Scraping The Barrell

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Maroubra Beach, 9.22 am.


On the three-hour drive north from Basra to take up my post in Maysan, I passed through the territory the Prince of the Marshes claimed to control. I saw the canal Saddam had dug: some reeds, a few fishermen in tin boats and some water birds. Long parallel lines stretched for miles across the drab earth. There were very few people to be seen: most Marsh Arabs now lived in slums on the edge of cities. Boats were no longer the standard method of transport and the buffalo herds had gone. The thicket of six-foot reeds in chest-deep water that once covered thousands of square miles had become parched and barren mud.
The Prince of the Marshes, Rory Stewart.


He could feel the sense of loss at people he had only briefly befriended, he could push the boundaries and know not what it was he sought, he could see, out there on the physical screen, the scurrying of ant like people going about their tasks. It wasn't the way things were meant to be. He wanted to be imbued with a great passion, not a survival instinct, but it was survival at which he had excelled. Each day, when he was 16 and on his own, had been a feat of survival, feeding himself, staying away from marauders. But it wasn't long before the alcohol and the slip stream took over. He established an identity in that demi-world, and through that, connecting people with people, those who wanted and those who had, he made his way through life.

Bron's unit had been one of those, the unit in the sky, the elaborate security, the bundles of cash, the piles of illegals. It was so long ago now, yet he never forgot those days of ultimate exhilaration. He had met Jenny at university. She had inherited a house overlooking the inner-harbour, with views across to Gladesville Bridge. We used to go there all the time. We were always welcome, all of us. They didn't realise how many were crowded inside, they just thought he was eccentric, the court poet, the jester who had always entertained the rich. These were hollow memories. He was afraid of their lack of substance. There was no way he could describe them without admitting to things he did not want to put in a public space.

But the sky and the harbour swirled before them; Jenny's quiet, dignified face, the aristocratic smell of her perfume. Not long ago there had been black eyes and feeble excuses, I slipped and hit the door handle, before Keith was given the death threat and then suddenly was no longer on the scene, to be replaced by Bron, the short, quivering genius. Those extreme times could never be replaced, and never adequately described. He never told the stories of what truly happened there, even all these decades later it was too dangerous to mention. Many of the players ended up doing time, or fleeing the country, or hiding for years before re-emerging with straight jobs and different persona's. Even now, evil could spill down the corridors of time.

There was so much money, there was so much danger. Their child was threatened. Ultimately Jenny fled with Isis, now a grown women with two children of her own and only vague memories and a vague knowledge of what her mother used to get up to. There were things your children never needed to know. Secrecy was paramount. Trust no one the code. But in the extremes of it, when they were held up by Warren Lefranchi, there were guns and danger and thousands of dollars disappearing. It wasn't long after that, after Lefranchi robbed them, that Lefranchi was shot dead in a back alley in Sydney by notoriously corrupt Sydney police officer Roger Rogerson, who came from a different era and was at the heart of Sydney's drug gang wars in the 1980s.

There was an ABC tele-movie called Blue Murder, which gave a sense of the thuggery and brutality of the day. We only touched some of this terror that used to infiltrate Sydney. Back when Kings Cross journalist Juanita Nielson disappeared after doing stories on developers, to this day her body never found. That was my first sense of overwhelming fear, or fright, picking through those abandoned Victoria terraces, the views across Woolloomoolloo to the city guaranteeing their value. He was scared, when the fabric of things began to collapse in upon him; and the only way to survive was to get out of there as quickly as possible.

But I knew these people; it was just a party. We did things so absent from suburban life, so different to the norm, that it's a miracle any of us recovered. You see the detritus on the streets; they all had a good time once. They never stopped having a good time, and all their life skills disappeared. They couldn't cook a meal, they couldn't pay a bill. Back then we weren't cooking meals or paying bills either, but the money flowed in the thousands and in the unique entry systems, we were protected in our enclaves, our little coterie of the dammed. God knows what we talked about, as our heads spun into the sea and the sky. They weren't the least bit surprised, or saddened, to hear of Lefranchi's death. He had crossed the line, and he was dead one way or the other. Rogerson did them all a favour. He shuddered and moved on; all these things now nothing but a memory; and a distant one at that, almost all the participants dead or missing.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rudd-faces-revolt-over-carers/2008/03/07/1204780065983.html

KEVIN Rudd faces a backbench revolt over his budget razor gang's plan to axe annual bonuses of $1600 to carers in a bid to cut spending and curb inflation.

