Tinkering Travellers

 

Image via https://www.facebook.com/tinkering.australia/  RUDE’S home bible

It probably comes as no surprise that RUDE Girl read Katherine Wilson’s book in a day.  What would have taken Katherine a couple of years, if not more to research and write, I was able to enjoy the fruits of her labour in less than eight hours.  It was an easy read for me because tinkering and tailoring are my passion.  And everything that was written, was pretty much what us RUDE Guys experience and more.  It was wonderful to have all the theory on tinkering [and there had not been that much, until now] in one place.

Katherine Wilson follows us on Facebook at Rude Record, and it was bittersweet when she commented that she wished she had met us, before she had written her book.  We will be here for her, when she returns to write the sequel, featuring a different lot of tinkerers.

This year we reached out into the community to share our tinkering skills.  In July our participation was ended by bureaucrats.  Yes, The Man was telling us we had to officially sign up as formal volunteers, in order to be able to tinker in a grassroots community program of our creating.

Of course, that was never going to happen.  And we recently found validation for our big fat NO WAY in the most unlikely of places.  In the book Jesus for President, its author Shane Claiborne writes,

“Jesus calls us to be peculiar but also engaged in the world we find ourselves in.  We are to be relevant nonconformists.  We are to develop countercultural habits and norms and live them in the midst of an insane world.”

Image via https://www.goodreads.com/

 

The above quote from Jesus for President, inspired us to post this video below.  Some how we think that Jesus would approve of our radical stance, against our over governed and risk avoiding society, that’s now under the control of the insurance industry.

Organisations in our local area are in crisis mode after a cluster of avoidable baby deaths at the local State funded maternity hospital.  It appears to us, that since this tragedy, they are in a scramble to mitigate risk and are going overboard. 

The world has gone insane because governments, multinationals, insurance companies and local organisations are colluding to condition the masses, in an attempt to make them believe that they [the masses] will be protected and better off.   We are not buying it and in our opinion, it’s all about control of the masses, and making profits for the multinationals etc.

And when a local church run facility costs $40 per hour to hire a room, for our FREE three hour community mending event, you really are left questioning where are we heading as a society.

We were reading last night how Australian liberalism is at threat and we could not agree more with Peter Greste as follows:

“Australia likes to think of itself as a larrikan country, that country that calls a spade a f…ing shovel; straight talking, no bullshit kind of country that had maintained that sort of frontier spirit…..it feels like we’ve become incredibly bound up by rules and regulations….”

On page 250 of Tinkering: Australians Reinvent DIY Culture, it highlights that Keal, a state police prosecutor and recent migrant from the UK expressed contempt for Australia’s ‘risk avoiding over governed society’ , where Katherine Wilson, the book’s author wrote that Keal’s comments suggested a beating-of-the-system pride that characterised all the tinkerers interviewed for her book.

Or in Rude Record‘s words Beat The Man!!  Us RUDE Guys are committed tinkerers and we will continue to share what we do from our home [not totally controlled by Big Brother…. yet] via social media.

We have cars and will travel to spaces and places that promote and encourage us to connect and engage with our community, as Jesus did, hence the birth of Mend It, Australia – The Travelling Tinkerers.  We refuse to sign away our right to repair without interference, to large agencies or governments.

“Beat The Man and tinker travel.  The road is where you are free to help others and not become a slave to an unjust system, based on control and a lack of humanity.”