The Twin Ravages Of Time

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Almost all of the pictures on these blogs are from my camera phone, but this one is off my mother's computer because we stayed overnight.


When you've come to make a fortune and you haven't made your salt,
And the reason of your failure isn't anybody's fault -
When you haven't got a billet, and the times are very slack,
There is nothing that can spur you like the shame of going back;
Crawling home with empty pockets,
Going back hard-up;
Oh! it's then you learn the meaning of humiliation's cup.

When the place and you are strangers and you struggle all alone,
And you have a mighty longing for the town where you are known;
When your clothes are very shabby and the future's very black,
There is nothing that can hurt you like the shame of going back.

When we've fought the battle bravely and are beaten to the wall,
'Tis the sneers of men, not conscience, that make cowards of us all;
And the while you are returning, oh! your brain is on the rack,
And your heart is in the shadow of the shame of going back.

When a beaten man's discovered with a bullet in his brain,
They POST-MORTEM him, and try him, and they say he was insane;
But it very often happens that he'd lately got the sack,
And his onward move was owing to the shame of going back.

Ah! my friend, you call it nonsense, and your upper lip is curled,
I can see that you have never worked your passage through the world;
But when fortune rounds upon you and the rain is on the track,
You will learn the bitter meaning of the shame of going back;
Going home with empty pockets,
Going home hard-up;
Oh, you'll taste the bitter poison in humiliation's cup.

Henry Lawson.

If on a winter's night. Discordant touches. Times that weren't ours, that had never belonged to us. His was a fragile hold. Equally cruel, you would have to say. Distance, sad memory, escape; all of it coalesced. He found himself at war with mediocrity; but everyone was a private person. Raging against the light got you nowhere. He pounded away on a typewriter in the middle of a vast warehouse; long since demolished. The Darlinghurst block once occupied by the warehouse had, for a long time, as he drove past, been a hole in the ground, collecting water, mud, rubbish. Now it's an inevitable, modern apartment block. So much money has been made in Sydney; fast talking developers, stand-over men, hustlers, sleek black BMWs, obligatory Audis. Flash houses bespoke a world for which he had never aimed. He had assumed it would all come to him naturally, the ravishing success, the wealth. Instead it swept by him like a rushing river, and he was left sitting in the gutter, on the bank, watching the garbage bob by.

How all this came about he would never know. The girls peddled their wares out of the run down terraces on the side of the Darlinghurst hill. He had always thought of this part of town as his own, his territory; marked out by pubs and companions and late night assignations. I've scored on that corner. I've been in love in that building. All of this was his way of owning the world around him, making the landscape part of his story. But now the city burbled by in a torrent; handsome young faces. He breathed deeply, like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, a little sputtering sound as he breathed their pheromones into him, sucked up their life force, added flesh and heart to his ancient bones.

He could see more clearly now, mores the pity. Vicki Vidikis was gone and he was the only one who remembered her; the wild Balmain poet from the 1970s who travelled the junky trail across India and then made hell of herself as she became a junky mole around the Cross. She was sometimes home, when he decided to wander off the path, way back then, way back when, always talking, always happy to see him. A half finished manuscript in her battered typewriter; the computer age never having filtered this far down. Her book was finished, she told me, but she couldn't find a publisher. And things had got a bit crazy, after she shacked up with that bank robber and ended up in jail for a while. She had found her partner in crime. And now he was dead.

And shortly after that, there was no answer when I knocked on her door, late at night in secret; when no one was to know. She, too, was dead, washed away by excess; by her own madness. Rag tag old friends gathered up her chaotic manuscripts and gave them to her family; told them at her funeral that one day Vicki would be seen as one of the country's greatest poets. But even great poets have to submit, be published, peddle their name; and the few flimsy volumes of hers I once owned, published in the early 1970s, always seemed to me to be possessed of bad spirits, and I wasn't sad, one move, to abandon them. I didn't need her luck following after me.

There was a brief period, 20 years ago now, when I slept with three women in succession; and they all got pregnant. Only the mother of my two kids went with it. The first, Cara, was tearful that day, and I couldn't be at the hospital; I didn't want her to go through with it. And then there was Deborah, who I hadn't seen since the late 1980s; who I met in a therapeutic program and spent the night with after a dance, on New Year's Eve from memory. She was good fun and I liked her but there was a lot going on in our respective lives; and the relationship was over before it started. And I only knew she had got pregnant to me because someone told me; years later. And then we met, just the other day, at junior Tropfest, the festival for short films. She had a young son now; he seemed like a nice kid and she was clearly a devoted mom. We talked about the chaos of those days gone by; the things we had belived in so ardently, way back then; the elaborate gossip circles, the naive, self-serving enthusiasms of those around us.

Is the father around? I asked.
I had got rid of so many of them, I decided I was going to go through with this one; I was getting too old, I didn't have any more chances. He was furious with me; I broke his trust; it was just an affair. I told him it didn't matter, I didn't expect anything from him.
Does he see the kid?
Rarely.
I don't know how blokes can do that, I always wanted children, I said.
Well, I had got rid of so many, I just couldn't do it again. One of them was yours, if I recall.
Yes, I heard. You should have told me. I would have been loyal forever. I always wanted children.
She shrugged, sadly, life had served up so much chaos. We were both in our fifties now, and whatever opportunies there might have been, they were long gone.
I was getting so much advice, it was such a fragile time, everyone knew better than me, she said.
We talked for a little while longer about the films just out; American Gangster, No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood. And then work called, the sound of the mobile disturbing our reminisce. And we said our goodbyes, and the city swallowed us up, again.

THE BIGGER STORY:


http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23299649-662,00.html

After throwing out the Howard government, and the furniture, Kevin Rudd sat down to work. Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey report.

ONE of the first actions of Kevin Rudd's prime ministership was to call in the government removalists to do a furniture swap in his private offices in Parliament House.

"The other stuff lasted only three hours," Mr Rudd told the Herald Sun, referring to the chesterfield lounge chairs and Sir Robert Menzies' desk, which John Howard had hand-picked and used for the previous 11 years.

Rather than buy new furniture he brought out of storage old chairs last used by Bob Hawke. As a consequence, when Mr Rudd invites dignitaries and officials into his private realm, they will sit in slightly shabby, peach-coloured fabric matching the Parliament House decor of the late 1980s.

And the style switch was made at no cost to the taxpayer.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rudd-delivers-progress-report/2008/02/29/1204226991434.html

HONOURING election promises is vital to maintaining trust in politics, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said in an interview marking 100 days on Monday since winning the election.

Mr Rudd said his Government was serious about delivering its promises and "not just the question of being upfront with the Australian people".

"Trust in politics is core, it's critical, it's the coin of politics," he said. "And unless you are maintaining people's trust … then it undermines your ability to lead the country in the future when hard decisions arise."

Mr Rudd contrasted his determination to fulfil promises with the approach of his predecessor, John Howard, distinguishing between core and non-core commitments.

He said Government agendas in education, health, infrastructure, broadband communications, climate change, water, and federal-state relations were "urgent", both in terms of community expectations and objectivity. On climate change and clean-coal technology "the clock is ticking".

The Prime Minister yesterday released a booklet, First 100 Days, listing what the Government had done and matching commitments against progress.

In his foreword Mr Rudd writes that he and his ministers have had "our sleeves rolled up" in the 100 days.

"We intend to produce regular report cards of the Government's performance — and we will continue holding community cabinet meetings around Australia to ensure the Government is always listening."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23300075-5013946,00.html

KEVIN Rudd has assured mainstream Australia he will avoid radical social and cultural change by resisting calls to broaden his reform agenda and by sticking to his election promises.

The Prime Minister warned that people had "elected the wrong guy" if they believed that once he was in power he would unveil a secret left-wing reform agenda or suddenly yield to pressure from sectional interests.

Calling for people to move beyond "the classical Right-Left divide", Mr Rudd said he had been upfront about his election promises and would focus on delivering them in full.

"There's nothing terribly complicated about me," Mr Rudd said. "If you obtain the people's support, that's what you go ahead and do."




An American artist: attribution coming.

Malignant Souls

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Our Redfern backyard.