Furious advocates for the nation's 400,000-strong army of carers for sick, disabled and elderly relatives swamped politicians' offices yesterday, calling for a reprieve on behalf of those struggling below the poverty line.

Labor MPs vowed to demand a rethink from the Prime Minister and their senior colleagues, variously branding the proposal "stupid", "madness" and "sheer lunacy".

"I am furious about it," one told The Age. "Why on earth would you target carers who have such huge physical, emotional and financial burdens? I will not be letting this rest."

Another said: "They are on the bones of their bum, most of these people. Even 10 cents is important to them."

Senior ministers refused to rule out axing the bonuses, sticking to the line that they could not comment on the budget.

But Labor figures have argued for years that the system of "one-off" yearly bonuses was not ideal, and should be replaced by a boost to the fortnightly Carer Payment and Carer Allowance.

Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin conceded that many carers were "doing it very tough" and were making a "huge contribution".

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson demanded a guarantee that the bonuses would continue.

"For God's sake, Mr Rudd, please rule out an attack on Australia's carers. These are the saints in Australian society," he said.

His community services spokesman, Tony Abbott, branded it a callous bid to "use carers as kind of human shields in its fight against inflation".


http://news.theage.com.au/jail-for-evil-lovers-who-killed-teen/20080307-1xtq.html
Jail for 'evil' lovers who killed teen

Two lesbian lovers became sexually aroused while they bludgeoned a teenage girl with a concrete block and strangled her with a dog chain, a judge says.

The two young women then kissed over the body of their dead or dying victim, 16-year-old Stacey Mitchell, the WA Supreme Court in Perth was told.

Justice Peter Blaxell on Friday sentenced Jessica Ellen Stasinowsky, 21, and Valerie Paige Parashumti, 19, to strict security life imprisonment, with a minimum 24-year non-parole period, for the "sexually perverse" and "evil" killing.

The pair had pleaded guilty to the wilful murder of Stacey Mitchell at a house in the Perth suburb of Lathlain in December 2006.

Jailing the women on Friday, Justice Blaxell said Stasinowsky and Parashumti's crime was particularly horrifying because of their amusement at the killing, their failure to show remorse and their lack of a substantial motive.

An earlier court hearing was told they had killed Stacey because she had been annoying them.

Justice Blaxell said the women's prospects of rehabilitation were bleak.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3506205.ece

When Times reporter Sheera Frenkel was browsing through purses in a Jerusalem store recently, she found herself looking curiously at one of the bum bags which adorn the waists of so many Israeli men. Opening it, she was surprised to discover it was lined with thick foam cut out to fit a handgun and clip. “Until then I had thought it was a very badly misjudged fashion statement, but in fact it turns out that they are ideal for carrying guns,” she said.

There is a familiarity with guns in Israel that is rare among democracies, even in the firearm-friendly United States. Compulsory national service for both men and women of school leaving age means the majority of the adult population is trained in handling firearms. And while there are many illegal weapons in the system, it is easy - and in some cases actively encouraged - for civilians to acquire guns legitimately.

Members of the army, including reservists, are allowed to carry their weapons with them when they are off duty, and it is also common upon leaving the military for Israeli men to take armed jobs in security, a huge industry in a conflict-ridden country. Even if they then quit the sector, many simply hold on to their guns in order to protect their families.

In settlement zones, firearms permits are freely available. Any Israeli with a clean record can apply to carry a handgun, while in some settlements it is not uncommon to see young men with assault rifles slung over their shoulders. In the West Bank - as in Gaza until disengagement - almost every Israeli household owns a gun.


Maroubra Beach, 9.23am




Maroubra Beach, 9.24am.