This month
 feedback


From: Jenny Stirling
Comment: Dear Ture, I am not sure animals belong in a zoo but certain human beings would do well to be on display, answering questions as to their reasons for doing what they do. In other words, justifying their raison d'etre. A novel experience ... I have also read that some journalists describe parks as places where dogs can deposit their business - well that is an attractive analogy for many goings on here in Townsville but I won't go there. I don't quite get the 'preservation of all biological species' bit. In this increasingly pre-modern age, the military are designed to exterminate rather than protect so perhaps there would be a 'disturbance in the force' if we lumped the two together. I see by your contribution to the Jezzine Barracks debate that you are enamoured of large imposing man-made structures, which dominate the prostrate surroundings. Well, that is a bit of a problem for Townsville women, dedicated as we are to the balance between the yin and the yang of society. May the force be with you, my friend. Well, the silly season is almost over and we have had some fun. See you next year when we can fight the good fight and stir up some lighter commentary in the Bully. Life is all too serious these days, don't you agree? Time for some outrageous comedy, and you do it so well.


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From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: OK Jenny, let's go for it, I agree ... a zoo, a Billabong Sanctuary. Perfect for new generations. Can we name the place already now - Kissing Point: Clownsville City Zoo, sponsored by the Crocs and the Cowboys? How about that? I am not joking. I am serious. Here is the new local Townsville political party:
THE ART OF POLITICS, fighting hard for all biological beings' right to exist in the North. Also, check out MY HOMESTEAD.


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: I had the best laugh ever - on a Christmas Eve, anyhow - while reading
MALCOLM WEATHERUP'S article `Go the whole hog' in the Townsville Bulletin. It was great fun to read. Also. let me say my sincere intention with this lobbying concept that I have presented (not the design) is that it may trigger young clever Australian architects to move in and take over the whole matter. It's a `concept' not a design of a `body'. It's borne out of a need for North Queensland to recuperate from cognitive dissonance and thinking, in the past decade, in regards to culture. Thanks for your attention. (I have to go away to a furneral - not my own - so have a great New Year.)


From: Jenny Stirling
Comment: Ture, you asked about my ideas for the Jezzine Barracks site. Speaking personally, when I walked up Castle Hill every week (until early this year), I had tourists from around the world tell me that what they liked about Townsville was the accessibility of the natural environment and the balance between the open and built-up spaces. The open spaces at the Jezzine Barracks have little to recommend themselves as they are, so a park or a specially designed public space would be appropriate. This sloping site is also a natural amphitheatre, which could be utilised as an outdoor theatre. I think a sustained military presence is warranted, given the historical significance of the site. The military museum sounds OK, again because of the legitimacy of the past role and experience of the city during World War II. However, again, I wouldn't want to see a man-made structure dominate the site. Has anyone ever thought of an underground structure, like an earth house with part of the building submerged into the slope of the hill? This idea has a resonance with the underground fortifications. While I am not totally adverse to there being some residential development, in terms of low-rise military housing, it seems a shame that this unique site should be wasted on the mundane. I like the idea of linking the Strand with the Soroptomist Park. In fact, I would like to see the whole theme of the waterfront (sun, sand and sea) and it's historical, cultural and community values linked through to Flinder Mall. Now that would be a project.


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: Jenny. Oh, is it Christmas now again? I forgot, never mind. Happy New Year to all of you. But look now, please describe what you want to happen at the Jezzine Barracks site _ your vision and your proportion of reality. Take your time and let us see your personal view on how this piece of land and water shall be used in the future. The money side will always win, though. My new
UPDATE, dated December 24, 2005, is online. Yours cordially.


From: Jenny Stirling
Comment: Ture, you are a man after my own heart - an artist with images, words and people. Yes, I too think the Jezzine Barracks petition is a massive con trick on the public. As for phallic symbolism, there is enough of that going on with the canal estate with `it is all so exciting' statements as a prelude to an orgasmic explosion of greed and bad taste - always a bad combination when it comes to erections of any sort. As for the Greens, I admit they are an aquired taste, as ever. Even as a child, I struggled to swallow some of the stuff on offer. Like every other party, they are comprised of ideologues and pragmatic people. For my part, I do what I can do and hopefully keep my sense of humour and proportion. Have a good Christmas.


