SOUTH MOLE START FOR FREMANTLE TO SYDNEY BIKE RACE
It was very busy with cyclists on the Fremantle South Mole this Saturday morning at 6am when around one hundred bike riders came to farewell the 25 mad ones who started a race to Sydney via Melbourne.
Good luck and have a safe ride, and all come home in one piece!
Roel Loopers
LEIGH STRAW BOOK LAUNCH AT NATIONAL HOTEL
Fremantle Notre Dame University lecturer Leigh Straw has published another non-fiction book Lillian Armfield. It will be launched on Tuesday March 27 at 6pm at the National Hotel.
Lillian Armfield was the first female police officer in Sydney in a time were gender equality was not exactly the priority of the day, so the book will reveal her achievements and struggles.
Roel Loopers
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LEIGH STRAW’S CRIME MADAM BOOK LAUNCH AT ORIENT
Fremantle author and Notre Dame University lecturer Leigh Straw is launching her latest book at the Orient Hotel today at 6.30. The Worst Woman in Sydney: The life and crimes of Kate Leigh is a fascinating book about one of Sydney’s leading crime figures in the 1900s.
Kate Leigh was only 155 cm tall but a larger than life figure feared by many. Sydney newspapers would write about her often as she was involved in prostitution, drugs, sly grog etc. Hence she was considered by police as the worst woman in Sydney.
There is also a Fremantle connection in the Kate Leigh story as she married Fremantle criminal Shiner Ryan in 1950, but because neither of them were willing to move to another state the marriage only lasted six months.
Come and listen to Leigh Straw tonight when she tells more about her book. I hope her crime fiction books will also be available at the event organised by New Edition bookshop as one of them plays out in Fremantle with murders all over the West End.
Roel Loopers
SMART CITIES ARE BETTER CITIES
The Committee for Sydney has published a report that claims that the most successful cities in the world are those that are data and technology driven and combine smart governance with smart technologies.
The report says that smart cities are changing how they engage with their residents and how they design and deliver services, and how they create business opportunities. Read more on WA Today: http://www.watoday.com.au/technology/innovation/six-smart-cities-sydney-can-learn-from-20151119-gl2oqi.html
Fremantle could no doubt learn from and implement some of the ideas that work well in other cities and improve the quality of services. WA Today mentions the Chigacoworksforyou.com website, the Boston’s Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, the Seoul Online Sharing Services and others.
I like the New York City Changeby US NYC where individuals create or join city projects and the City of Paris Madame Mayor, I have an idea that is a participatory process where residents propose and vote on ideas and projects, while the Dutch are always ahed dealing with traffic and the City of Amsterdam TrafficLink SCM sounds like a good idea as well.
What we need to learn is that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel all the time and spend a lot of money on consultants because often other cities around the world have already done the groundwork required to implement the changes that would help improve Fremantle. The results of their efforts are available free on the internet.
Roel Loopers
POPULATION GROWTH A BIG CHALLENGE FOR US ALL
A new report by the Australian Council of Learned Academies-ACOLA tells us a lot what we already know but is important to remind us all about it time and time again.
The ACOLA reports says that by the middle of next century the population will be double in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne and that the cost of urban congestion will increase four-fold in the next 20 years to $ 53 billion by 2031.
We all know and understand that urban sprawl is the major factor in this, so ACOLA recommends to reduce and avoid the need to travel through creating economic hubs so people live close near where they work, and to shift to environmentally friendly transport; public, bikes, walking, and improve energy efficiency; electric cars.
The recommendation I like best, and wonder why it is not happening already, is to get all three levels of government, Federal, State and Local to actually coordinate planning.
ACOLA also suggest to establish a planning philosophy where the need for mobility is reduced and the aim of good health and sustainability advanced.
It all makes sense but how do we get the Great Australian Dream of a big house and garden out of the Australian culture?
The W.A. State Government is not exactly rushing to create so called satellite cities around the Perth metro area and move large departments to places like Fremantle, and neither are big businesses keen to move away from their highrise palaces in Perth and West Perth.
One option would be for Landcorp to release less land for single housing and insist on higher density new suburbs, and urban infill needs to increase faster than at the present rate and that is a challenge for local governments as residents are reluctant to embrace it.
Roel Loopers
ROEL FOR FREO! Beaconsfield Ward. Truly Independent.
Written and authorised by Roel Loopers of 5 Maxwell Street, Beaconsfield 6162.
JINA LEE ART ON SHOW IN SYDNEY
Fremantle J Shed artist Jina Lee has just finished several stunning sculptures for Sculptures at the Sea in Sydney. The Korean born artist who works out of the Greg James studio at Bathers Beach was polishing the work this morning before they are going to be transported tomorrow.
