012 Review

My World in D Flat - Its the Final Countdown! Herrang 2012.

Videos

Calle Johansson's Channel (the unofficial official Herräng channel)

Herräng on Vimeo

Tor Helmstein's Videos (a number of public service announcements and other videos shown in the evening meetings)

Lindybeige's Herräng series (more from Lloyd - this time in video format)

Chester Whitmore - Blackman and Reefer

Anthony Mak's Why We Lindy Hop - Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4

Film Festival videos (Herräng the Musi-Documentary, The Creeper, Herrang Hide and Seek if anyone has more upload them to Youtube)

Blues Dancing Educational Video

Audio

Yehoodi Talk Show's Herrang Show

Lonely Planet - 15 min Audio Documentary

Online News in Australia

With some recent announcements it appears that the number of online news providers in Australia is going up. So (more for my own benefit that anything else - as I want to be able to keep track of the haps back home) I've created a list of online news and current affairs sites in Oz. I'm going to keep things general (so no topic specific sites - e.g. Gawker and publications from Private Media like Smart Company and the AIBM publications like Business Spectator) and electronic (so nothing that also exists in print like The Monthly or the News Ltd. and Fairfax publications).

I'm including sites that feature a paywall - I think that we should pay for quality journalism. If you're a news and current affairs geek like me then you really should subscribe to one (I subscribe to Crikey, mainly for their in-depth work, but choose whatever you want - there's even some you can donate to). I've ordered the sites by their Alexa ranking in Australia.

Daily (during the week at least) or Constantly Updating

ABC Online - 23

The Guardian - 69

SBS Online - 174

The Conversation - 453

Crikey - 786

The New Daily - 1657 

Online Opinion - 1876

Independent Australia - 2635

New Matilda - 6682

The Global Mail - 7672

Periodic

Inside Story - 26331

Reportage Online

A Lindy Hop Pentathlon

So it seems my last post got quite the audience in Finland of all places so Tervetuloa!

I spent this weekend watching the ESDC live feed (and getting drunk on Twitter) and it got me thinking about competitions. Specifically some sort of multi-division contest designed to really pick out the best of the best.

What better model than the Modern Pentathlon - with it's mix of running, swimming, shooting, fencing and show jumping. (well okay, perhaps not such a good model - but whatever I like the number 5)

So what should this Lindy Hop Pentathlon contain. Here's my ideas:

• Social dance/improvisation - Lindy Hop is a street dance and the social dancing is a huge part of the scene and what many competition divisions attempt to replicate. Improvisation (it's a jazz dance) is critical in this.
• Choreography - Though it is a street dance Lindy Hop achieved fame through iconic choreography like the Hellzapoppin' routine. The ability to choreograph routines is part of what makes someone a great Lindy hopper. 
• Solo dance - Dogpossum has convinced me that solo dancing is really important if you really want mad skillz. It's also a big part of our current scene and historically important too.
• Role switching - If you can't do both roles I don't think you can call yourself an advanced dancer. 
• Icons of Lindy Hop - I also reckon that a Lindy Pentathlon needs some spice, something added to the usual comp divisions, something that represents the Lindy Hop and something that really gets the crowd fired up.
• A Team Event - though it does have it's individual elements, at the end of the day Lindy Hop needs a team of two people to work. The pentathlon should be entered by a couple.

And what should be out:

• Other dance styles - No Balboa, No Blues, No Shag. This is about being the greatest Lindy Hop couple, not the greatest vernacular jazz dance couple. So these other styles are out.
• A separate event - this should be taking place at an existing competition
• Gimmicks - dance marathons, jazz alphabets, memorisation of routines etc. Yeah I know it's a fine line between gimmicks and icons, but this shouldn't be too silly.

So with all that in mind here's my list of events for a Lindy Hop Pentathlon:

The Partnered Contests (in at least one of these events the couple should switch roles for the entirety of the event):

• Strictly Lindy - improvised with partner, to unknown music
• Jack and Jill - improvised with random partner, to unknown music
• Showcase/Classic - choreographed routine to music selected by couple

 The Mad Skillz Contests:

• Solo dance - charleston, authentic jazz it's all good
• Huge Air - this is the addition, something to up the stakes and get the crowd pumping. Here's how it goes down. Four eights, thirty two bars, one chorus to pull the craziest most-crowd-pleasing air step(s) possible. To be judged by audience acclamation. For fairness the same chorus could be used for everyone.

Competitors would be judged as a couple with their individual scores in the solo dance and J&J contests would be added to their score as a team. Each event would be equally weighted. To raise the stakes the scores could be tallied and tabled before the Huge Air contest - so the audience knows where everyone is placed going into the last round. This could also be held in conjunction with other events - only those entering all 5 would go into the pentathlon.

So there's my idea. Would it ever make it into an event? Probably not and I'm not really advocating that it should - this is more of a thought experiment than anything else.

Jazz Music Shops for Swing DJs

One of the things I've been working on of late is a crowd sourced map of jazz music stores. When I travel I like to visit music stores and check out their selection - hopefully I can snap up something that's out of print or heavily discounted.

The map is for those swing DJs who like to travel and who like to buy their music in hard copy.

Here's the map:
If anyone has any additions please let me know in the comments. I'd rather avoid adding chain stores, unless they have a particularly good selection.