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: Well Jenny, when I was child at the age of seven my parents sent me to a violin course as my grandpa was a very professional violin builder, like my father was too. They gave me a brand new violin. After the first lesson for an hour I went home and walked into the garage and painted the violin blue including the strings and the bow in a gloss pushbike lacquer. When my father later come home he was really tapdancing with anger and I told him that the violin I got now was a piece of art. My father never ever hit me. Since I saved Florence Bay some 15 years ago on a big meeting on Magnetic Island. Tony Mooney got the credits for my proposal to save it or hand it back to the National Park Authority. I lost all the respect for the Greens too. If you think twice my recent proposal for Kissing Point is as real as anything else presnted by all the pretending politicians in this region and it is good too for the boring present `bush' surrounding the great Phallos. And finally it may stop the frantic development on Magnetic Island for a while. The biggest laugh though, in my mind, is how this local community can be so manipulated by a silly `petition-trick' in the local shopping centres by all those ranting local news people. Are they family relatives or what?


From: Jenny Stirling
Comment: Re: Ture Sjolander's latest Jezzine update can be found
HERE: and the winner is. Best laugh I have had all day. How did you manage to do that by the way? Yes the political argy bargy between Lindsay and Mooney will end up in a nightmare like this if we are not careful.


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: Only the sky is the limit for Kissing Point and the future will tell.


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: Latest Jezzine update can be found
HERE. And the winner is.


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: Peter Lindsay and Tony Mooney don't listen to others, only themselves. All suggestions up-to-date will fit in to this large proposal on the Jezzine Barracks Headland. And you have to bother yourself looking into this plan presented at this
website. Click on the logo for Kissing Point/Jezzine Barracks.


From: Jenny Stirling
Comment: From my perspective, it is unfortunate that the colour green was included in the headlines about the go-ahead for this Canal Estate because this is anything but a 'green' project. However, 'green' is also the colour associated with greed so maybe it is appropriate after all. When council's press release talks about burning the midnight oil, that refers to the process of spending time figuring how to get sell the project and how to get around serious objections. Similarly, the language used to frame this press release, (it is not journalism) is designed to manipulate public awareness while at the same time condition people to the inevitability of the outcome. For example, the use of the term `liner terminal' instead of `canal estate' is designed to con the public into thinking this is about tourism when it is merely another developer's nightmare. Neat trick. Perhaps the Bulletin might like to remember its social obligations and seek out the hows, whys and wherefores of a project that will severely compromise the environmental integrity and values of our coastline as well as ensuring a social and engineering disaster in some future cyclone season. This would entail seeking out the hidden story behind the rhetoric. For example: Who loses in this billion dollar deal? What are the power relations that allow this outdated, inappropriate and unsustainable development to proceed? I for one, would welcome the opportunity of sussing out the real story behind the headlines - there always is one.


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: As this following formal proposal about the development at the Jezzine Barracks site is published on the Internet and again republished in your newspaper it is certainly public and has all the validity for consideration, equally and legally, to a posted proposal -
AUSTRALIAN ICONS. ``I believe your concept has real merit'' - Peter Lindsay, MP. The question now is, does Tony Mooney open up his doors for people not in power, as Peter Lindsay so kindly has done? Cr Mooney said Jezzine Barracks would give Mr Lindsay an opportunity to prove he was listening to what the people of Townsville want - and that he can deliver. The Art of Politics - Ciao, Ture


From: Ture Sjolander
Comment: The Saturday Bulletin was like a
VIKKI CAMPION bulletin. Here we have a number of articles on issues showing pictures of guys we already know how they look like, and Tony Mooney is as usual the dominant visual feed on the menu. Look, that story of a cable car is really obsolete when you look at the statistic of tourism to the city of Townsville and a bus tour a couple of times a day would not cost $ 12 million, but mostly the price of a coach. So I suggest to put that stupid project with a cable car straight in the bin. It's a hysterical idea from the party politicians in Townsville. Let us instead focus on the `Jezzine estate' and again, how to make that plan viable and keep local party politics out of the project. It's a brilliant article in the Bulletin by JESSICA JOHNSTON describing how pride and party politics making this town into a laugh. Personally I am laughing when Tony Mooney is saying, ``But my door is always open. I will talk with whoever is in power.'', and at the same time is saying we have to listen to the people of Townsville. Who are they? I am saying it would be better if he said, `I only talk to people who have assets over $10 million dollars.''