"Right now, if the statistics are correct, about 15 per cent of Americans are not happy. Soon, perhaps, with the help of psycho pharmaceuticals, melancholics will become unknown. That would be an unparalleled tragedy, equivalent in scope to the annihilation of the sperm whale or the golden eagle. With no more melancholics, we would live in a world in which everyone simply accepted the status quo, in which everyone would simply be content with the given. This would constitute a nightmare worthy of Philip K Dick, a police state of Pollyannas, a flatland that offers nothing new under the sun. Why are we pushing ourselves towards such a hellish condition? The answer is simple: fear."
Erick G Wilson

I can see them in the crowds, pretending to be normal humans, mimicking the actions of every one else. But their distorted faces, misshapen chins, pockmarked skin, their eyes bloodshot from the excesses of the night before, their souls easily mirrored into the physical world, it all gives them away. They are encroaching. They are everywhere. Some of the people in the crowd had allowed themselves to be vulnerable to takeover from entities; and that is exactly what happened. Some of it was genetic weakness, most of it was something else, a corruption of their own soul, their own spirit, which allowed the take over. I shudder, I can see them so clearly. They are out in force this morning; gathering at funerals and memorial services, feeding off the distress, the grief, of well meaning others, waiting their chance.

Pad in hand, I pretended to be a normal reporter, taking notes on the physical world. The words tumbled out of diseased souls, and I recorded them in my makeshift shorthand. There was grief, there was no doubt about that, grief and shock at the passing of someone they had all known so well, had all regarded as part of the furniture. He was aging like the landscape across centuries, one speaker said. He knew he was not long for this realm. I took it down, I took it all down. He was preparing in those final months, leaving his legacy. It went unfinished. We tried hard to beat a path to his door, to say our farewells, to pretend that nothing was happening. What can you say to the dying?

Don't worry, things will get better, I started to say to Bruce, or Bad Boy as his graffiti trumpeted across inner-city terrace walls, the forlorn swish of the traffic on wet roads the opening tune of his final symphony. So many of them had died; I didn't know why I had been spared. It wasn't the purity of lifestyle; perhaps it was brains, knowing when to pull back. He shuddered at the arrogance of his past selves. If you can't handle it don't do it, had been his attitude; and he used the word moron repeatedly, referring to much of the rest of the world. But that same world brought him low, hammered humility into his resistant, glossy, flittery frame. And he looked up and said: yes, it's over now.

The symphony of didgeridoos droned across First Fleet Park, the crowd clapping in unions with the clapsticks, sending his spirit back to the tribal lands in the north. He loved this place, the tourists, the clutter, the P&O cruiser pulled up at the international terminal, the flags of the world flying from its top. He loved this place; everyone had known him, the shop keepers, the passers by. Tourists stopped, listening to the drone of the ancient instrument for a few minutes, sometimes exchanging a few words. He was the perfect showman, without resorting to loin cloth parodies, a modern man proud of his ancient culture; happy to sip cappuccinos and wear Jimmy Pyke t-shirts; to laugh and drink and carouse with his many friends.

Oh how could it be, that the best souls pass so early. How could it be that true brilliance, the genius of didgeridoo players, the Beethoven of the realm, how could it be that he was no longer here, that his body had given in. At 40. The sea-gulls squawked, milling in with the crowds of mourners, used to the handouts from the tourists. Through the frangipani trees were glimpses of the Opera House to the right, the Harbour Bridge to the left; the colonial grandeur of the Museum of Contemporary Art, the ferries, unchanged since the 1960s, plying in and out across the choppy water.

How could it be that such a vibrant spirit left this place so early? Some of the answers were in the crowd themselves, their eyes glistening, half mad. One of the mourners smokes a joint at the end of the ceremony. Others are clearly champing to get at the pub, despite the earliness of the hour; to feel the exuberance and soothing balm of alcohol coursing through their veins, inspiring their memories, bringing them closer together; their grief, their laughter, writ large.

AS a musician, the mourners reflected a rag tag, nomadic life; but one lived with great gusto, enthusiasm, friendliness. Cut the crap Mr A, he would shout to his good friend Atherton, a musicologist from the university of western Sydney. A deranged woman, flakey, high maintenance, hard to bear, danced to the unique aboriginal rhythm, as they sang and they clapped his spirit back to his forebears. Tourists stopped to watch, curious, unknowing. The same tourists, it might as well have been, that used to stop and listen to the ancient aboriginal sound, one of the few authentic sounds they would ever hear, a drone that opened a window back across thousands of years, traditions passed down with great reverence. Before the white man came.




THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/26/2172742.htm

One of Australia's best didgeridoo players, Alan Dargin, has died in Sydney, aged 40.

Dargin performed with high-profile artists including James Morrison and Tommy Emmanuel.

But he was best known for his solo work and his tireless efforts to share his knowledge about the didgeridoo.

Born in Arnhem Land, Dargin began playing the didgeridoo when he was five.

He recorded a number of albums and performed around the world - at London's Royal Albert Hall, in the US, China and Germany.

Long-time friend and fellow performer Charlie McMahon toured with Dargin in Europe.

"Alan was a fabulous didge soloist," McMahon said.

"He played a very original, fast, complex and quite loud style. All his own.

"That really impressed people very much at the time - in the mid to late 80s when people were starting to get a lot more aware of Indigenous culture, especially overseas.

"A lot of people would play didge [in] what the Top End people would call that lazy aeroplane style - you know, which is a soft, kind of new age droning sort of thing. Whereas Alan was really a gun player."

Dargin's album Bloodwood: The Art of the Didgeridoo with Michael Atherton was released in the late 80s and received critical acclaim.

He was also a versatile actor.

He had roles in several films including The Fringe Dwellers and Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

In one scene, he invites three drag queens to a nearby camp. There they put on an impromptu show.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23294592-2,00.html

Iemma forced to act on donations

By Simon Benson and Joe Hildebrand

February 29, 2008 01:40am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

NSW MPs will be banned from receiving donations of any kind and will have their personal campaign accounts scrapped under the most fundamental reform of party political funding in the country's history.

Compelled to act in the wake of The Daily Telegraph's continued exposure of the links between allegedly corrupt developers and the ALP, Premier Morris Iemma will also force developers to declare political party donations when submitting building applications.

And Planning Minister Frank Sartor has announced he would remove himself from future major planning decisions in an effort to avoid perceptions of conflict.

The changes would rewrite decades of political culture in NSW in which corporations have sought to exert influence and exhort favour from politicians by making donations to individual campaigns.

The move follows The Daily Telegraph's revelations this week that both Mr Iemma and Mr Sartor were linked to a questionable developer who donated more than $100,000 to the ALP.

It is an admission by the Premier that the entire electoral funding process is rotten and open to potential corruption.


http://www.theage.com.au/news/us-election/smart-money-says-its-obama/2008/02/28/1203788536068.html

Smart money says it's Obama

Anne Davies, Washington
February 29, 2008

IF HILLARY Clinton wants to know why Barack Obama is likely to beat her to the Democratic nomination for president, she need look no further than his campaign's announcement that it has secured its millionth donor online.

That's not the millionth donation, but the millionth person in America who pulled out a credit card to donate — on average $US109 ($A116) each. In a population of 290 million, where roughly half are conservative-leaning, that means one in 140 Democratic supporters has funded the Obama campaign.

This presidential contest has been groundbreaking in many ways, but none more than in the race for campaign cash. So far in this primary election season — in 2007 and in January 2008 — the candidates raised a combined $US542 million from individuals, the Campaign Finance Institute said. That's nearly double the record of $US285.7 million four years ago.

For many voters, the main exposure to the candidates will be through television ads, and on that score Senator Obama is winning hands down. Advertising consultants say he is outspending Senator Clinton by huge margins in Texas and Ohio. Unless Senator Clinton can win a big share of the vote in these delegate-rich states next Tuesday, it could all be over.

To add to her troubles she lost a prominent supporter, Democratic Congressman and veteran civil rights leader John Lewis, to Senator Obama on Wednesday.

He said he wanted "to be on the side of the people".


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7268707.stm

Steely resolve as Clinton battles on
By Jamie Coomarasamy
BBC News, Washington

Hillary Clinton campaigns in Ohio, 27th Feb
Ohio and Texas are the next big tests for the candidates

When it comes to presidential candidates' planes, it seems that oranges ARE the only fruit.

Just as my BBC colleague travelling with Barack Obama found, on Hillary Clinton's aircraft, the press roll oranges up the incline towards the first class section, as the plane takes off.

It is a case of fact and fiction becoming blurred - a "West Wing" tradition being applied to a candidate whose husband's time in The White House inspired the TV series.

Hillary Clinton feels barely-suppressed anger towards the media at the moment, for what - she argues - is the favourable treatment being given to her Democratic opponent.

So you would half expect her to pick up any orange which reached her and hurl it, past rows of shocked-looking secret service officers, towards the press contingent, as they whistled and feigned innocence.

Now that would be a story.

In reality though, the Clinton plane doesn't seem like the sort of place where much news is made.

Lacking drama

On a flight from Washington DC to Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday, the New York Senator remained huddled with her advisers, preparing for what was billed as a debate, where she would "throw the kitchen sink" at her opponent.

In the event, it turned out to be a combative, but uninspiring affair, rather lacking in drama - of the kitchen sink, or any other variety.

