Wednesday, February 20, 2013

A beautiful day and the film Colour Blind

B'H

We have had a busy couple of days and I am working on getting work and getting a brochure up and running for two workshops in the country for writers. Day long functions and we are having a thriller film shot at the farm house during Pesach. I have to sell my house or my right to the house to this lovely couple of non Jewish people who are producing their first film. They have a Jewish actress and that is the connection. They are so excited because the farmhouse, location and setting is perfect for their film.
We are staying in town for Pesach which will be a bit of a trial, but we are being paid for the inconvenience. I will be able to pay some bills that have been long out standing. So I will pesach clean but have to kasher for Pesach elsewhere.
The wind is up and I have to say that this place I could live here until I die. It is the best place in the world. You see the scenery and the wind in the trees sounds like the sea wooshing away. I love it and am so happy here. It is the most beautiful place. I never want to live in a city again for anything in the world. It is just awful going back into the city with the traffic and the noise and dust. It is always with the greatest of relief, I head out to home after being in the city.
The goats came for a walk with us today and had a lovely time. Osnat bucks and prances. Dolly has started to talk. She was a very silent goat since we have had her here in October and now she talks to me. Her voice compared to Osnat's is rusty and croaky. It makes me believe that she has had some sort of shock in her life.
Osnat come to town on the weekend and had a  lovely stay with a Mizrachi family who I still have to thank properly for hosting here. She was unsettled by being in town though so I had to take her back on Saturday night after shabbes was out. She tried to leap a six foot fence and obviously missed us.
Here is one of our photos.


Nir is playing king of the hill with Osnat and Dolly. Dolly is saying to him, 'Be too cheeky and I will bunt you into the water, young man.'
I will be starting a job in a day or so working with a man from Florida. That will be fun. It is education and we are communicating via skype on a project and if it pays well I will be more than happy. Trouble is I will have to be up at 1 am as Florida is 16 hours behind us. Need money badly so who cares, I will get up at 3 am if it means work and money coming into the account.
Watching a film that I got out of the mobile library today called Colour Blind and yes, I do identify. Only with the reactions of my family and there it ends. My ex did not treat me like a queen, ever. Far from it. Cash cow and workhorse, more like it.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Thank G-D every day for being a Jew..

B'H

Researching for a story which I am rewriting and reshaping, I found some very disturbing information on Islamic practices in Africa and the Middle East. Not only Islamic unfortunately, despite the wrong information given on a Norwegian Utube clip where Jews were mentioned along with others, as practising this barbaric and brutal custom.  It has never EVER been a Jewish custom. For that, I thank G-D.
Our religion is based on not causing harm or pain even to the animals we slaughter for our food.

My story is about an American girl who meets an educated Egyptian university student and chases him back to his country,  when she gets pregnant and has a child to him. The differences in religion and culture become very obvious, even though the family of her boyfriend do not practise female genital mutilation (FGM) there are other differences in out look which make life uncomfortable.
Here is a clip on Afghanistan's women - some of the most abused and downtrodden women in the world. Especially when you have the Taliban - an extreme Muslim or Islamic group, closing schools for women and perpetuating violence and supporting ignorance and the most barbaric and backward practices of their religion, then you have girls like these in the clip below doing the most desparate things to escape the misery in their lives.


This is, of course, some of the more extreme practices, but it shows that we have a long way to go to educate in some areas of the world. These women need support to throw off the barbaric shackles of a medieval mentality. In fact, it is worst than medieval and belongs in the darkest of ages.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Networking Job Sites

B'H

It has been a busy week. I am building my work profiles on two Freelance sites called Freelanced and
Elance.

Elance
This is an excellent and very well organised site. What I do like is the fact that you can get tested on a whole range of skills, not just English skills, but software programs that are connected to communication and media websites. I am testing myself in a few areas. I have had some unpleasant surprises with the editing test (Chicago Style US) and intend to retake the test when I can in a fortnight's time and again until I can get into at least the top 10 %. While it is pleasing to be up with the top 10% or 20 % in many cases, I am working on my skills as I realise I am rusty and must make the top 2% or at least the top 5% to be guaranteed employment. In these sorts of competitive markets, I see people with mediocre or pedestrian skills who still get jobs, but for how long I wonder? It is best to work continually at perfecting your skills. I used to tell students when I was teaching, 'Don't believe anyone who tells you you are rotten at something or worse can't ever be good at something, because you have gotten less than 50%. If you really want to, you can work at your writing, reading and speaking skills and become world class. It is up to the individual to choose his or her path and work at it.'
You can also get Degree documents and certificates verified which is a big plus for the hirer or employee. This comes at a price though. That is the problem and as soon as I have some money in the kitty, I am going to get my documents verified.
The other plus is the space to put up a portfolio of work for prospective employers to go through and I have viewed some very impressive portfolios and some that are less than impressive, for what I would expect at least.
https://www.elance.com/s/edit/leedsiy/

