map of where you go

Some people don't know that bike riding is serious business.

It's life and death, death or glory, glory glory hallalujah out there on the bike paths.

That's why it pays to be prepared.

Know Your Way

Maps are good. Every bike reader needs a map of where you go. But don't go to Bicycle Victoria, they don't know. You could go to Moreland City Council for an 8MB map which is about as comfortable to use as a penny farthing, although happily they have formed a committee for being told to get a better bike map. They can be told here.

Know Your Philosophy

Philosophy is important for bike riders. You can't answer the death or glory? question until you've reconciled some pretty deep shit. Happily in Moreland there are an array of bike riding philosophies going around.

Commuter Cycles

We're always going places. Commuter Cycles is for people like us. People not like us should go here. Which is not to say that the content of Commuter Cycles website is not shamelessly commercial, but M.Shriek appreciates candour while commuting.

Human Powered Cycles

M.Shriek approves of websites which have a Philosophy page. That's why M.Shriek approves of the Human Powered Cycles website. The approval stops there because the philosophy is suspiciously vague: community-minded environmentalism. Happily, the memoriam suggests they have got the life/death, death/glory aspects of bike riding covered pretty well.

Ceres

God dam hippies are everywhere; it's like the 60s all over again but nobody's having any fun.

Except down at ceres. Down at ceres it's a wonderland of organic food, animalia, and good old fashioned bike fixing. The devil knows how good they fix bikes, but their philosophy is spot on: the Bike Group aims to 'encourage mutual respect by cultivating fair and equitable processes in the Shed'.

Hmm. Sounds like an artel to M.Shriek.

Long live communist hippies on bikes!

Just watch the delusional yuppies with prams.

Moreland BUG

The Moreland Bike Users Group is for serious people who think about the overall plans and policies for bike riding in Moreland. It doesn't sound like much fun and 12 seconds on the website bears this out, unless you happen to be into policy, budgets, and meetings.

On the upside, the Moreland BUG Philosophy is charmingly proto-evangelical, with volunteers who 'love cycling' and 'wish to share the enjoyment'. So long as they're quiet about it, M.Shriek wishes MBUG all the best in their mission to bring more bicycles and safer bike paths to the world.

Ethics, Terminology, and Christine Campbell, MP

Meet Christine Campbell, MP.


Christine is the State Member for Pascoe Vale, which encompasses Pascoe Vale, Pascoe Vale South, Oak Park, and the western districts of Coburg.

Her profile reads much like that of any other apparatchik: concern, compassion, community-mindedness, early age, community groups, member of, many years, keen involvement, electorate officer.

However, Christine's story has a curious theme: ethics. Yes, although her constituency mail has her fascinated by 'jobs jobs jobs', in fact she is frequently concerned with 'the dignity of the human person', and is currently studying a Masters in Bioethics.

How bloody fascinating.

What a relief to have a polly who isn't writing their own prognosis on how the first way can be combined with the second way to create the Third Way to salvation.

Yet how is this concern for ethics manifest?

As a member of the 2nd coolest creek gang going around (Friends of the Merri Creek, of course), is she raging against the degradation of the Merri?

Mmm, no.

As a member of the Moreland Bicycle Users Group, is she lurking at intersections, casting guilt-trips at single-occupant cars?

Mmm, no.

In fact, Christine is concerned about abortion, in particular the devaluation of a human life in embryo form. Kudos for Christine for stating her views; she makes no bones about the fact she believes motherhood begins with pregnancy. Her views are not held by M.Shriek, and at least for the purposes of this initial observation of Christine's interest in bioethics, we are concerned with terminology, not rationale.

In particular, her use of the term 'abortion industry'.

Now, terminology is a funny thing. We all use it with different meanings, and goodness knows the discourse surrounding abortion has been punctuated by regular use of heavily-laden if not downright nasty terms. 'Abortion industry' is one of them. It implies an industry which actively encourages poor contraception, unsafe sex, and accidental pregnancies purely in order to make a profit. 'Abortion,' says Christine, 'is about both a woman and her unborn. Abortion can never be about one or the other'. That's a noble sentiment, so long as we bear in mind that there is no Third Way in bioethics either - you cannot synthesise a woman and her unborn to concoct an 'abortion industry'.