So the reporters languishing at the back of the plane were reduced to guessing which outfit she would be wearing at the debate (answer: a brown trouser suit) and, in one case, to doing a passing impression of her husband, Bill.

It has been a long campaign.

The following day, Mrs Clinton did wander back to talk to us, on a short flight from Cleveland to Columbus, which had begun in a blizzard.

But when she did, her words - in contrast to the weather - were pretty undramatic.

Resolute gaze

The whole event had a rather formal air about it: a stump speech on the economy, which she just happened to be given in the aisle of a Boeing 737, as it was coming in to land.

Hillary Clinton (left) and Barack Obama at the debate in Cleveland, Ohio, 26 February 2008
The Cleveland debate was combative but uninspiring

As reporters struggled to hear her above the plane noise, she brushed off a question about whether or not she had landed a knockout blow in the previous night's debate, saying the prize fighting analogy was simply not relevant.



Photographer Sam

A Direct Line To The Soul

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"What are we to make of this obsession with happiness, an obsession that could well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed by global warming and environmental crisis and nuclear proliferation? What drives this rage for complacency, this desperate contentment? Surely all this happiness can't be for real. How can so many people be happy in the middle of all the problems that beset our globe, not only the collective and apocalyptic ills but also those particular irritations that bedevil our everyday existence. I, for one, am afraid that this over-emphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness may be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I am convinced that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions. I am finally fearful of our society's efforts to espionage melancholia. Without the agitations of the soul, would all of our magnificently yearning towers topple? Would our heart-torn symphonies cease?"
Eric G. Wilson: Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy.


Was it just a matter of picking some point in the past? The fractious divide, the melancholy that had ruled him. Not melancholy exactly, a flat monochromatic living on the bottom of a lead aquarium despair that crushed everything, making survival even more remote. There were kisses, there were splattering moments, there had been the courage to be different, although even that now just seemed eccentric. People had so many opportunities these days. They flashed around in their smart cars and smart jobs, they were utterly professional. He interviewed them. They were friendly, although if they only knew they were so different. None of it mattered. Pad in hand he fired questions and took down the answers. He knew exactly what work wanted. It wasn't self censorship he practised as much as just knowing exactly what they wanted. There were days and days when the confrontation, the routines of the job, were meaningless. That wasn't today.

They told him their income, they told him about their children, they told him about their jobs and revealed far more than any normal person would normally reveal. He didn't understand it, but he had it down pat. The chimera, the wisp, the person who wasn't really there, just a cypher for others. He was absent within himself, and that made him a perfect reporter. He didn't put a spin on anything because there was no spin to be had. He didn't believe in anything, not anymore. Those desperate days when he believed in a wonderful future, when he rationalised that all that suffering would make him an artist of note, all that was gone. All his friends had gone. Their funerals passed, sometimes he didn't even make it; was away for work. Work had come first, even in death, and that he lived to regret, although they would never know. It was all about karma, building it, making up for mistakes.

He was gone now down the long line. His first works were all lost. When he was 14 or 15 he wrote a long verse poem about the souls lining up before God, a ceaseless procession of the dammed. He laboured over the intense vision; infused it with a intensely sad lyricism, laboured over the technicalities. All these origins, these births of words, were imbued with a sense of dislocation and destiny, a sadness and a longing, if not for love then for an embrace from the universe itself. He didn't know how he could go on, what the future held. He had no confidence in his badly bashed self. He was born misshapen and deformed; there was no altering that. Even in his earliest binges, he cried out for help; none ever came.

These mounting shadows, armies of the dammed, faceless shadowed disembodied souls, it was a spectacle before a cruel God, as had been his own suffering. That winding road, those darkest moments, the belts snaking out and that awful brutality, all of it washed away. He walked miles down the steep, isolated road, far steeper in his imagination than they were, he discovered when he went back in his fifties, in reality. Don't worry, be happy, they chanted; and none of that was him. He sought refuge from the battering somewhere inside himself; somewhere beyond the physical realm where the pain and the tears could never reach. There were worse batterings, he knew that intellectually, there were more terrible childhoods, but to him it had been a nightmare without end.

It led so early on, younger even than my own teenage children, to walking along the beach waiting to die, waiting for the two packets of aspirin he had swallowed to take effect. His knowledge of pharmacology was to improve in later life. They didn't kill him, but left him with a tender stomach basically for the rest of his life. The waves echoed up at him, the frothing white fear, terror, sadness, as he waited to stumble, collapse, for his consciousness to give way. It never did. He sat on the beach and cried and cried. No one came near him, no one asked him what the matter was. No one came to help. There would never be any help. He waited and could hear the voices calling out from the surf, an infinite melancholy. If you're not going to die, if this isn't going to work, what then? Where is there to go in this infinite torture? Could he face another bashing, even on the day he tried to commit suicide? Could he stare them down and survive, somewhere deep inside? There was, in the end, only one solution: escape. He had to flee. And that, shortly afterwards, was exactly what he did. And that, in the end, was when it all began.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/iemmas-day-from-hell-might-be-just-the-start/2008/02/26/1203788345705.html

MORRIS Iemma woke yesterday to a new poll that showed his popularity had plummeted to 34% — the lowest approval rating for a NSW premier in 10 years.

But what was more frightening for the Premier than the 18-point drop since last year's election was the timing of the Nielsen poll.

It was taken before the Wollongong council sex and corruption scandal engulfed his Government, which raises the question: How bad is it now?

All indications are that things are pretty dire. On the first day of Parliament for the year, Mr Iemma was dogged by the Wollongong scandal — which involves sex, property development approvals and alleged bribery at the Labor-dominated council — and by the trial on child sex charges of former minister Milton Orkopoulos.

The Premier was forced to defend his Ports Minister, Joe Tripodi, who has been accused of helping arrange a $200,000-a-year job for his mate Joe Scimone, despite Mr Scimone's being implicated in the Wollongong scandal.

Mr Iemma refused Opposition demands to fire Mr Tripodi. And his Police Minister, David Campbell, was forced to deny that Mr Scimone — who has also been accused of sexually harassing several women at Wollongong — had been his campaign manager.


http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2740414820080227

By Carey Gillam

DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) - This former manufacturing hub, now struggling with skyrocketing unemployment and foreclosures, presents a microcosm of woes faced by America's working class -- and voters are seeking answers from U.S. presidential candidates.

Once a thriving hub for the U.S. auto industry, the Dayton metropolitan area now has thousands of out-of-work auto employees and one of the nation's highest foreclosure rates. A local food pantry for the unemployed handed out 286,000 meals last year, up from 47,000 in 2004.

"It's a tough place to be right now," said 51-year-old Rick Tincher, who once earned $80,000 a year making auto parts and now mows grass and picks up part-time jobs to make ends meet. "People are struggling."

This week, as Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, Ohio is a key battleground.

Ohio holds its nominating contest on Tuesday and polls show the race in the state -- once a Clinton stronghold -- tightening as Obama gains momentum in the bid to represent Democrats in the November presidential election.

Opinion polls show Clinton, who would be the first woman U.S. president, has strong support from Ohio women and elderly voters. Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, garners favor from young people and college-educated voters.

But both candidates see support from Ohio's deeply rooted blue-collar base as essential. Each stresses remedies for unemployment and onerous health care costs. Both pledge to renegotiate trade deals that they say encouraged the movement of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/media/27cnd-buckley.html?ref=us

William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn.

Mr Buckley, 82, suffered from diabetes and emphysema, his son Christopher said, although the exact cause of death was not immediately known. He was found at his desk in the study of his home, his son said. “He might have been working on a column,” Mr. Buckley said.

Mr. Buckley’s winningly capricious personality, replete with ten-dollar words and a darting tongue writers loved to compare with an anteater’s, hosted one of television’s longest-running programs, “Firing Line,” and founded and shepherded the influential conservative magazine, “National Review.”

He also found time to write at least 45 books, ranging from sailing odysseys to spy novels to celebrations of his own dashing daily life, and edit five more. He published a book-length history of the magazine in 2007.

This is the end of Volume One of Days

This is the end of Volume One of Days.

Some technical difficulties, including pictures disappearing off this blog, have encouraged me to start a new volume.

Always loved a fresh start. Thanks to everyone for their interest in this often haphazard collection of material on whatever crosses my mind on a daily basis. It's been great fun and occasionally great therapy to do and I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I've also learnt a lot on the path. When this blog began I had no idea how to upload pictures and had never blogged before. It's been a fascinating adventure; and equally fascinating to watch the remarkable development of the blogosphere worldwide. I'm proud to be a part of it.

