I see the boys of summer
Where once the twilight locks
A process in the weather of the heart
Before I knocked
The force that through the green fuse
My hero bares his nerves
Where once the waters of your face
If I were tickled by the rub of love
Our eunuch dreams
Especially when the October wind
When, like a running grave
From love’s first fever
In the beginning
Light breaks where no sun shines
I fellowed sleep
I dreamed my genesis
My world is pyramid
All all and all
Dylan Thomas
All in shadows, all in giant floating egos. All his life he had wanted somewhere to escape, somewhere he wouldn't be bashed, ridiculed, beaten, humiliated, somewhere he could call his own, somewhere safe. In shadows and in lightning, in pain and triumph, these days were crawling over themselves like billowing clouds. He had made so many mistakes. He had longed for a solution, longed for warmth. That little stretch of pavement, that moment, kept coming back, the rivers of asphalt, the uncaring swish of the cars on the black river of the road, the splash of rain, the glowering bouncer.
Stay there, sober up, he had ordered, the big beefcake of a man giving the impression he would rather not have touched him, was worried about catching some disease. He washed. He was human. He was drunk and maudlin and all his greatest moments now involved being tossed out of clubs. Thrown down the steps of the Taxi Club at 3am; the indifferent cackle of the transsexuals and the clang of the poker machines going on uninterrupted. Drunk as he was, he felt every step on the way down. Bang, bang, bang. When he hit the outside the cold night air woke him up, and he realised where he was. The bouncer was sneering and laughing and threatening all at the same time. And he decided to disappear. Confrontation got you no where.
Catastrophe and struggle and a broken spirit, that was all that was left. Obscure scribblings. A pretence once that he wanted to write. A sad determination to be something, somewhere, someone. To keep on typing. To record peak experiences. To document the world as it shifted on its axis. To remember those moments under the giant tree in Darling Point. To see the dreams; to see time enfolded in upon itself. Years later, pulling up outside that block of units. Now renovated. The giant tree gone and the rear garden landscaped. All his little secret selves long washed away. And pointless diatribes more meaningless than ever.
But it was the pavement, the lurch into consciousness, the shaking off of disaster, the tiny mouse scutterings of rescuing a coherent whole, these places, these experiences, were what he had become. They were an odious group, he knew that, reviled by the city. He had known that from his time as a teenage boy, when every where they went were underground clubs and secret late night cafes; where they were invisible against the city whole, and liked it that way. Before G-man. Before buffed bodies and bulging t-shirts and gay pride, feather boas and shrieking political correctness. Back then they were the underground, and they liked it that way.
He was being slaughtered inside his own skull. He couldn't wait to get more alcohol into him, and could never get enough. Never. Except for those magic moments at 3am, when he heard the click and was at one with the world, the thumping beat and the disco balls, and knew he wouldn't remember anything beyond that point. Knew he could wake up anywhere. On his favourite rooftop. In a stranger's bed. In a suburb he had never heard of. He didn't want to grow any older. He didn't even want to be on the planet half the time. Born out of sorts, a stranger in a strange land, he was looking for love in the bottom of a glass; and all he found was the dank sweat that seeped out of every pore the following day.
There must be someone he could talk to, someone to whom he could tell his story. Someone who would embrace him affectionately, tell him it was alright. He wasn't really growing into that terrible thing they had feared so much, the old queens they had exploited without conscience. He could see the traffic passing; lights picked out in the false dawn. He could feel the hangover already beginning its assault. He could feel the sad chaos that had become his inner core, the utter hopelessness, the derision from outsiders, the sad tale of the bitch who died, death already eating his person as he swished past him to have a joint at the rear of the hotel, with his little coterie, without him. Embarrassingly he started to heave, threw up into the gutter and then stumbled, before any one could associate the smelly mess with him, into the Darlinghurst night. He gathered himself like a sheet around a central core; and went home to hide.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24573905-11949,00.html
THE Rudd Government will press ahead with its emissions trading scheme, arguing that modelling to be released today proves it is pro-growth and good for the nation's long-term economic competitiveness.
In a strongly worded speech to be delivered today, Wayne Swan will make it clear the Government will stare down critics who argue that the introduction of the emissions trading scheme should be put on the backburner during the global economic crisis.
Instead, the Government will press ahead with a "soft start" in 2010 as planned.
"The modelling will show we can have a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme without having a dramatic impact on economic growth," the Treasurer said yesterday.