Freelanced
This site has a different set up to Elance and my preference is Elance because it requires freelancers to be registered and those who take the skills tests are supposed to be more likely to be hired because you the hirer can check out the potential employee more thoroughly and you can see what their capabilities are. Portfolios are worrying from the point of view that work can be plagiarised on the Internet and the work may not belong to the person who is advertising it. I have joined both Freelanced and Elance.  Once I am working, I will also set up a website to get my work and recommendations out there in cyberspace and get a savings and investment plan going once I have paid off my bills.

http://www.freelanced.com/ilanaleeds

I have put myself on this website as a greeting card illustrator as I intend to do some Australian Jewish Cards and just plain Aussie cards in good taste. There are so many tacky cards out there. Offensive and crude are not my cupcakes. I am calling my card company Good Taste Cards GTC. :-)  Seeing as I love food it is a good name and I will work with clients who want specific cards for a function or festival.  I don't do Xmas cards or Easter cards. Not sorry. There are plenty of those on the market already.
I am looking forward to having some fun and building up my portfolio with writings and cards on both sites.

E ads and Web based worksites or markets are the way of the future. You have to be hanging out there in cyberspace and to keep the learning and skills up to date to be hired. Hopefully some of you out there will find these sites useful for work and will get a profile up and going.  Not only freelancers but I imagine there are people who are looking for skilled freelancers for your businesses. These two sites are a great resource.

You Gotta LOVE Bob! He has more important issues on his mind...

B"H

Really loved this interview segment of Bob Katter. At last we have a politican who can beat some of the journalists at their own game. He sticks to what he feels is relevant and has boundaries. That is how you know that his politician BS is cut to a minimum.
Other politicians will say what you want to hear and go on and on if they think there is a vote in it. Not Bob.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/samesex-marriage-off-agenda-at-katter-party-conference-20130213-2ebz5.html

He is 100% correct. Too much has been made of this issue. Good on him. He would make a good PM. No waffle and no nonsense.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Gardening and producing your own vegetables...

B'H

This afternoon we harvested our first lot of potatoes. I had harvested and cooked some tubers last week and was surprised at the freshness and taste. The Gippsland soil is rich and fertile. You can drop seeds into the ground and they spring up over night. As I pushed my fingers through the rich loamy earth, I reflected on how incredibly far most people are from being able to produce their own food and what would happen in a world that would demand many in today's cities and towns to work the earth in order to eat. Most probably would find it very difficult or frankly they would starve.
Out of necessity, we are gardening. I have never been a keen gardener and have preferred animals always over digging in the dirt, but I have taken to gardening and find it quite relaxing and enjoyable. There is the added satisfaction of eating food that one has grown rather than bought. Anyway I have always been big on food and remember years ago, my fellow students at Uni would eat at the most atrocious places and I went to health food stores and ate practically organic before it was fashionable, because I cared about health and what I put into my mouth. Yes, it was expensive, but goodness knows how my health would be if I had not. I see some people who are my age and they look ten years or more older than I do. Mac Donald's are some of the worst and when I see some very young people looking as if they could rival the side of a bus for rear axle butts walking down the road, I feel incredibly sad.The health of these people is going suffer and they will be crippled at forty if they do not take care and look after their diet more.