My story continues at:

http://daysvolumetwo.blogspot.com/

Starting Afresh

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"The planning for the 9/11 operation began in late 1998, and Bin Laden must have known that the United States would retaliate by invading Afghanistan. How could he not know that? But he was quite content that it should be so, because he expected that the Afghans would fight back in a long, brutal guerrilla war, as they had done when the Soviets invaded; and from that war would come a constant flow of images of innocent Afghan Muslims killed by American firepower that would decisively turn the Arab masses against their corrupt, oppressive, sold-out regimes and drive them into the arms of the revolutionaries."
Gwynne Dyer, The Mess They Made.


After some difficulties with the old blog, which was starting to get unwieldy after posting to it for several years, I have decided to start the second volume of Days. A window popped up asking me if I wanted to block pictures and for some reason I clicked it; and immediately quite a number of the pictures I had posted to the blog disappeared. So I thought it better to start afresh than to keep struggling on with it.

So here is the new me. It feels very odd after establishing the old pattern.

There is much to be afraid of, the pain in the feet, the body creaking as I get older. It wasn't meant to be this way. The future was always where hope lay. But nirvana was always just out of reach. I travelled down the coast of Morocco, always further south, searching for the beach where I was going to stop and write a masterpiece, as words and phrases, plot lines and whole paragraphs, formed urgently in my head. A lyricism that had to be expressed.

Instead there was no nirvana, there was no perfect beach, my travelling companion was constantly restless and the idea that we could find somewhere to hide out from the world held no appeal. It was always appealed to me. I've always wanted to disappear from out of the turmoil; find somewhere to hide. Hence my shack in the bush. I was searching for a solution but there simply wasn't one. I wanted to seek resistance, to find the cave entrance high in the cliffs, to come dashing around the corner to find the perfect stream, the perfect pool, to have those who were chasing me drop off, unable to follow the tortuous track. There had to be somewhere safe; somewhere we could hide, raise a family away from the scavengers and the hordes.

His life had been an unnatural one. There wasn't anyway to find a natural path; to sniff the roses, grow your own food. He had been a completely urban creature, the drugs, the jobs, the asphalt streets crowded with cars. There were people all around. He was one amongst many. He felt the lure of other places but this wasn't the time. A low status male, that was what it was all about. He had allowed himself to be bullied. People are like dogs, if you're vulnerable they attack. He had been often attacked. In the early years the only defence, the only escape, had been inwards, behind multiple screens.

In later life; he had sought refuge both in geographically distant spots; and when at work in the creation of a different self. Sometimes he felt he wasn't gifted, that there was nothing to be said. At other times the avalanche was unstoppable; and everything he had been and everything he would be came pouring out in streaks of manufactured confidence. There's a story to be told, tell it. We are all - in - this - together; as one of the pop songs of the moment goes. His hopes were curdled; there was a terribly, crazy power. The forlorn figure that he had so often cut had been washed away. This one stood proud, knew where he stood and what he stood for; tall, empirical, a cool intelligent don't fuck with me look in his eyes. People behaved differently. It was a long way from: nice guy pity he drinks so much. This was a man of authority and substance, someone that garnered respect.

Oh how cruel were these fantasies; how cruel the self-deception. Arthritis was already creeping through his bones and the retirement he had so looked forward to, when he would do all the things he should have done years ago, when he would make up for all the lost and wasted days; these opportunities were slipping away. Time, they say, cures all. It also washes everything away. I just went out to see the house where I grew up, only an hour and a half away from here by car, but a million years away in other senses. And not even the house resembled the house I grew up in; which had been a humble single floor dwelling built on the cheapest bit of land my father could find, the old garbage dump. Now it's a smart two story dwelling worth a million bucks or more; the old man sold for $135,000, just before the property boom which transformed Sydney into a grasping real estate obsessed city. Somehow I missed the wave; through personal predilections and failings, through crippling battles with addiction, through common mistakes and tragic wastes. But at least I'm still here, still working, still going strong, most days. I don't know where it will end; but not here, not in this city. Already it would be time to leave if the kids weren't still so dependent on me. A few more years, and everything will change.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/deny-deny-scimones-modus-operandi/2008/02/26/1203788346565.html

Deny, deny: Scimone's modus operandi

JOE SCIMONE once told a colleague of an approach to life's problems that appealed to him.

"An old lady once told me … 'expect trouble as an inevitable part of life'," he emailed to a co-worker at Wollongong Council, Beth Morgan, in 2005. "When it comes hold your head high and say 'It will not defeat me' … In other words - when shit happens start throwing it … Or as the case may be … deny, deny, deny!"

Since then, as many as five women who worked with Mr Scimone at the council have raised allegations of harassment against him; he has been named in an Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into alleged corruption at the council; he has allegedly paid two conmen posing as corrupt ICAC officials $30,000 to pervert the course of ICAC's investigation; and he has been stood down from his new job managing property within NSW Maritime pending the inquiry's outcome.

But things got a little worse yesterday for the close ally of the NSW Ports Minister, Joe Tripodi, and long-time friend of the Police Minister, David Campbell.

It emerged that Ms Morgan, who has told the inquiry she was sleeping with developers while assessing their development applications, had also complained of being harassed by Mr Scimone. So much so she had to get a new phone number.

In an email she wrote two months after Mr Scimone's missive to her, Ms Morgan told one of her managers she had to change her mobile phone number "as Scimone obtained it and sent thought [sic] a threat last night".

Later that day, Ms Morgan asked her boss, John Gilbert, not to confront Mr Scimone about the matter. "I just want to be forgotten by him and fronting him will only get him angry and more entrenched in his behaviour," Ms Morgan emailed Mr Gilbert. "I will just try to keep a very low profile and out of his way as much as I can."


http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2632123120080226

By Carey Gillam

CINCINNATI, Ohio (Reuters) - With a week to go before Ohio's pivotal nominating contest, Hillary Clinton was fighting to hold onto a dwindling lead as rival Barack Obama worked to undercut her support, particularly among working class voters.

"They are really going at it with a frenzy," said Ohio State University political science professor Paul Beck.

The battles were playing out in a statewide swarm of mailers, television ads and in campaign events that have been drawing tens of thousands of would-be voters from all parts of this Midwestern state known for manufacturing and coal mining.

Clinton has said the results here and in Texas, which also holds its primary March 4, will be critical if she is to become the Democratic candidate who will face presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November election.

"If she were to lose one or the other, she would really have a hard time winning the nomination," said Beck.

Clinton and Obama square off Tuesday night in Cleveland for the last debate before the primary, which has 141 delegates at stake in Democratic party contest. Texas offers 228 delegates.

President Bill Clinton carried Ohio in both 1992 and 1996 elections and his wife's promises to create new jobs and provide universal health care garnered strong early support from working-class families hit by job losses. With more than 235,000 jobs gone since 2000, the state's unemployment rate of 6 percent is among the nation's highest.

"We have a lot of layoffs," said Ji Rawat, a 47-year-old sheetmetal worker with three children who showed up to support Clinton at a rally in Columbus. "People feel poor."

Get A Proper Job, Dog, he said to the parking cop

http://freshwilliam.blogspot.com/

Get A Proper Job, Dog, he said the parking cop







"I leave the bar feeling confident and excited by the prospect of checking into rehab. Back in my apartment, I strip off my clothes, change into some sweats, crack open an ale and drink it quickly. I play early Blondie on the stereo. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of this rehab thing. There's no telling who I might see there. And Jim's right, it is the sort of story you can laugh about for years."
Augusten Burroughs, Dry.


There were shadows he wanted to box against, shadows from a chaotic life which he fought back by simple routine, a rising tide of darkness. There wasn't going to be any straight answers. He dreamt of retiring; and that first Sunday, he always worked Sundays, going to the office, begging: I've made a terrible mistake. How am I going to survive? How am I going to feed the kids? What was I thinking? Why did I ever say I would leave? I need freelance work immediately. These were moments, these were days, of uncertainty, of chaos, of tragedy. Suzy was out the front of the house last night, crying in the car, worried that she will have to move and that the real estate agent won't sign a new lease. Borrowing money off Sammy. For once it wasn't just her, that's Sydney these days, pressure everywhere, difficult to survive, high, read outrageous, rents.

A city divided into haves and have no ts. Those who have their own homes and those who do not. The wages of a normal job just gets you absolutely nowhere. The mortgage belt is struggling to cope. They talk of a two-tier economy; and they're right. There's spectacular amounts of wealth; enormous stone piles perched around the harbour, luxury coating every bay, inlet and alcove. And then there's the 20 kilometres of featureless suburbs to the west, where people build their lives off from the freeways, sheltering from the choking traffic; in dead ends and forgettable streets nobody has ever loved; and mortgage payments have become impossible. The city has become more and more difficult to live in. Which is one reason, I guess, why I have a pathological hatred of parking cops.