Why should this get my goat? Because the kind of people who use the term 'abortion industry' are people like David Duke. The same David Duke who argues that the 'abortion industry' is run by 'extremist jews'.

M.Shriek eschews guilt by association. But M.Shriek also implores with Christine to watch her terminology, lest the unwitting mistakenly connect her to the profoundly unsavoury opinions of people like David Duke.

All the best to Christine Campbell, MP.

Edgars Creek

This is Edgars Creek. Less pretty but more geologically significant photos can be found here.

The creek runs 17km from Wollert to North Coburg, where it meets up with the Merri Creek, which itself is a tributary to the Yarra River. At the Edgars/Merri junction is a 6.5 hectare tract of open space - mostly parkland, native vegetation, and a golf driving range. Previously the land had been earmarked by VicRoads for the now-obsolete F2 Freeway project.

Now obsolete?

So we've got all this space and nothing to do with it?

Let's have a party and invite the world!

Alas no. The land is retained by the State Government, which has generously offered to sell the land to Moreland Council for the princely sum of $10 million. Failure to purchase will see the land sold to developers.

Naturally the people who have been using the open space for the past 30 years are a bit annoyed. They have become rather attached to Edgars Creek.

And so have a lot of other people. The Kelvinator, the Greens, Friends of the Merri - it seems everybody loves Edgars Creek except the State Government and VicRoads.

Send State Environment Minister Gavin Jennings and VicRoads an email and tell em not to be misers - gift the land back to Moreland City Council, so it can continue as open space for public use!

Further information can be found from the Friends of Merri Creek.

The Coburg Initiative

Coburg is a place of varied characteristic: diversely populated, hills and vales, lots of kebabs and walnuts.

'Initiative' is probably not one of Coburg's better known characteristics. 'Adapting to circumstances' might be rather more accurate, if the conversion of Pentridge Prison into a luxury apartment village is anything to go by.

Hence M.Shriek was slack-jawed with amazement to learn of The Coburg Initiative. Sufficiently slack-jawed to ask: 'what is the Coburg Initiative?'

The Coburg Initiative is a plan. Not just any plan - it's an action plan. An action plan to implement a Structure Plan - the Coburg 2020 Structure Plan. It is, if Moreland City Council propaganda is anything to go by, a plan 'about new jobs, housing, services and retail' which 'will lead to improvements to the public realm', provide a focus on 'new connectivity between people and their places of work, culture, sport and leisure' and will celebrate and preserve 'the things that make today's Coburg great'.

M.Shriek hopes readers will agree that that all Sounds Great.

There are a few caveats on the execution of the Coburg Initiative. The first is that the plan will be actioned by Equiset, a Grollo Group subsidiary. The second is that the Coburg 2020 Structure Plan is based on the Melbourne 2030 Strategic Plan for sustainable growth - the same Melbourne 2030 which Premier John Brumby appears to have gone extremely cold on.

M.Shriek hopes readers will agree that that all Sounds Rather Worrying.

On the whole, M.Shriek can only conclude that one way or the other there will be a great deal of relief once the Hon.Prem.J.Brumby has actually faced the voters in the polls. Being the kind of Premier who jettisons without notice previous strategic plans and policies for sustainable living should prove much easier to pull off with some sort - any sort - of popular mandate.

The Feds: Feeney and the Kelvinator

Moreland is lucky enough to host two federal politicians. Senator David Feeney has recently settled just across from the Post Office Hotel, while Kelvin Thomson, Member for Wills, has long been located just around the corner near the Coburg RSL.

Moreland Shriek powerfully endorses both the Post Office and the Coburg RSL, and some of their gloss may yet rub off on the feds.