We - son and I have been working on the garden and he has his own section. He will grow a few things there of his choice. I am getting another handle for the big hoe. It snapped. They do not make hoes like they used to do. He has his own little hoe and is pretty busy with it.
We have replanted some potatoes and should get another harvest in about six to eight weeks or so, maybe a bit longer. I am amazed at the quality of the potatoes and am looking forward to the pumkins flowering and fruiting. I have plans to put the floor of the old chook pen onto the garden. It is good fertilizer. The goats will be housed in the chook pen in winter. Osnat will be pregnant by then and as it is bitterly cold here in the winter, I will work the chook pen floor out and level it and put down a bale of rice husks and straw on the floor for the two girls.
Ozzie or Osnat will be going to Melbourne with us on Friday to spend Shabbat with friends in their back yard. We will milk her there and they can keep the milk. I am making yogurt for an elderly friend of mine and giving her some milk as it is very good for arthritis. Some one said to me last Friday that I looked good and relaxed and I do know that I have lest joint pain and am able to use my hands more freely again. The slightest bump against my hands and especially thumbs used to send pain shooting up the wrists and forearms. Now I can move them more freely. While my back is still not much chop I can move more freely once I warm up in the morning.
Quite scary that I find it so difficult to walk in the morning and have to hold onto things until I have warmed my joints up through movement. That is as a result I believe of the stress from being bullied and not a natural aging process. I am doing another meditation course this coming Sunday which is free. I have to put myself in a space that does not allow me to be affected by the negativity and anger of others and their jealousies.
I also have to train my son not to be affected by the foul language used by some students in his government school and their angers and pain coming from homes where they have very disturbed parents. I see some of the mothers covered in tattoos and piercings and think 'What is wrong with people that they have to cover their bodies with these designs that look quite disgusting now, goodness knows what they will look like in twenty or thirty years time. It is creepy to have a mother who is barely over twenty with two or three kids and she has tatts down her arms, her back (she wears something really skimpy to show off the tatts on her back and stomach) and lower legs.
 There was a young girl in a place called Cheap Fabrics a few weeks back and she had the most revolting tattoo of a woman with her chest opened out and you could see the lungs, heart and organs. Now why would some one want an anatomical drawing like that on their body in a prominent place. Obviously she wanted people to notice her. She was the only member of staff not wearing a cardigan and not wearing a name tag. It was quite narcissistic and even idiotic. She is not someone I would want serving my customers in retail. She was in her short short uniform that if she bent over you probably would see her undies if you were looking and sleeveless so you could see her tatt in its macabre glory. BBBRRrrrrrr very creeepy.

I am trying to instil in my son, moderation, trust in G-D, don't take drugs, (even medicine - except if you have no choice. Preventative medicine in the form of good living and good healthy food is the best.) Do your best, treat people well and fairly even if they do not do the same for you and be hard working, even if you have not got a job, you can still improve yourself, find something constructive and useful to do.
Some how I need to buy four or five geese when I can afford it and keep them in the shed. They will get rid of the snakes if we have any around the house. Geese are good and pretty fiercesome birds. They will also eat the food scraps and leftover stale bread. I can probably get eggs if I get a gander as well and let one of the females sit on eggs. They are smart birds and every six months we will have to get some of them shteched to have a freezer of fresh geese. I have decided I could not eat goats I raise. It would be too personal. Birds are a little different however. I like goats too much and think I would find it hard to eat a goat I also had not raised as they are almost human and very smart. Yes, roast goat is off the menu.
Fresh cheese, yogurt and milk is on though and I am making pasta with goats cheese tomorrow for Nir's school lunch. And potatoes in their jackets with cheese filling and spring onions or potato salad is on the menu.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

What's really important?


B"H

If you had to define the most important element of your life at this moment, what would it be? Of course, over the days and weeks, months and years that can change with the circumstances of your living. 
I have often given this some thought. To be a contributing member of society, being socially aware and doing the best I can in all I undertake has always been a long term goal. For a few years there from the ages of 18 to 25 I was side tracked by people in my life who were not the most positive or healthy individuals to have around. There comes turning points in people's lives and mine was going back into formalised study and bringing structure and purpose into my life and above all working consistently towards goals. 
To be really useful to others one has to work on oneself and place the most rigorous demands and discipline on self. One needs to understand one's own motives and decide whether these are worthwhile or not. This is kind of difficult in a very egotistical me and my wants orientated society where people are encouraged to be self absorbed and indulgent. I was told by a woman who worked at one stage for Blue Star in Queensland cleaning for the elderly that she got paid to take her grandchildren because the mother (her ex daughter in law) 'needed a break from her children as she was a single parent'. I was told this woman in her early thirties needed to 'go out and live a little for a few days.' Pardon me for being judgemental BUT when I was told that this so called 'mother' would then go on a partying spree with her friends, drinking, taking drugs and having sexual partners (apart from the fact she would probably end up pregnant again) over the three or four days, even a week that she was freed from the 'onerous task of child care' my blood literally boiled. If you can't commit to your children 24/7 365 days a year for at least the first 18 to 20 years of their lives, then don't have children. Remain childless. It is safer for you and society. Why should people like that have support services to allow them to continue their selfish lifestyle?