They are everywhere in this town, vicious parasites out to get every cent they can. Over the last few years the signs restricting parking have spread further and further. The ticket only; which means you have to pay, signs have also spread everywhere. Essentially there's nowhere to park and a parking policeman, or dog as he thought of them, on every corner, waiting to pounce; lurking in back streets, watching, waiting. Their eternal vigilance made working in the inner-city almost an impossibility financially. When he finally left Sydney there was a string of fines which kept filtering in for weeks. His final job had been so demanding that he would often forget to move his car every two hours; meaning that the $80 he incurred in fines for the day made going to work barely worth the effort.
There's no way back to any semblance of normality. A tidal wave of anger whooshes over him, instant fury.

Get a proper job, dog, he snarls as he walks past one of the uniformed bastards.
Often they pretend not to hear. But although they are trained not to respond to abuse from the public it usually works; they usually bite.
He had, after all, years of experience at working out what actually got under their skin.
It is a proper job, they puff, feebly.
Only a dog would do that job, he snarls. You'd have to be a complete creep. Why don't you do something that serves some useful purpose, instead of going around ruining everybody's day. You must have terrible karma.
May this curse follow you all the days of your life.
And if the children are nearby, he loudly instructs them: whatever you do in life, don't become one of them, a parking parasite. He spits out the words; he doesn't care how irrational his anger.

It's sad, it's vicious and it's pointless. But equally pointless is the mayor lauching an army of parasites onto the citizenry, zooming around in their white ranger cars, puffed up with their unifroms; lurking around corners waiting for you to stop for a minute in a Stop sign.

Every taxi driver tells stories of getting a $200 fine for stopping to pick up someone in a wheelchair. Or for helping to unload someone who is injured or disabled.

His hatred, too, stemmed from the chaos they had created in his life. When Sammy came home from hospital we used to park out the front of the house; and get tickets all the time because we didn't have a residents sticker. When we went to get a sticker
we were told that wasn't possible unless we paid all the back fines; which of course were enormous. So on and on it went; and it didn't matter how we remonstrated with the parking cops, he she or it, they'd stand there writing the tickets; their arrogant passivity projecting contempt. It's a miracle no one has gone out and shot a few of these bastards. If it was America they would have. You see it all over Sydney; people arguing with them, hopelessly, because it's always too late, they've already started writing the ticket and there's nothing they can do; they say. The fines are vastly out of proportion to the working wage, you can easily wipe out a day or two's efforts if you get caught. I got one for $435 once; a disabled parking zone I admittedly parked in for about half an hour because it was pouring rain, I was feeling sick and it was after ten at night. Bang, got you. Dogs, they're all dogs. And my part in all this? Forget it. They're dogs.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/article.aspx?id=219365

Thousands of spectators lined the Sydney Harbour foreshore to farewell the QE2 ocean liner for the final time.

Sky News Reporter Terry Gallaway is a passenger aboard the QE2 and has shared moments of the majestical departure.

'I'm looking forward to a fabulous voyage and a fabulous departure from this city. It's the only city in the world that you can park a 84,000 tonne ship in the middle of the CBD,' Gallaway exclaimed.

'The QE2 is the last of the ocean liners. She's not a floating hotel like the others..... But she's a very capable ship. She's capable of 32 knots and cruises at 28 knots..., and is holding 1,800 guests,' he added.

First class passengers aboard the ship paid up to $250,000 for a ticket.

But as Gallaway revealed, first class passengers and 'sewage' passengers are both served the same food!

'Believe it or not, the menu is exactly the same,' confides Gallaway.

Earlier the 40 year old QE2 and its much younger royal sister, the Queen Victoria, made a historic passing of each other in Sydney Harbour.

The two giant ships saluted each other as they passed either side of Fort Denison with a sounding of their horns as Queen Victoria made her departure from the iconic harbour, and the QE2 took her place in Circular Quay.

It was a historic salute marking the two month old Queen Victoria's maiden visit to Sydney on her first around the world voyage and the final visit of the QE2, which made her first grand entrance into Sydney 30 years ago.

The historic passing comes almost a year to the day since the QE2 and the Queen Mary 2 passed each other in Sydney Harbour, sparking traffic chaos.

Queen Victoria's next stop is Brisbane, while the QE2 will head to Hobart and then Perth.

She will be decommissioned in November and will become a lavish floating hotel in Dubai.

Sleight of Hand Sleight of Fate

Wollongong Beach at dawn; near The Table of Knowledge.


Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
W. Somerset Maugham

"It is certainly in al-Qaeda's interest to keep American troops pinned down in Iraq, where their presence and their behaviour serve to radicalise people throughout the Arabic and the broader Islamic world: American soldiers have long been al-Qaeda's best recruiters."
The Mess They Made, Gwynne Dyer.


There was the murky slides, the almost impossibly good-looking young men, the thump of disco music, the smell of sweat. I couldn't stand the self-exposure, he said. There's a new blog every eight seconds, I replied, no one pays the slightest attention. It's therapeutic; I've got that sort of head; a million tales, some perfectly well plotted, swirling around. Better to get it out. Better to tell the story. Exactly as: there's no use carrying a resentment if someone else can carry it for you. We were compromised, totally. The cruelty of it all, that is what he sought to expose. There were criminals lurking in the shadows. They used to score speed down the Kings Road in Chelsea. Richard used to help us. Handsome Richard we were all in love with. Conquest far off, everything paled. We really could dance. Bitter Lemons. The Alexandria Quartet. This life on the other side of the planet, far from where we were born.

It was the dancing, more than anything, that brought them close. His soul could have been repaired, but instead he coated it with alcohol. Comrades in arms, dancing till dawn. The buildings dark, too drunk to have even planned an escape route. The speed kept coursing through our veins; either torrents of thought or just one long thought. We were in love with each other, with London's dark streets, with the mysterious alcoves; with life itself. Never had we felt so exultant, so adventurous, so determinedly happy. The drinks flowed in fashionable bars. Richard was always getting a job as a barman in some fashionable place. When it came to mixing drinks he knew exactly what he was doing; he could run a bar like no other. We all loved him. We all got dressed up and went to filch free drinks. We all wanted to go there, but friendship would suffice.

Oh pretty boy, why hast thou forsaken me? That was the cruelty, the dog tired cruelty, as the gritty bad speed ground out our teeth and we stayed awake for days; too afraid to go to sleep. We might dream. We might come face to face with ourselves. We might realise that our disaster prone lives were but just a flicker, our expat lives barely breaking the surface of an indifferent, ancient city. But at least we could stand at the back of the crowd at the packed bar, one of many through the "it" nightclub of the moment, we could catch Richard's eye and our drinks would be swirled into our hands while the mere plebs grew more and more exasperated.

That was the era of the giant dancefloor; cavernous clubs; massive mirror balls; "Don't you want me baby?" and the elgant twists as we danced and danced, our bodies lost. Boy George gave a concert and was always in the news. We followed all the eighties bands, a cynical twist, a drop wrist. It never occurred to us that there could be someone who didn't want to sleep with us. We were fabulous, as fabulous as you can get when you're from Australia; and we danced and we danced. I just wanted everything to merge together; the music, the cavernous club, the clothes, the cuties, most of all the music. There was nowhere else to be, nowhere else one could want to be. We smoked and we drank and danced till we dropped; and kept on dancing. It wasn't just the speed; it was the age, the moment, the place, the times. I wanted to be subtle, a fine interlink, but through all these nights the one thing I sought was oblivion, so that the black bourbon and cokes and my spooked, alcohol charged consciouness became at one with the club.

Later on there were the awkward grapplings. Everyone worth having was had. There was no doubt, just adventure. The lack of confidence, even libido, which crept across his old age had not appeared. That's what I ordered while I was waiitng for you, he said. This is history, our history, the best of times. The windy smell of rotting oranges. The clammy ecstasy which made us different to the masses. Nothing was legal. All was hidden, dark. I wanted it to last forever; but everyting fades, the lock clicks, we're done. He shrugged off the importance of the moment, the spooky buildings creaking in the early hours, Richard always up and welcoming, the only person I knew you could visit easily at two, three in the mornig and be guaranteed a welcome.

The news of his death was the saddest day. It was London I thought of, those giant clubs, his glistening dark brown eyes, the wild, appreciative laugh. I didn't want him to die, to follow addiction to its logical conclusion. He had gone back to Adelaide and lived with his mother in the final months, rarely coming out of his darkened room, always stoned. He didn't want to grow old with the rest of us, he couldn't think of anything worse. So there's nothing but fragmentary memories; a handsome face in a crowded bar, white shirt and black bow tie showing off his perfect features. He kissed me affectionately each time we met. I miss him. That's life now, missing people who didn't stay the course; hanging out with another generation entirely. I wish you could have come with me, I wish you were still here.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=acd5VTd9qeD8&refer=asia

Turkey Says 127 Dead in Iraq Battles; U.S. Urges Calm (Update1)

By Ken Fireman and Mark Bentley

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey said the death toll in three days of battles with Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq reached 127, as the U.S. urged an end to the incursion.

