Hush our mouth? No way…

September 23, 2009

Now, this is not strictly to do with eating or food, but it certainly is to do with all of us here at howtoshuckanoyster – and your ability to go on enjoying any blog you wish to visit around the net. This message comes from GetUp!, the grassroots activist group I reckon does great work on all kinds of hairy issues that others are too chicken to tackle. As a member of the freedom of expression group PEN – and having experienced first-hand the enraging internet censorship that is done so heavy-handedly in China (our family and friends there can no longer blog or even use Facebook!) – I reckon any secret censoring that our government is planning ‘for our own good’ is not on, baby. They are proposing a mandatory internet filter which will operate without your knowledge, in every household in Australia.

The government is proposing this in the cause of child protection, among other things – but even child protection specialists oppose it!

So read on, and if you are worried, take action. Sign the GetUp! petition online and spread the word.

Did you know the Government is proposing an internet censorship scheme that goes further than any other democracy in the world? That’s why I’m one of over 100,000 Australians who have signed the petition to Save the Net. Will you join me?

This Friday, our petition will grace the pages of newspapers across the nation. That way the Government, who are due to make a decision any day now, will be left in no doubt as to how deeply unpopular this kind of censorship is in Australia. Can you help me make that petition too large to ignore?

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/AddYourNameSaveTheNet

Our Government should be doing all in its power to take Australia into the 21st century economy, and to protect our children. This proposed internet censorship does neither. The plan has even been slammed by children’s welfare groups, who say the filter is “fundamentally flawed” and simply will not work.

Can you join me and children’s welfare groups, internet providers, consumers, engineers, network administrators, and over 100,000 everyday Australians in defence of our freedoms? Let’s make sure this Friday’s newspaper ad has an impact too large to ignore.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/AddYourNameSaveTheNet

Thanks!

Posted in Uncategorized |

One comment

BLOODY OUTRAGEOUS.
by doctordi September 23, 2009 at 6:27 pm

Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

aw, shucks

"Wood writes beautifully about food. Partly it's because she has something to say about life, not just about food ... Wood's nimble food writing shifts seamlessly from the hotly contested topic of table-setting on one page to grappling with hunger on another. No philosophy, snobbery, one-upmanship, no competing with restaurant cooks. Just a lot of honesty and admission of failings, mistakes, triumphs and pleasures.
- Helen Greenwood, Sydney Morning Herald

"In this wonderful cookbook-cum-literary memoir, novelist Charlotte Wood evokes memory and emotion as she explains why she loves to cook and what it means to her. Slotted in among the reveries are recipes as diverse as an Elizabeth David-inspired milk-cooked pork and the hedgehog slice of a childhood in Cooma. It's a book that's satisfying to mind AND stomach."
- SBS FEAST magazine

"Charlotte Wood writes so openly about her cooking habits and history and her thoughts about the ethics of good eating that it’s impossible not to be swept up in her enthusiasm. Novice and experienced cooks alike will find something to inspire them here, as Wood has included a range of wonderful, tempting recipes. Reading Love & Hunger is like being invited into Wood’s home, seated at a table crowded with delectable dishes and encouraged to eat until you burst."
- Kylie Mason, The Newtown Review of Books

"This book has the power to reignite a passion for life, friendship, food and the everyday. Part memoir and part recipe book, Love & Hunger can be read cover to cover, as I did, just like a novel, or can be dipped into when the moment requires. Charlotte's unusual cook book is the wise friend many of us do not have ready at hand 24/7. Love & Hunger is a guide, an encouragement and an inspiration.
- John Purcell, Booktopia

"Love & Hunger manages to be a cookbook for the kitchen, a gentle read for the bedside table and a positive affirmation of the pleasure of cooking for family & friends ... This collection of 27 essays gently and sensitively explores the rich complexity and spiritual sustenance that good food with family & friends imparts to our lives. Each chapter explores, a different aspect of ‘the gift of food’ with a number of recipes ‘attached’; all of them good, none of them complex and many wonderfully comforting. There were many moments when reading, we nodded in heated agreement with the almost commonsense views espoused. As one other reviewer noted, it’s rare for a cookbook to move you to tears; be warned you may succumb. ... If there is a criticism to be made, we would only want more…"
- Tim White, Books for Cooks

"Author Charlotte Wood writes like a dream, wrestling with some of those common cooking conundrums, such as dealing with 'polenta paranoia', getting back your kitchen mojo and pondering just what the difference is between a chutney, a relish and a pickle. Her blog is also packed with scrumptious recipes - beetroot palak paneer, anyone?"
- MasterChef Magazine, June 2011

How to shuck an oyster