Jina’s work is much appreciated. She sold all her sculptures at the Cottesloe Sculptures at the Sea this year and also the one she showed at Sculpture@Bathers in Fremantle.
Roel Loopers
TIM MINCHIN PROMOTES FREO MUSOS IN SYDNEY
The City of Fremantle should hand the keys to the city to TIM MINCHIN for the great promotion he did at the Sydney Opera House. Tim decided to make the gig on the steps of the famous Sydney landmark a bit of a family reunion and invited his muso family members from Freo over.
Imagine the stage with Freo legend Jim Fisher and his son Tom plus the children of Clancy’s co-owner John Fisher and you’ll get the feeling.
Joe Fisher, the other part of the Clancy’s team, told me today it was quite emotional and that the family had many long nights and a few drinks, so thank you Tim Minchin for putting Freo and it creative musicians on the map!
On another note; Tom Fisher is in charge of organising the great music on the live stage at the Princess May Markets on Fridays. This Friday ZAKHUTA will entertain the crowd in the park next to Clancy’s!
Roel Loopers
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INTOLERANCE IS NOT SUPERIORITY
I have been wondering for a long time what it is that makes so many people believe they are superior to others. My thoughts have been going there for years. Why are people racist, why do people believe their god, their culture, their skin tone is superior? And it does not stop there because it happens in schools and in the workplace and on our roads. People become bullies because they believe they are superior to others, they kill because they believe their religion and their god are superior and that they should punish those inferiors who dare to believe in a different god and who have a different culture
The West Australian reports today about an increase in road accidents involving cyclists, who end up badly hurt under trucks and four-wheel drives, mainly because motorists believe they are superior to other road users. It’s not often ones sees a car give way to pedestrians when rounding a corner, although that is a requirement.
Religious zealots around the world believe they have a god-given right to kill people and kids believe it is okay to defame and humiliate other children on social media, because society is becoming more righteous and selfish. The ME society is more about ego than about sharing and tolerance. Lack of respect for others makes people feel superior and hence they don’t care about the consequences of their actions. Killing an ‘infidel’ or a cyclist is no big deal for those whose arrogance is disproportionate to their intelligence. Inconsiderate speeding hoons terrorise our roads daily while religious terrorists go on rampages to prove points their prophets have never made.
What we don’t seem to understand is that we are all just ripples in the big pond of life and that our self-importance is basically silly. Life is like a market with many stalls and there would not be a market if there were only one single stall, run by someone with a big over-inflated ego. It is a very simple message really, but one that many people don’t seem to get.
Share and care, show empathy instead of judgment, show love not hate, embrace and don’t reject. Have enough confidence to respect other gods and cultures because it won’t diminish the importance of your god and your belief. Your car does not make you the owner of the roads or superior to cyclists, so slow down, give way, take care, and show that you care!
The world is a grandiose place of immense beauty and there is enough of it for all of us to share, no matter what we look like or believe in. Let’s go out there each and every day and show that we care and that we value the lives of everyone.
Je suis Charlie. R.I.P.
Roel Loopers
AUSTRALIA BECAME A BETTER COUNTRY IN DECEMBER
Christmas is the time for hope and to reflect, but looking back in regret and contemplating what could have been is not very productive, so I want to concentrate on the one important aspect, that Australia this month became a much better country.
Forget the political mediocrity at state and federal level and the inconsistent performance of Fremantle council and reflect instead on the fact that Australians have shown great empathy and humanity in the last few weeks.
The saddest moments this year for me were the drowning of the autistic boy Sam in Landsdale, the terror idiocy in Sydney, and the horror of the eight murdered children in Cairns.
But what came out of it was an amazing show of care and compassion when hundreds of people from all over Perth joined the search for little Sam, and then the vigil, the carols and his funeral.
In Sydney thousands came to show their respect and lay flowers and the Muslim community made a great effort to show that the lunacy of a criminal murderer had nothing to do with religion or culture and was not done in the name of their god.
How can one not get cold shivers when one thinks of the saddest tragedy of all when the sacredness of childhood was taken away so brutally, but again the community in Cairns rallied and showed they care and that they hurt and grieve with the affected families.
Australians have shown that we reject the suggested narrow-minded madness that the solution to violence and terror is to carry guns, and that we believe that a sophisticated society like ours is better than that. We have shown that revenge and hatred are not the way we react when madness challenges our values and democracy. We have shown that we don’t want to react with racism and judgmental violence and that we are mature enough to know that the act of an intolerant zealot had nothing to do with the Australian Muslim community.
Australia matured in December and has become a much better country for it.
Have a very happy Christmas!
Roel Loopers
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