Mr Swan will assert that the emissions trading scheme is in fact a "pro-growth, pro-competitiveness strategy for the Australian economy" and needs to be implemented as quickly as possible.
But concerns were raised yesterday about the assumptions behind the modelling that has been so critical in bolstering the Government's resolve to impose the new carbon market.
An analysis for the Minerals Council of Australia by a former head of the Australian Bureau of Resource Economics, Brian Fisher, says the Treasury assumptions are overly optimistic and questionable and could drastically underestimate the scheme's economic impact.
And many energy-intensive industries are mystified by the modelling's conclusion that there is no risk of investment moving offshore to countries that do not impose a cost on carbon.
The Treasury modelling finds that the impact of an ETS on Australian GDP will be modest, that efficiently produced commodities such as coal and iron ore are likely to increase their share of the global market, and that other emissions-intensive processes such as steel-making will at least maintain their international competitiveness.
Mr Swan will argue it builds a case for Australia to introduce its emissions scheme quickly, even if an international climate change agreement has not been concluded.
"The modelling proves that the longer we delay, the more expensive responding to climate change will become," Mr Swan will tell the Per Capita think tank at a Brisbane conference this morning.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/2613/218/
Anyone concerned about the environment and seeking the best solutions for how to protect it will find The Really Inconvenient Truths, by Iain Murray, to be a valuable, fact-filled resource that is both informative and entertaining.
A man named Benjamin Cone from North Carolina bought land with no trees and allowed the forest to grow back on it. Once the forest returned, a protected woodpecker moved in, prompting the government, under rules of the Endangered Species Act, to prohibit any meaningful use of a large portion of his land — he was denied the right to any logging, driving the value of his property down from $1.7 million to about $260,000. The new feathered resident and the accompanying plunge in his land's value caused a reasonable response: the owner decided to clear-cut the rest of the forest to avoid losing it to the woodpeckers and their bureaucratic allies.
Throughout the United States, landowners have become so fearful of losing the right to manage or sell their land if a protected species decides to make its home on the land that the Endangered Species Act has been sarcastically termed the "Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up Act." Instead of doing everything possible to attract and safeguard endangered species, landowners often manage their properties to avoid inhabitation — and secretly kill the species if they do show up.
One inescapable conclusion that a logical person would reach after reading The Really Inconvenient Truths by Iain Murray is that the quasi-religious, big-government, environmentalist movement creates disincentives for people to take care of the planet — and actually prevents proper care of the planet.
The book makes a compelling case against the liberal approach to preserving the Earth and its resources, arguing that government controls usually have unintended consequences that prove far worse than the problems they were originally intended to fix. To make his case, Murray explains some of the tragic effects that liberal policies have produced.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/29/pakistan-earthquake1
At least 170 people have been killed after a powerful earthquake hit south-west Pakistan, leaving thousands homeless. The death toll is expected to rise.
The aid agency Care International put the death toll at 500-600. Several villages were reduced to rubble. Local television pictures showed lines of bodies in white shrouds with victims' names written on them.
The earthquake struck in the early hours of the morning about 40 miles (60km) north-east of the provincial capital Quetta. There were aftershocks throughout the day including a powerful tremor at about 5.30pm local time.
"We went to a village, Wam, where we saw mass graves being dug," said Hasan Mazumdar, Care International's country director in Pakistan.
"Bodies were still arriving. I estimate that 200 died in that village alone.
"There was a big jolt while we were standing there. The mountains shook. Boulders came crashing down. The people were really scared. They never experienced anything like this. I spoke to a man in his early 30s who had lost four daughters. He was just completely heartbroken."
The earthquake of 2005 in northern Pakistan claimed about 73,000 lives. Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, was flattened in 1935 by an earthquake that killed 30,000.
The Pakistan meteorological department put the magnitude of today's quake at 6.5. The official death toll is around 170 but reports are still coming in from remote areas.
The army has been sent in, bringing tents and blankets flown, but thousands are spending tonight in the open because their homes were destroyed or they are too frightened to go back indoors.
Sub-zero temperatures are expected. Khalil Gill, a worker with Oxfam who was in Quetta, said: "It was very cold this morning, we just ran out, no shoes, no jackets. There was a shock around 8am. This evening was the strongest, the whole town was shaking. Everything shook for about two minutes. We rushed outside. Women and children were crying. We are too frightened to go back into any buildings. We are all spending the night outside."
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