Monday, 16 February 2004
Sea change.
I've been tweaking the blog's style sheets yet again, and I've come up with a new look — but you may need a broadband connection (and an up-to-date browser) to enjoy it. The style sheet is called "Sea Salt," and you can select it from the popup menu in the sidebar; it has a background image that weighs in at about 800K, and makes use of the CSS background-attachment property, on which Micosoft's Internet Explorer browser doesn't conform to the spec.
I'm not going to suggest that you upgrade your browser to something more modern, because I don't like sites that require a certain browser or operating system any more than you do. But if you have a fast connection and a standards-compliant browser, check out the new style and let me know what you think.
Also, in the astoundingly unlikely event that someone wants to place an ad here, I've sold out to commercialism and put up a link to Blogads. Corporate sponsorship, here I come!
- Posted by Scott Forbes at 10:28 am. comments.
Monday, 16 February 2004
Riots in Redfern.
And you thought race riots only happened in America: The Sydney suburb of Redfern, which I drive through on the way to work every morning, erupted in violence last night in response to the death of a local teenager. Residents of the predominantly Aboriginal area claim the teen was being chased by police (which the police deny) when he lost control of his bicycle and was impaled through the neck on a metal fence. Eight officers were injured in the ensuing riot, and the railway station was firebombed.
To make an extremely sweeping generalization, Australian Aboriginals appear to have the same social status in Oz that African-Americans endure in the United States — the bottom rung of the caste system, with many of the same stereotypes applying to both groups. The parallel isn't exact, of course, and in some ways indigenous Australians have more in common with Native Americans… but some of the problems are the same: Ghettos, poverty, crime, hostility, prejudice, lack of opportunity. I wish I could say that Australia had solved these problems and that America could learn from their example, but yesterday's violence says that isn't the case.
I drove past the railway station on the way into work today; the windows are all burned out, the sign is partially torn down, and there were more police in riot gear than I've ever personally seen. I wonder what tonight will be like.
- Posted by Scott Forbes at 9:28 am. comments.
