The Continuum

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“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H.L. Mencken’s



As if that was all, a far off longing, the shock of seeing themselves so far back in time, in the 1980s when, hurling out of the 70s, we thought the world was ours and everyone else could get out of the way. After all, we had the high moral ground. All our progressive attitudes were far more moral than the hangovers from the 1950s. He was so shocked at the rapid passage of time that he couldn't even imagine why these things had happened. The mantle had already been passed. His heart had already been broken. The mirror balls from the giant disco halls were crushed rubbish in a garbage heap somewhere.

But they had once been so strong, not just fervent in their belief but convinced of their centrality to the way the world was. Even as permanent outsiders they marked the zeitgeist. But what more could be revealed? Our destinies were the same as for everyone else, to grow old, to pass on. The riddle was in another plane. We got drunk in the picturesque Spanish village square; and danced at the local disco. We drank bourbon like there was no tomorrow. There was no tomorrow. We were morally superior, we felt that so keenly, we were of the left and thereby, conveniently, outraging our bourgeois forebears. Oh how the wine did flow. How pleasant were the nights.

Extraordinary things were always happening, by dint of being strangers, of being on holidays, of being young. The moves were not entirely connected. Come hither, I want to talk to you, loomed out of the night and backyard parties. Everything was possibility, everyone was sizing up everyone else. They were meat on the market, in a position to be discerning. They could pick and choose, and pick and choose they did, in chaotic endings to drunken nights, to wild times, wild times, in beautiful apartments looking across these beautiful places.

He didn't know where it would lead, had never known where it would lead, but in those days, before the lead set in and his blood began to thicken and curdle, those had been the dizzying, best, even stable times, despite the geographical lurches and the sometimes random nights. Sometimes often. He couldn't have been more physically perfect, perhaps that was part of the love, a primary part of the love. All was gone now. What had seemed so vivid can barely be conjured. They celebrated the election of a left wing government in France, fulminated against the dominant sexual mores and preached law reform, we were different creatures.

Back then, back then, when we knew who we were, when life hadn't forced so many compromises that retreat was the only course. When to hide became his modus operandi; hiding in a crowd. And inside, in gloomy terraces with the days creaking by outside. With the neighbours dog barking and his skeleton in place. There was no plan for the future, as they hit their 30s. Then at least one of them, his beloved, accelerated his pining for a career. He became the ultimate net worker, while the other drank and drank, already reliving a past, already dislocated and unable to stop.

There was always money problems, and much of his ceaseless scribbling failed to pay. The proposed master grand works poured forth in a manner set up for failure, the bashing and the battering he gave himself, and the cold hard mugging by reality that finally knocked him right off his confident little perch. If you can't handle it, don't do it, he used to say. Before they themselves were hit by a tide they didn't understand, their perfect love broken, the great social adventure that had been them no longer. How he missed the dinner parties, the wonderful bottles of red, the easy company, easy sex, vast entertainment. And more than that, a special place in the world, at the centre of things.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theage.com.au/world/guantanamo-bay-faces-closure-20080613-2q93.html

THE future of the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention centre is in serious doubt after a landmark Supreme Court ruling that detainees have the protections of the US constitution, including the right to appeal to US courts.

The ruling will ignite a flashpoint in the presidential campaign, after Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican John McCain disagreed on the court ruling and its likely impact on the fight against terrorism.

It is the third rebuke to the Bush Administration from the court and comes at a time when it will be difficult for the President to convince Congress to make further amendments.

The court was split five-four with the majority, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, ruling: "The laws and constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

"To hold that the political branches may switch the constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this court, say what the law is," Justice Kennedy wrote, citing an 1803 judgement dealing with the separation of powers.

He said that prisoners at the camp had the ancient right of habeas corpus, which allowed courts to determine whether a prisoner was being held illegally.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/14/2274623.htm

Inmates flee after Afghanistan prison attack

By South Asia correspondent Peter Lloyd

Up to 400 Taliban militants are on the run after a mass prison break out in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar city.

A state of emergency has been declared in Kandahar as troops and police conduct a street by street search for escapees.

The jail break happened after Taliban militants blew open the main gate of Kandahar jail with a suicide car bomb.

Forty militants stormed inside, shooting guards and opening cell doors.

Some inmates stayed behind, some died in the fighting but Afghan authorities say it appears almost the entire prison population of 1,150 made a getaway on foot.

The escape of up to 400 Taliban prisoners is deeply embarrassing for the Karzai Government currently seeking $50 billion over five years from donor nations and it will anger US and NATO soldiers who have, until now, been handing Taliban prisoners over to Afghan authorities.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/13/2274353.htm

The Federal Opposition says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has surrendered to Japan on the issue of whaling.

Mr Rudd discussed whaling with his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, this week and the two men agreed to seek to resolve their disagreements through diplomatic means.

But Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says Mr Rudd has walked away from his earlier commitments on taking tough action over whaling.

"He spent $1 million of Australian taxpayers' money sending the Oceanic Viking down into the Southern Ocean to film and monitor Japanese whaling," he said.

"We also had a surveillance aircraft brought in to it.

"Mr Rudd said that he was going to take the Japanese and the Japanese whalers to the international courts and he's now decided that he won't be doing that."


Sydney Park, Sydney, Australia.