The problem with western society is that many people do lack real purpose. They have jobs, they have disposable income and a surfeit of material possessions. Then they become bored and look for excitement in a variety of other ways. Some are socially altruistic and do good works, others find ways to denigrate and destroy others through talking with peers in a community whether it is face to face or on a social networking medium through the internet because it makes them feel better.
We need to focus more on positive things in society and do things that are positive and constructive. 

I decide several months back after an avalanche of hate mail that I would respond positively to every attack and wish the attacker well in his or her life. It is no use getting upset about it. I have family members who have told very destructive lies and half truths about me and that is most hurtful because they are the people who are supposed to be most supportive of you as a person and to encourage you in pursuing goals and achieving them. I have not quite succeeded in getting over the hurt of their lies because these lies were and are calculated to destroy my credibility as a person and a human being for reason known only to them. It would take a good psychiatrist years perhaps to work it out. Would they ever see one, probably not. They would say it is me who needs the psychiatrist not them.
When I do achieve something it has been derided and belittled and I was told, something must have been wrong with the judges' eyesight when I won a prize in an art competition as well as 'there must not have been any decent entries. The standard must have been real low for you to win something.'
That is negativity most of us can do without. It is neither constructive criticism or warranted to destroy someone's self esteem in such a manner.
I have resolved never to sink to that level of bullying and personal denigration. Unfortunately the latest on the same sex marriage activists show that they are losing the battle of rationale in their debate and are sinking to ad hominem attacks on any person of public or not standing who disagrees with  their agenda. It shows their inherent selfishness and also absolute malice.
The same sex marriage agenda is about a group of people going all out to satisfy personal physical wants and desires at the expense of future generations. I will go so far as to state that. It has never been about love and the other dressings they give it. It is purely about the satisfaction of their base physical wants and self gratification at the expense of others. That is why they lose rational debates all the time and sink to emotive name callings and personal denigration of those that oppose them.



Tuesday, February 5, 2013

In Saudia Arabia a mother grieves

B"H

Around the world we have demonstrations at times with people carrying placards about Sharia law and calling for its implementation into the world. Frankly everything I have heard or read about the so-called laws of Sharia make me a determined advocate against this sort of miscarriage of justice EVER being put into practice in Australia and to keep well away from countries where the so called justice system is run by the card carrying camel monkeys who practise this sort of nonsense.

In a place called Saudia Arabia there once lived a little girl called Lama. Her sweet innocent little face peers out from the hijab. She is all of five years old. Little girls of five and little boys for that matter, of that age are eager fresh faced beings who have ultimate trust in adults and the adult world that is supposed to nurture and protect them. Yes there are the normal scrapes, bruises and mishaps but for the main part, a five year old should be beginning prep at school, learning to read and write draw, play and do a variety of crafts, socialise with their peers. The adults who surround them should be nurturing and positive people.