Feeney, as he is known to those who hope that calling him 'Feeney' will somehow impart characteristics similar to Chuck Feeney (but not Tom Feeney), has only been in parliament since mid-2008. The jury is still out on Feeney, but he does have the inestimable good fortune of being married to a top-notch legal eagle who goes by the fabulous name of Liberty Sanger, so it is safe to assume he will make a very good case indeed.

The Kelvinator, as he is known to the friends he has not yet met, is a bit of a dude and an all-round champion. He's tall and bald and lean and mean, and he gives a big damn about Edgars Creek. He also mixes it up with the local hoods: Tony Mokbel, Phil Cleary, Bob Hawke. All came before the Kelvinator, yet only the Kelvinator remains.

He has also lately been having a stern word with high school students about population control. But more of that later. First, there are more important matters to attend: do you prefer the Post Office Hotel or the Coburg RSL? M.Shriek readers will immediately realise the importance of this question. M.Shriek suggests the answer is crucial to political fortunes in Moreland.

Being concerned about political fortunes in Moreland, M.Shriek thought it wise to put this question to both Feeney and the Kelvinator. But in the spirit of good faith, we do not resile from stating M.Shriek's position:

Hocking draught with respect for tradition is important, and both the Post Office and the Coburg RSL honour tradition in their own unique way: one through homage to the seediness of Moreland's penal past, the other through respect for a retired serviceman's need to sit somewhere with guns on the wall and quietly drink cold beer.

But M.Shriek prefers the Coburg RSL - it has lawn out the front.

It is Coburg, after all.

Media in Moreland

As Noel Counihan well knew, the People's Republic of Moreland has a proud history of hosting good old-fashioned shitfights and blues in the name of liberty, socialism, and having good old-fashioned shitfights and blues.

But these days Moreland-specific media is relatively minimal.

The Moreland Leader is the primary media agent. It is owned by News Limited and maintains a devoted online presence in addition to its print run of 67,000.

Reportage usually covers local issues of popular concern, local political developments, or PR for schools and community groups. Like many local newspapers, the Leader has been something of a launching pad for career journalists, as few contributors stick around longer than a year or two.

Happily for The Leader, Moreland Shriek is prepared to countenance its ongoing existence.

Why? Because the 'Leader loves the City of Moreland'.

The same surely cannot be said of The Leader's rival organ, the Fairfax-owned Moreland Community News. With a circulation of just 34,500 and no online presence, the Community News' heart clearly lies somewhere other than Moreland. The good folk at Fairfax labour under the delusion that the Community News is 'respected for its comprehensive and accurate coverage of the local news and community events'. Moreland Shriek humbly submits that nothing could be further from the truth: the Moreland Community News is widely considered to be a second-rate rag primarily concerned with peddling classified advertisements.

Digital media activity in the hyperlocality of Moreland is sporadic. The Republic of Moreland was a pioneering blog, but has recently fallen silent. Now muppinstuff maintains a similar focus on sustainable lifestyles and local events, while the Newlands Community Alliance is more specifically campaign-driven.

Moreland's virtual public sphere, like its corporeal public sphere, has a certain political bent. In the coming weeks will take a closer look at these blogs and the curious beasts who run them.

Update: M.Shriek has been blessed if entirely surprised to learn that the Moreland Community News no longer exists. They should have learned to spell Gowrie right. You don't mess with the Good Folk of Gowrie Station, lest they became the Rampaging Mob of Gowrie Station.

The City of Moreland

This is the City of Moreland: People's Republic and bastard child of Jeff Kennett.

Moreland was born in 1994, a secular trinity of Brunswick, Coburg, and Broadmeadows. Today the City of Moreland is ruled by 11 moderately evil High Councillors.

M.Shriek may have more to say about them later - if they're lucky. Be it enough for now to say they are led by the great rumbling benificence of Mayor Lambros Tapinos. M.Tapinos and his comrades found power in November 2008, so they'll be around for a while.

In the meantime, 142,000 Morelanders will labour for the perpetual prosperity of the republic, and the righteous advancement of garish propaganda all around the world.