Foolishly. Immorally. Sadly.

*



'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'

I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

'What is that noise?'
The wind under the door.
'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'
Nothing again nothing.
'Do
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
'Nothing?'
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It's so elegant
So intelligent 130
'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
'What shall we ever do?'
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

TS Elliot The Wasteland.



The depth of carry-on was unbelievable. He was riddled with fault lines, thought disordered, in pain. The headaches were getting worse and he didn't understand them. He didn't smoke, he didn't drink, he didn't even have his morning coffee any more, yet the headaches came thumping in like caffeine withdrawals, profound, disproportionate to the size of his head. We were preparing for the end times, the whole world was. Soldiers came and went, they explored cloely their ties with each other.

The Iraqi war has shattered the American psyche. The movies are gloom laden, guilty, full of silences and pain. More than 4,000 soldiers have died now, and George Bush acts as if he is totally unruffled by the deaths. I wouldn't have said this before I went, sir, but we should just nuke the whole damn lot, turn them to dust, says a soldier in Thie Valley of Elah, a grim slow unfunny film he took out from the video shop last night when they didn't have Stargate Continuum, which is being advertised on television but is not yet available in the stores.

Grocery Watch and Fuel Watch are being ridiculed as failures, and Labor looks like a pack of shonks from coast to coast. The scheme that was supposedly supposed to make it easier to transfer between banks has also failed. Our lack of faith in our political leaders is one of the primary factors behind the dispirited angst that has taken over the country, and most particularly Sydney. Everyone is complaining it is too expensive to live here. People are working two jobs in order to pay the mortgage, sitting miserable in crowded trains on the way to lousy jobs; the coldest winter in 49 years, so much for global warming, leaving everyone shivering and their electricity bills climbing.

And yet, as Henrietta commented when she did the City To Surf run last week, you can jog past astonishing mansions where the rich are sunning themselves on their balconies, waving at the passing plebs. This astonishing wealth, not just the huge houses and the flash cars and the magnificent views, but the trust funds and the share portfolios and all the rest, these things were curled in agony as his head thumped and his stomach turned, always crying out for relief. He couldn't bear to know the truth, that he was dying.

Life is a journey not a destination, he wanted to say to the young man who had spilled out his career ambitions and dwelt knowingly on the beauty of the gardens, who had spent so much time longing for a different place and to be a different person, only to be dumped in a wave of fatalism and fatal disconnects, dumped in the sand and left grasping for air, the white wash of terror that tumbled over him wiping away everything but the horror. So much of what they did was pointless, the stake outs, the puerile regurgitation of press releases, the picture stories of home buyers struggling with their mortgages.

The old measure used to be $300,000. Once it hit that they clammed up. The poor would always spill their guts, and were easy fodder for a rapacious press. But the rich had much to hide, including their money and its sources, and the doors would shut firmly, not always politely, in their face. Everyone hated the death knocks, and they too were largely puerile, producing nothing. Fuck off you vultures translated as "too distressed to speak". He was saddened by the inner glow, the flash of beauty and camaraderie these men showed on the way to the battle field. He remained shcoked to the core at the arrogant negligence of our politicians. And Australia went to war. We joined our "allies" and went to Iraq. Foolishly. Immorally. Sadly.




THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24187627-664,00.html

QANTAS is struggling to get on top of a seemingly endless run of maintenance troubles and to contain the damage on its gold-plated reputation.

Senior managers, including outgoing chief executive Geoff Dixon, have met almost daily to map new strategies to deal with the problem.

Others who have attended the meetings are believed to include safety experts, maintenance specialists as well as members from Qantas' marketing and public relations divisions.

Maintenance has been the main focus of the meetings.

Sources inside the airline claim that maintenance work is at least two months behind schedule -- a result of the bitter seven-month dispute with the airline's engineers.

Coupled with the maintenance issues is the dilemma the carrier faces because of the long delays it has encountered in rebuilding an ageing aircraft fleet.

It has $35 billion worth of new aircraft on order: 20 Airbus A380 super jumbos and 65 Boeing 787 Dreamliners to replace 24 aged Boeing 747-400s and its fleet of 25 Boeing 767s which were first ordered in the late 1980s.

Yesterday, an engine access panel fell from another 747 enroute to London from Melbourne, prompting Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese to intervene and defend the reputation of Qantas.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24187480-5000117,00.html

IS it whether you win or lose that counts, or how you behave before and after the event?

Watching how all of the athletes behave off the field and out of the water speaks volumes about the differences between the nationalities competing.

Watching hours of sport during the first week of the Olympic Games has reinforced to me that Australians really are good sports, both as athletes and as supporters.

For instance, I know I'm not the only one who felt more than a little disappointed when Michael Phelps began smashing Olympic records.

It's not that I don't agree he is an amazing athlete; who could possibly withstand feeling awed by a 23-year-old with the arrogance - and audacity - to announce his plans to win gold in every event he competes?

But it's just so un-Australian!

Compare Phelps's attitude with say, "our Cathy" before Sydney 2000. Of course we all knew she would win gold for Australia.

But we, the spectators, loved her more for her humility and uncertainty.

Fundamentally, we don't like smug sportspeople.

No, we barrack for the underdog; we hero-worship our champions, and we let them know that if they start to believe the hype, we have the power to make it all go away.

We like our champions to have a story of triumph overcoming adversity.

http://news.smh.com.au/national/westpoll-shows-possible-liberal-victory-20080815-3wgq.html

An extensive Westpoll of five key marginal seats shows that Colin Barnett's rejuvenated Liberal Party is capable of grabbing an unlikely election victory when the state votes in three weeks time.

The Liberals lead in four of the marginals polled and in the other one are in a deadheat with Labor.

Mr Barnett has also closed the gap as preferred premier on Alan Carpenter, justifying the last minute decision to install him as leader over the hapless Troy Buswell.

But the election is still far too close to call and the overall state voting intention shows Labor maintaining a slender 0.4 percentage point cent lead over the Liberals on the two-party preferred vote.

And Labor has a commanding lead in voter confidence despite the close marginal seat contests, with 64 per cent of those asked saying they expected the government to be returned.

The Westpoll surveyed 400 people in each of five marginal seats, four in the metropolitan area and one in the new South-West battleground seat of Collie-Preston.

Because of the one vote, one value redistribution a number of seats will be contested for the first time and others have had their boundaries radically redrawn.