The Turkish armed forces have killed 112 militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, including 33 today, the military said on its Web site. Fifteen Turkish soldiers have also died in the conflict, it said.

``We will continue the operation with the same determination and heroism until planned targets are reached,'' the military said, adding that jets, artillery and helicopters had hit 63 suspected PKK targets in mountainous northern Iraq since troops went over the border on Feb. 21.

The U.S., the United Nations and Germany have called on Turkey to show restraint in dealing with the threat of the PKK from northern Iraq. The Kurdish-controlled region has remained relatively peaceful since the U.S.-led invasion five years ago, and the U.S. military is relying on Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers to help battle insurgents in and around Baghdad.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Turkish army should wrap up the campaign, adding Turkey won't be able to solve the problem of cross-border Kurdish raids through purely military means.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/city-bows-to-dancing-queens/2008/02/24/1203788147682.html

GIANT ships waltzed on the water, footballers tapdanced through a grand final, and on stage Billy Elliot learned the finer points of ballet. And as a month of Sundays were jammed into one, Sydneysiders were led on the merriest dance of all if they wanted to do the lot.

Fancy footwork was required, keeping time and dodging collisions in a traffic jam of hot, harried but eager pedestrians. The McLaughlin family, from Avoca Beach, set themselves the challenge, and barely missed a beat as they skipped from harbour to theatre to football stadium under a perfect sky. Others favoured a rhythm less frenetic, a simple jig in the one spot.

For many, that meant a quickstep alongside a dazzling harbour, where the foreshores were packed with spectators drawn by the historic rendezvous of the cruise liners Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Victoria, the one visiting for the 29th and last time, the other for the first time.


http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Recent events
Saturday 23 February: 20 dead

Baghdad: roadside bomb kills 1, Beirut Square; 3 bodies.

Anbar
Al-Shiha: suicide bombers kill tribal chief and 2 policemen.
Saqlawiya: gunmen attack police stations, kill 6 policemen.

Ninewa
Mosul: roadside bomb kills lorry driver; gunmen kill man in drive-by shooting; a child is killed during shoot-out between US forces and gunmen.

Salahuddin
Baiji: roadside bomb kills wife and son of Baiji Council member.
Samarra: roadside bomb kills 2 policemen.

25 unidentified bodies are buried in Baquba.



My mother in the 1940s.

Got a cigarette, brother?

"The political scandal over Wollongong Council exposes a culture deeply ingrained in the Labor Party, from its grassroots to the very top. It is a demonstration of how Labor's longstanding network of mates can go wrong when combined with the toxic mix of power and large sums of money."
Sulusinszky and Norrington

"We are returning to the pre-Howard era where logic and reason and facts are discarded as totally inappropriate and racist."
Janet Albrechtsen

"If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George Orwell.


"Got a cigarette, brother?" they ask as I walk past.
"Sorry mate," I reply in almost a single word, sorrymate, as after the official apology everybody says sorry now. People, standing in the cold at 6am waiting for the crowded bus to take them to their rotten day in a lousy factory, are fed up with paying taxes to support all the nonsense, fed up with the abuse, fed up with the privileging of sections of the community based purely on skin colour. They're sorry alright. As in, I'm sorry you keep dealing so close to our house. I'm sorry you've trashed all the houses down the blocks; 30 years ago all the neighbourhood used to come and stare at all the beautiful houses the government was building for the aborigines, now they've all been vandalised, almost all of them destroyed.

I'm sorry you keep calling us white cunts when we walk past. I'm sorry you keep robbing the tiny little Asian girls, dragging them along the street by their handbags. I'm sorry you don't go out and get a job and stop living off everybody else, because I know it's not good for you. And I'm sorry you've developed a sense of grievance and hatred fostered by white lefties, the Left Green, the Socialist Left, becasue I know it does you more harm than good. I'm sorry so many taxpayers are fed up with getting up and going to work to pay taxes to support and entirely tax payer funded lifestyle, all in the name of commmunal living and indigenous pride.

None of it makes sense anymore. I feel like giving them a lecture. You should give up cigarettes, they're not good for you. Instead of bumming fags in the street you should stand up proud; the cigs will only blacken your lungs and make you feel sick, leave you smelling of stale tobacco and contribute to an early death. In no other era would multinationals be allowed to addict millions of ordinary people to their poisonous chemicals, making them sick and leading to their early death, all for the almighty dollar. But threats of an early death, promise of a longer life, means nothing here.

And the politicians bend over to help the multinationals; spending hundreds of millions of dollars chasing down heroin importers while cowtowing to the tobacco industry. All for the taxes; greed and immorality. But instead of the lecture I just walk past, "sorrymate".

I've finally done it. My son Sam is desperately trying to get his hours up before he goes for his driving test. He's only got to get up 50 hours of supervised driving, he's almost there, over 45 anyway; but the law has just been changed to make it 120 so they're not going to be too inmpressed if it ticks over 50 on the way to the test. So we drove out to Newport; and went and checked out the house where I grew up all those years ago. My father paid 150 pound for the block, which was once a rubbish dump; and built the house. Now it's been completely renovated and turned into a double story dwelling. My father sold just before the property boom for $135,000. The new people said they paid something like eight times that. She was there, Susan, the new owners, and they were very welcoming, as my brother Warren had reported.

Much of the ground floor was open plan; it was all very smart, resembled nothing like the house I used to know. All around the same thing had happened, wave after wave of money and reconstruction had left few remnants of the way it used to be. The Macs house was still there, small, wooden, the ones who used to give us glasses of milk and biscuits and where we used to love to hang around because they were nice to us and we loved their cage full of budgerigards. The steep concrete driveway which had seemed so totally enormous when we raced our carts down it; was barely longer or steeper than an average drive. Joan's house was still there. I had a terrible crush on a girl who lived here, 40 years ago, I said to someone as they got out of their car. He laughed. I wasn't laughing at the time, I was mooning around terrified, wondering what on earth to do.

The glooming terror that I felt in confronting the place was gone; wealthy houses were jammed along the hillside; the bush where we used to roam now gone. The valleys used to be full of palm trees; allowing my greatest moment as a child, when I set the entire valley alight; fire engines everywhere, houses under threat. In terrible trouble; again. Beaten black and blue, again. But it was worth the thrashing, I loved that moment, the fire engines everywhere, the flames leaping from one tree to the next, the smoke, the chaos, the danger. They knew I existed that day.

Things were so much better then, the thought came unbidden, the whole of life was before him and he wasn't old.

I grew up in a silent war, I said again, this time to the new owners. I never heard my parents laugh, I never heard them cry, I never heard them argue. There was just this terrible silence. The huge besa block shed my father built, as big in those days as the house itself, was still there, but repainted and even it renovated. It doesn't sound like you have very good memories of the house, the owner said. As in: we love it here, we've just paid more than a million dollars for it, this is our family home and we never want to leave. It was all to do with my parents, I always liked the house, I lied. I didn't get on very well with my father, and I remember walking down this road crying just days after my 16th birthday. I never came back, not in all these years.

And now I've been there, and some terrible cycle has ended. Thank the lord; the cosmos, the passing of time.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/i-did-nothing-wrong/2008/02/23/1203467451888.html

Tripodi: I did nothing wrong

PORTS and Waterways Minister Joe Tripodi hit back at his critics yesterday, saying he played no role in securing a $200,000 government job for his Labor mate Joe Scimone.

But he admitted he felt the "weight of responsibility" for the crisis in which the NSW Government now finds itself.

Mr Tripodi said he hoped any investigation into Mr Scimone's appointment would be concluded quickly.

"There have been media reports that this could be resolved as early as this week and I sincerely hope this is the case," he told The Sun-Herald.

"Of course I feel bad the Government is in this position but I maintain I did absolutely nothing wrong. I had no role to play in his appointment and it would have been improper for me to do so."

Mr Tripodi said NSW Maritime, which appointed Mr Scimone to the job, had confirmed that he had played no role in the appointment, even though NSW Maritime falls under his portfolio.

Mr Tripodi said he had been unaware of the Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation affecting Mr Scimone at the time he was appointed.

On Friday, Premier Morris Iemma said he had asked ICAC whether it should conduct an independent investigation into the appointment.