Unfortunately for Lama her father is a person who preached (maybe he still does because who knows what sort of travesties abound in Saudia Arabia) radical Islam on TV in Saudia Arabia. That was the second unfortunate aspect of poor little Lama's life. When you read the list of injuries, you think that any man who did that to a female child in most societies, a child with a mother, grand mothers, aunts, sisters would be lucky to walk from the house with an intact sense of reproductive organs, let alone alive.
I will not rehash her injuries here. It is all in the two articles and frankly I cannot bear to go over what that little girl must have suffered at the hands of a mysognist  creep who donated 50% of the genetic material that assisted her creation in this world for such an awful end. By no stretch of the imagination could such a person be called a father. A father, a dad has qualities that this perverted monster lacks. He doubted her virginity. Really? A five year old! Most five year olds, unless some perverse twisted older person has gotten to them, do not have much of an idea about sexuality. Why should they? They are children and to be honest, those who want to lower the age where children are taught about human reproduction are doing the kids a disservice. Teach them what is inappropriate touching by an older person yes, tell them not to be afraid to say No and who to go to a trusted adult if someone does do something that the child feels uncomfortable with or touches the child inappropriately anywhere. It could be an older child or an adult saying something, not just physical touching. At sixteen I got thrown out of my Ancient History class by a teacher called Stubby. He was a defrocked minister. He made reference to my breasts and I told him off in the class. I said it was rude and he should know better. I was told to leave the class and never come back. So from midway term 1 in year 12 I studied Ancient History in the Art room. He failed me. In the final Senior exams I topped the class. It was a bitter sweet victory. Linda Cheung got the Ancient History prize at Speech night, but I got the best Senior external exam result. So there is officially supported mysogny  in our society too. Not thank G-D to the extent of the Saudis. They are mysognists par excellence.
If we look at what happened to this man - a few months prison and a $50,000 fine blood money they call it. $50,000 for a little girl torn internally in all orifices, broken back and burnt, we must doubt that they even know the meaning of the most primitive forms of justice.
Women are the bearers, the nurturers of the generations that descend from one generation to the next and the next. There is something seriously sick about a religious creed that is so obsessive about virginity that it perverts normal thinking. Yes. It is better for a girl to come to her husband untouched intimately by any man or woman for that matter. There are reasons which we will not go into here. However to go to the extreme either way is wrong.
Sexuality is one of the strongest driving forces we have in life. It must be correctly and appropriately channelled within marriage. It must be balanced. That is not to say that there are people who choose to live with another person. That may be right for them. From a religious perspective a union to be properly sanctified it should be blessed by a marriage rite. It is not for me to judge people who do not live their lives according to religious laws I follow.
Lama's male genetic parent I would consider a twisted, violent pedophile of the worst order.
I only pray the highest courts judge him appropriately and little Lama gets karmic justice on this creature.


http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/saudi-preacher-gets-away-with-raping-torturing-5-year-old-daughter-to-death?f=must_reads


http://www.examiner.com/article/saudi-imam-rapes-tortures-5-yr-old-daughter-because-he-doubted-her-virginity

Monday, February 4, 2013

Talking Peace (?) and making war in Gaza with children

B"H

Israel's foundations were and are embedded in the Jewish psyche for thousands of years since 600,000 souls surrounded a small mountain in the desert and heard and saw the Torah given over to them. Israel's foundations are about peace, family, unity and social betterment of the individual and the society within which he or she resides.
Israeli kids serve in the army - the IDF - the Israeli Defence Force and its soldiers are  a family, something that few understand. They do not take unnecessary risks with their lives and the lives of others. They do not glory in death for the loss of even one soldier is considered one too many. Life is sacred and that approach to valuing human life is, I believe one of the paramount principles of the IDF and they are about defending their citizens, their families and their country. The Israeli boy or girl who serves in the army goes into basic training at 18 years of age. They do understand what they are doing and what they may have to do.
Many Israeli parents while proud that their child is in the IDF to serve their country, are praying and hoping for Moishiach/ peace to come so that their son or daughter no longer needs to serve in the IDF in a war capacity and we all pray for the IDF soldiers to come home whole to their families in peace.

By contrast, our so called 'partners in peace' persist in the worst form of child abuse. They take innocent children and destroy their minds literally. They teach them warfare. They teach them to hate and therefore until we can educate otherwise these "children" will never make peace. These are the spawn of Hamas. The pure and the innocent child that has been bound in hatred to a creed that almost succeeded in destroying Europe.  These children are brain washed into dehumanising and destroying a nation.  But they will not.
This is an article by an Arab journalist. It makes interesting reading. Only through education will we be able to change the mindset of the Middle East and it must be done with Israel under Jewish sovereignty East of the Jordan River.

http://www.jewishpress.com/author/khaled-abu-toameh/


Saturday, February 2, 2013

Does a vendor have rights to not do business with a potential client?

B"H
In the good ole USA a baker has got himself into hot water.

http://www.katu.com/news/business/Did-a-baker-break-the-law-when-denying-service-to-same-sex-couple-189450071.html?tab=video&c=y

Bully gay rights groups are gearing up to have their cake and darn well eat it too. They are taking him to court.
A crazy situation.   Why could he not have looked in his book and said "oh, dear, you said the wedding  is next week. 
I am booked until next June. Sorry.
It's like "Darn. Do I have a right to work at producing something for a buyer of my choosing? 
Yes sir, I do so, SIR.