Elegy: Kalgoorlie 2016

Elegy: Kalgoorlie 2016

  

The distance between a Facebook page

and a mineshaft, where vigilantes threaten

to drop the murdered, is so very small.

Behind screens is only part of the damage,

it’s when bigots emerge from self-

illumination, self-images in their eyes,

that it all comes together: the running down,

the killing, the justifications. In a mining town

the burrowing down to what might be at the core

of belief is also an attempt at erasure: to mine

away souls. But desecrators unearth

their own demons, digging deep to find

the white goods they desire: as Dr Plot

conjectured in 1667: ‘lapides sui generis,

naturally produced by some extraordinary

plastic virtue, latent in the earth...’ this fossil

record we turn ourselves inside out for,

reaching too low. And so, frontiers

are made on the field of the screen,

and Kalgoorlie — out there — epicentre

of the goldfields, cutting edge of race riots,

Superpit-proud of the venal seams in the Aussie flag,

flexes its Midas touch on God’s Own Country

while a dead boy’s family grieve and grieve and grieve.

            John Kinsella

More about Facebook et al.

By Tracy

Further to my blog post of the other day, The West Australian today reports that social media like Facebook are "causing people to become increasingly anxious as users feel pressured to be constantly connected", according to an Australian survey.

I find it interesting to note that the student cited in the article (Nikkita Venville) had fought her "addiction" (my term, not hers) to the point of getting someone to change her password (then hacking back in to access it!) and even more, that she felt she was being left out by her "friends" when she wasn't on Facebook, which is exactly the phenomenon I mentioned in my post.

"I did feel like a bit of my social life had (gone) because I couldn't keep in contact with the people I usually kept in contact with - and I didn't know what was going on," she said.

"People were saying haven't you got my Facebook message instead of calling me up to invite me (to parties)..."

Well, I'm not worried about the "parties" -- but the cutting-off from non-users is a sad reality.

We don't want Facebook

By Tracy

I came across a page on Facebook (no, I don't use Facebook, it was something I stumbled across via a search engine) that reproduces a Wikipedia entry (full of inaccuracies anyway) on John, and thereby bears his name.

John loathes Facebook for what it does (me too -- can't stand the utter breakdown of privacy it involves -- not to mention the fact [this bit is me, Tracy, not John] that Facebook addicts cut you off in real life if you're not in their Facebookworld! -- I am excommunicated by those for whom it's too much effort to step outside Facebook for a moment!) and is surprised and irritated that this Facebook page bearing his name should exist. (It reminds me of the line from John Forbes -- "even if we don't choose to join you, we do". Well, we don't.)

John also loathes mobile phones. Are we the only people who don't have them? I hope not. They too are an addiction, and they are environmentally damaging as well as a risk to health.

Some Facebook and mobile phone addicts think it's about snobbery, not deigning to be part of something because it's perceived as "too popular" and therefore uncool. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the case of mobile phones (and other wireless equipment) it's about being conscious of EMR. In the case of Facebook, it's because we don't need it, and because we have a stronger sense of privacy than it allows.

By the way, we managed to keep in touch with others, not get lost, and know where our children were, long before these things became the "norm".