Stumbling on melons

Propublica has produced a timeline anthology of videos posted on the alt-Twitter Parler during the riots/demonstrations/insurrection (call it what you will) on the day of the certification of the US presidential elections at the Capitol in Washington.

I find it fascinating and potentially a great resource for any contemplation of what is involved when what used to be called a “mob” um, mobilises. You could book-end it with, say, a reading of Barnaby Rudge – probably Dickens’ worst novel, dealing with the Gordon Riots.

One thing which strikes me is the amount of sheer milling-about that was involved. Another is the mix of people with varying motivations and attitudes. If it weren’t for the fact that this was occurring at a critical juncture for the conclusion of the election process, you might take many of the participants to be unruly tourists – wandering about with their mobile phones aloft. I reckon many of them thought of themselves participating in a demonstration rather than an insurrection.

In real-time, it must have been hard for many who were there to know what was going on. Watching the videos (and I haven’t watched them all) made me appreciate more the common characterisation of mobs as “unruly.”

At around 2.44 pm inside the Capitol (you can filter the videos by “Around D.C.”, “Near Capitol” or “Inside Capitol”) you can hear some shots. Could one of those be when Ashli Babbitt was shot? No-one seems to flinch much when you hear the shots, so maybe not – and, to repeat myself, how could anyone not right there know what was going on? There were rubber bullets so there presumably was other gunfire.

As far as I can make out, this was a group (generalising here despite my earlier point about a mix of people) certain of the righteousness of their cause and the force of numbers. Otherwise you’d think that in the USA there could easily have been firearms borne (though apparently one participant died after tasering himself). I recall reading that participants were urged not to bring firearms. It could be (though hard to work out how) there were physical checkpoints further away from the Capitol which precluded that, but a desire to avoid more lethal retaliation from security forces and possibly to minimise legal risk for organisers probably played a part in any case.

The address by Trump kicked things off. He set his audience on their way [afternote: though some were already at the Capitol and making ready to storm it before his speech concluded – see comment on another blog here] then went back to the White House leaving them to it. That’s a pretty blatant form of would-be plausible deniability of responsibility for whatever might ensue. To my mind it also shows why it’s fitting that he be impeached for inciting what then proceeded in his name.

This picture comes from a Sydney Water website. It shows the position in 2006. A lot has changed since then.

Alexandra Canal was built in the last decade of the nineteenth century to canalise a waterway and swampy area previously known as Shea’s Creek, which drained (roughly) from Surry Hills to the Cooks River, just before that river entered Botany Bay.

This was already not the nicest part of Sydney. The idea was that a navigable canal would open the area up to new industrial uses. This was never much of a success. The canal silted up; road transport improved. Meanwhile, to its south-east, Kingsford Smith airport squatted ever larger and louder. To its north/west were brickpits and rubbish tips.

On the picture above, the green area at the top is Sydney Park, which started to emerge from former brickpits, rubbish tips and other industrial uses in the 1980s. The scraped area to its south-west is now covered with roads and flyovers associated with the mouth of the Westconnex M5 extension tunnel – ie the M8 which will soon be joined by other Westconnex tunnels from the north west. Two new bridges have been pushed across the canal (Gardiners Road leading to the M8 and Campbell Road) and basically that area is entirely given over one way or another to roads, though we are told there is open space beneath and between them.

The grey line snaking from left to right is the goods railway which leads to Port Botany.

The Princes Highway, roughly parallel to the canal, is surprisingly inconspicuous in this picture. In a way that is part of the problem for which all these new roads are apparently the solution. The brown area to its south-east was an enormous truck parking lot. There is now an IKEA on the site of one of the two large white buildings just above it in the picture. This fronts the Princes Highway.

There was a dream in the late 1990s to remediate the canal into a “Little Venice” but this was abandoned when it was decided that the sludge in the canal was too toxic to be disturbed. At least, that was the official announcement. There may have been other reasons as gradually other infrastructure has been shoved into this unloved area. At the bottom end, the pipeline from the desalination plant emerges from the other side of Botany Bay.

The green areas further along the canal to the south west have been playing fields and a golf-driving range and waste land which was obviously a rubbish tip.

The truck parking area, the former golf driving range and some of the playing fields are now the site of the Sydney Gateway Project, which basically just means more spaghetti junctions and roads. We are promised more “open space” beneath and between these.

Meanwhile, on a street heading off the Princes Highway just opposite IKEA is this tree:

You would think amidst such desolation, such a tree would be treasured, but it has outgrown its welcome.

From that notice: the tree “is fair overall condition and is causing severe damage to the surrounding public infrastructure that is difficult to overcome through reasonable and practicable means.” It will be “replaced” by a crepe myrtle to be planted during Council’s 2020-2021 planting program.

In case you missed it, the final section, headed “Trees are good” states “Council is committed to increasing our tree canopy with new tree plantings that will improve our urban environment.”

Seen in Queen’s Square Sydney on the way to the dentist last year.

Is it because of the dangly bits, or are men more careless than women?