Mr Iemma said Mr Tripodi "insists" he had nothing to do with the process and his gut feeling was that he was telling the truth. If Mr Tripodi wasn't he would be sacked immediately, the Premier said.




http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/the-early-word-hard-times-for-hillary-clinton/

The Early Word: Hard Times for Hillary Clinton

By Sarah Wheaton

Friday was a rough day for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought to dispel speculation that her closing debate remarks amounted to a concession amid the death of a police officer escorting her campaign – all while Senator Barack Obama was stumping around South Texas, one of her strongholds in the state.

The Times’s Michael Luo reports on others who are suffering from her campaign’s troubles – small vendors in the New York area worried that their fees will go unpaid.

At The Chicago Tribune, Jim Tankersley writes that Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio could be her “last, best hope” there. The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan looks at Mrs. Clinton’s firewall of working-class voters in Ohio, “who say they don’t want to hear fancy words about changing Washington; they want to know exactly how the next president is going to bring jobs to their struggling communities and make sure their children have health care.”

The Chicago Tribune analyzes Mr. Obama’s stump speeches and finds, among the platitudes, just as much policy as the other candidates have, and Nedra Pickler of The Associated Press previews possible Republican attacks against him if he becomes the Democratic nominee.



James.

Corrugated Iron Roofs

"Morris Iemma has failed the leadership test today by not sacking the factional hacks and mates from his cabinet. We have too many of Morris' friends, too many of those he is indebted to, sitting in key portfolios, and too many problems across the state for Morris to have left them alone today. This is a bloke who displays inertia and a lack of energy even when the stench of corruption starts to hang over his government. If he is serious about ending the stench of corruption that hangs over the state's development industry, he should put in place a system that limits the amount of power that planning ministers have. We have a state that over the last couple of terms power has been centralised into the hands of the planning minister. Morris Iemma needs to commit to planning reforms to reduce the minister's powers, and he needs to commit to finance campaign reforms that cap expenditures on what parties and candidates can spend."
NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell as scandal subsumes the NSW government.


There were spasms of love at inappropriate times, moments of unrequited love so rare he had no idea how to cope; then an old age without love. The middle years were a slow, settling decline. The myths he had built up about his earlier life meant nothing to anyone else; they just added coherence to his story telling. I never had sex except for money until I was well into my twenties, the man said. The words gay sex went unsaid. It screwed me up, really screwed me up, he said; after he had finished saying how most of his friends from the old days were dead, overdoses or AIDS. He felt like a spy in a foreign country, a visitor in a strange land called the future, the sole survivor of a holocaust. But in reality it hadn't screwed him up at all; he gave little and was always drunk; and the cars, the money, the apartments he got in return were the part of the bargain he cared about.

There were people who had been screwed up, desperately screwed up, by what they remembered as the tendrils of evil crawling out from the Rex Hotel, in those far off days, 40 years ago. My gang hung around the fountain, before the park was renovated and for a long time the mysterious, muffled mystery of the place was filled with crains and piles of paving bricks. To the astonishment of us locals, trees were brought fully grown and planted. The barmaid Judy ruled us all with a rod of iron. If any of us misbehaved we were thrown out on our ears. We were only 16. I now have teenage children the same age as I was when all these things happened. The brand new two-tone commodore I was briefly driving, with its sheep skin covered seats and it's flecked gold burnished exterior, made me briefly the envy of my fellows, who never quite got it together to service a sugar daddy.

In contrast to the beautiful apartment I had, and which I often invited friends to during the day when there was no chance of us being sprung or compromised, the flash, rotating cars as I fell in or out with one or the other, the trail of I love you wreckage I left behind whenever they got too serious, the casual cruelty I adopted to survive the persona I had adopted, the confusing blasts of other words that swamped through what I almost regarded as an idyllic life; all these things had been established for protection. I remember to this day the crumbed concrete ceiling of the apartment in the Cross, crumbed concrete being big in those days. It was the height of sheak as far as I was concerned, exactly where I wanted to be. Except for the sugar daddy bit, and the things they wanted. I lay there. I wouldn't lift a finger. That would have made me gay; and was against our code. I lay there drunk and they did what they did, gobble gobble, and I just wanted the sticky moments to be over so I could go back to being fabulous at their expense.

In retrospect the sugar daddies I exploited so mercilessly, so intentionally, weren't that old themselves, unattractive men in their 20s, 30s, sometimes 40s, men prepared to pay for youth. Hugh, the old queen who always bought us drinks when we were short, he was the kindest of them. He was in his 70s and was a retired doctor or judge, it's become cconfused now in my head; but a retired professional man nonetheless. He'd always buy us drinks and was always kind, as he sat in the Rex sipping his scotch and water. Once we offered, me and Alan and Jack, to do something for him if he ever wanted. Free, we said; in exchange for being so nice to us all the time. Oh no dear, oh no, he said. You're all too beautiful. I would have a heart attack.

We all laughed and the day, the moment, the bar dissolved. History has solved everything. Time has swept away not just those people, but the bar itself. I remember vividly, years later, in a self-help group, some bloke talking about how damaging, how evil the Rex had been, how he had been in therapy for years to recover from what happened there, how evil seeped from the walls into the fabric of the place, the ancient gargoyle queens perched on the barstools, bringing out their wallets, the terrible exploitation, the terrible abuse. It wasn't like that for me. I just regarded it as a great adventure; a welcome change from the dreary suburb in which I had grown up, the nightmare silence of my family's home. Anything was welcome after that; and a bunch of drunken queens who would always buy you a drink and who all, seemingly without exception, wanted to sleep with you, that was adventure. The alcohol did more damage than the sexual transactions. It was a shrug, I didn't care, as long as they paid. We've always been welcome here in the future, we just didn't know it. My own kids are so straight, so nerdish, so willing to stay at home and not go out, that the contrast between them and what I got up to at the same age is almost total. We were compromised, our hearts were stained, there was a price to pay for being paid, there was moral compromise at the heat of every transaction; and he didn't care, not even now. How deep was the compromise, how soiled his soul, were all things he would take to his grave. Rent boy.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-games-up-premier-admits-rotten-donations-culture-must-end/2008/02/22/1203467390079.html

THE night before the federal election, four of NSW's most senior ministers starred at a Labor fund-raiser attended by a developer and a former Wollongong council manager who have emerged as key suspects in the corruption scandal engulfing the Iemma Government.

The Treasurer, Michael Costa, the Minister for Roads, Eric Roozendaal, the Minister for Health, Reba Meagher, and the Minister for Ports and Waterways, Joe Tripodi, all attended the champagne-and-canapes function with Labor apparatchik Joe Scimone and property developer Glen Tabak.

At the same event the year before, Lou Tasich - a developer later found to be corrupt by the Independent Commission Against Corruption - sat at a table with Mr Roozendaal. Six months later, on May 2, 2007, Mr Tasich tried to bribe a Wollongong council officer during a discussion about his proposal to buy a piece of council-owned land. He passed the officer a hand-written note: "30K 4 U."

These events offer a powerful illustration why the Premier, Morris Iemma, was forced to act yesterday. He pledged to reform laws governing political donations - including introducing possible bans on donations by property developers - in the wake of the Wollongong sex-for-development affair.

Developer donations to the NSW Government totalled $13,180,793 between 1998-2007, while developers gave the Liberal Party $8.2 million over the same period. But Mr Iemma said "change needs to happen" and promised it would occur well before the end of the year.

He also said Mr Tripodi could be stood down next week. If the commission found there should be an investigation into NSW Maritime's appointment of Mr Scimone, Mr Tripodi's mate, to a $200,000-a year job, then Mr Tripodi would be stood down. If the commission made an adverse finding against Mr Tripodi, Mr Iemma said he would be sacked.



http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/22/1203467342250.html

Senator Hillary Clinton – desperate to claw back ground after losing 10 primaries to Senator Barack Obama – today received a standing ovation to top off her debate with her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The gloves came off in the 90-minute Texas debate between the pair, with the New York Senator lambasting her Illinois opponent’s reliance on words — which she accuses him of plagiarising.

Senator Obama won the draw and elected to go second in the 90-minute CNN debate at the University of Texas.

Before the rapturous finale, he seemed to have won the majority of applause, while Senator Clinton landed the first real blow in the debate.

The March 4 primaries in Texas and Hawaii are seen as make or break for Senator Clinton, who lost contests in Wisconsin and Hawaii this week to Senator Obama.

Asked about the competition between her and her opponent, Senator Clinton took a swipe at his much-lauded oratorial skills and emphasis on the importance of words — a line her campaign team has accused him of plagiarising.

"Words are important and words matter, but actions speak louder than words," Senator Clinton said.

The CNN moderator then asked Senator Obama directly about plagiarism claims over several lines, which he has repeated in recent speeches, that bear a striking similarity to those first uttered by his friend and ally, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.

