Starting Afresh

*
*
*


"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."