Obama defends borrowed words

"There are two lines in speeches I've been giving for two weeks," Senator Obama said. "I've been campaigning for two years."

"The notion I had plagiarised from someone who is one of my national co-chairs, who gave me the line and suggested I use it, I think is silly.

"This is where we get into (the) silly season in politics and people start getting discouraged about it."




Henrietta with her Aunt Penny in Lismore

My First Ever Front Page

The Farm.


"A new breed of missionaries is trying to convert the world. Evangelists of unbelief say religion is a relic left over from the past and stands in the way of human progress. Once the world is rid of religion, immemorial evils such as war and tyranny can be overcome, and humanity will be able to fashion a new life for itself better than any known in history. Such is the creed of anti-religious missionaries such as Richard Dawkins. While the myths of religion express enduring human realities, the myths of secular humanism serve only to conceal them. It may be a dim sense of the unreality of their beliefs makes militant atheists so vehement and dogmatic. One searches in vain in the company of militant unbelievers for signs of the creative doubt that has energgised many religious thinkers. While theologians have interrogated their beliefs for millenia, secular hmanists have yet to question their simple creed. Evangelical atheism is the mirror image of the faith it attacks - without that faith's redeeming douibts."
John Gray.

Everything comes out of the torrents of the past; always disturbed, always flung to the four winds, good times non-existent. The world was a flat, monochromatic place, leaden grey. A terrifying place. There was no coherent, single personality. The leaden grey was all that he knew, all that he had known for years. Comfort came from the familiarity of despairing routines. If he sought wealth, it was purely to fritter away. He had no belief in a brighter future, such an idea would have been laughable, if it had ever occurred to him. The cringing, sad person that he had become evolved over years, decades. The chaos arose from a doomed lifestyle. He wore his depression like a cloak, a protective armour; leaves blown on soggy ground, swirls of dark colours, orange sludge, the despair of the landscape, reaching up to melancholy. That was about the range. He wandered into the job out of these doom laden winds with no ambition, no hope of a career, just a sad determination to see our promises made a long time ago.

Somehow, out of sheer persistance, he began getting the occasional shift at the city's leading newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald. He was perfectly happy to work Sundays, it wasn't as if anything else was going on in his life, no happy family, no picnics with friends, clothes dank with addiction sweat. The story would not normally have made it to Page Zed, much less the front. I was doing casual shifts in the wan hope of fulfilling a dream of becoming a journalist. Through the kindness of strangers, basically, secret comrades in arms, sharing inner defects and fatal flaws, I was doing casual shifts at the paper. It was working Sundays that did it. Sooner or later they noticed that I kept getting a run on Mondays, the paper wasn't getting sued and the stories weren't too badly written. In those days there was always a scrabbling desperation to know what was in the paper the next day, a lot of pages to fill and really, in a city the size of Sydney, not that much going on.

There's a register for women in unorthodox jobs, the chief of staff said. Their funding has run out and they're whinging for more. These people always want more of everybody elses money, they can't possibly stand on their own two feet. Anyway, we're desperate for tomorrow, see what you can get. We're desperate for a pic story; try and find some cute young woman carpenter, covered in saw dust, or a mechanic, grease streaking her face, dribbling down her breasts. Just make sure they're cute, we don't want some bull dyke. So I headed off to the meeting in inner-city Surry Hills with Steve, the most foul mouthed and crude of all the photographers.

Soon enough we find ourselves sitting in the middle of a room jam packed full of extremely butch looking women; we're virtually the only blokes. We didn't slot right in. I tried to feel comfortable, nothing to it, I'm a progressive kind of guy, go girls, all of that. Before the corruption and bias of our family law system ruined my naive university-derived belief in feminism. There was nowhere to sit in the jam packed crowd, the air full of righteousness and the muggy smell of 200 women crammed into a small space. Eventually they cleared a spot for us; and we sat cross legged; completely surrounded. We were late, as always, and a woman was up the front pounding on about the injustice of the government's failure to continue the funding their directory of women in unorthdox jobs, yet another blow by a patriarchy determined to keep women in the kitchen.

"There's no picture here," Steve whispered, loudly enough that at least 20 of the sisters around us could hear everywhere. "They're as ugly as sin. I'm out of here, I'm going to find something else. There's just not a shot here."
"I've got to stay and listen to this," I said.
"Well I don't, I'm gone," he said, standing up and elbowing his way through the crowd.

On and on the speaker went. In those days, before my head had cleared, I took copious notes on everything, the colour of the walls, everyting the speaker said, spontaneous thoughts on the atmosphere. I was always afraid I would forget something important.

By the time I got back to the office I had extensive notes from the speakers and various people I had interviewed, a woman carpenter, a plumber, an electrician; they were nice, although I wasn't so sure about their separatist plea, a woman wants a woman, they don't want men in their house. How is that not sexist?

Back in the office, I wrote up the story on the anitquated computer system, made it as interesting as possible, assuming as my fingers rattled across the keyboard that the sorry would never get a run. It might have been important to the people involved, but it wasn't earth shattering. Journalists are always being targetted by groups whose funding has run out; noble cause after noble cause.

Next day the story was on the front page, my very first front page story. It was the picture that did it, of course, and I learnt forever the value of a good photograph in dragging an otherwise nondescript story onto the front or higher in the book. A large photograph, run wide and deep, of a drop dead georgeous young woman, maybe 23, adorned the page. She was carrying a ladder, with the Opera House in the background. Her white overalls were stained delicately with paint; the uppper flats just loose enough to provoke the imagination of males around the city; nothing short of an absolute spunk. Can I help you carry that? a hundred thousand voices asked. Can I lick the paint off your breasts. Can I see what's under those overalls, the delicate tracings of signs of labour.

I never got a thank you from the organisers of the Women In Unorthodox Jobs Directory; funnily enough. But later that day the chief of staff leant across the desk and shook my hand; congratulations, you've got the job, he said. I was a full time journalist. It was one of the proudest days of my life.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.newstatesman.com/200802210016

News that Cuba's Fidel Castro is stepping down brings an end to the longest, and most controversial, presidency in the world.

The 81-year-old leader, who has been ill for some years, said in a letter published on a state newspaper's website: "It would be a betrayal of my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer."

The final words of his message promised "I will be careful", possibly a wry reference to the more than 600 assassination attempts he has survived since becoming president.

Fidel Castro Ruz has ruled Cuba for 49 years, despite unrelenting efforts by the US to kill or overthrow him, and has outlived most of those who led the Cuban revolution with him.

His legacy is fiercely disputed: clearly a man of charisma and courage, he has always understood getting and retaining power better than the art of government. Having led a nationalist revolution against a brutal dictatorship, he instituted a more effective one of his own.

Castro seized power in 1959 in a country that had one of the highest per capita incomes in the Americas. Today it lags behind most of the hemisphere. But he has left it with a rate of infant mortality lower than that of the US, and health and education systems that support a long-lived and literate population, albeit one restricted in what it is allowed to read.

As a student in the 1950s, Castro shared the widespread discontent with the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the army officer who had dominated Cuban politics since the 1930s, first as kingmaker and then as millionaire dictator and mafia henchman. Fidel thought of standing for parliament, but became convinced that anything short of armed struggle was futile.

His claim to be a hero of the revolution is based on two disastrous revolutionary expeditions. The first was the assault on the Moncada barracks in Santiago on 26 July 1953. Fidel and his brother Raú led 160 rebels in a misconceived and bungled attack that even lost the element of surprise when Castro crashed one of the cars in the convoy: 61 rebels were killed and most of the others, including Fidel, were captured. Many were summarily executed.

Fidel escaped the death sentence and was sentenced instead to 15 years in prison. Amnestied 15 months later, Fidel and his younger brother Raú went to Mexico where they met the Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and plotted their return. This was his second disastrous military expedition. Castro and 81 followers crammed into a motor yacht, now enshrined in a large glass case in Havana as one of the world's more unusual revolutionary monuments, and sailed for Cuba with the aim of starting an armed uprising. Within days, 70 of the band were killed, wounded or captured. The survivors, who included Fidel, Guevara, Raú and Camilo Cienfuegos, made it to the Sierra Maestra mountains where, with the support of existing peasant movements, they finally succeeded in launching a guerrilla campaign.

Castro's guerrillas never numbered more than 1,000, but he appropriated credit for a revolution made by many hands: socialists, social democrats, trade unionists, students and democratic liberals - a coalition so broad that, in 1958, the US recognised the hopelessness of the Batista regime and withdrew military support. On 1 January 1959, Batista fled. Castro's moment had arrived. By February, he had been sworn in as prime minister.



Maxine McKew before she unseated the Prime Minister.