Goodbye Colin

And no-one saw the carny go
And the weeks flew by
Until they moved on the show
Leaving his caravan behind
It was parked out on the south east ridge
And as the company crossed the bridge
With the first rain filling the bone-dry river bed
It shone, just so, upon the edge
Away, away, we're sad to say
Dog-boy, atlas, Mandrake, the geeks, the hired hands
There was not one among them that
did not cast an eye behind
In the hope that the carny would
return to his own kind
And the carny left behind a horse, so skin and bone
that he named "sorrow"
And it was in a shallow, unmarked grave that the
old nag was laid in the then parched meadow
And it was the dwarves that were given the
task of digging the ditch
And laying the nag's carcass in the ground
While boss Bellini, waved his smoking pistol around
saying "The nag was dead Meat"
"We can't afford to carry dead weight"
while The whole company standing about
Not making a sound
And turning to dwarves perched on the enclosure gate
The boss says "Bury this lump of crow bait"
And the rain came hammering down
Everybody running for their wagons
Tying all the canvas flaps down
The mangy cats growling in their cages
The bird-girl flapping and squawking around
The whole valley reeking of wet beast
Wet beast and rotten sodden hay
Freak and brute creation
all Packed up and on their way
The three dwarves peering from their wagon's hind
Moses says to Noah "We shoulda dugga deepa one"
Their grizzled faces like dying moons
Still dirty from the digging done
And charley, the oldest of the three said "I guess
the carney aint gonna show"
And they were silent for a spell, wishin they had
done a better job of burying Sorrow
And the company passed from the valley
Into a higher ground
The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow
And on the mound
Until nothing was left, nothing left at all
Except the body of sorrow
That rose in time
To float upon the surface of the eaten soil
And a murder of crows did circle round
First one, then the others flapping blackly down
And the carny's van still sat upon the edge
Tilting slowly as the firm ground turned to sludge
And the rain it hammered down
And no-one saw the carny go
I say it's funny how things go

Nick Cave The Carny



Colin died in the early hours of yesterday morning. There wasn't any way he could continue in that state. I've never seen anyone so sick and still living. In the depths of our confusion, our naked, concocted despiar, his were the final flickers of a chaotic life. He was masterful at what he had done, but those days were long gone. The pioneer slut. The shriek of laughter. In your face. Daaaahling. All of this was gone now; the funeral, we think, will be on Friday. It's all sad, as the tennis, the Australian Open, plays on the television, and the muggy heat engulfs us all. Gone now, gone, my old friend. One of the last of the tribe. These daily cruelties. It wasn't love, but it was a deep and abiding friendship.

Some of it recorded, here on this blog. The time, in volume one, when we drove 24 hours straight across the vast Australian landscape and ended up at Streaky Bay ona the austere coast of South Australia, city slickers in the stifling heat, always at odds, ghastly and out of place, cross figured, across court, his ancient face, gaunt now, wasted, the shock of a suddenly old man, yet in his head they were still all young, partying, outrageous, on a crusade to change everything. Now all they ever do is celebrate diversity, take pride in their place at the margins, collapse in the heat, in drunken despair, these functioning alcoholics, their chaotic lives. He remembered many of the past emotions. While Australia Day played on the TV, far away, far away.

So Goodbye Colin, there's nothing left to say. You were a good mate. A crazy lover, if not of me of many others. These cautious, most beautiful days, where the Australian heat seaped through our loungerooms and we could hear the brids in the trees outside, could feel the countyr out there, away. It was cautious. We were often hidden. The bars themselves were secret, tucked away. We were shadows that lurked beyond the mainstream. None of us lived normal lives. We campaigned for a different world. They were never going to embrace us; this strange bubble of miscreants thaqt worked their way through the aging strands; once young, georgeous, proud, flaunting what we had and never doubting our success. And then aging, cruelly, often loved, reviled, cast out, poverty stricken.

There wasn't a shocking past. We didn't have the same strands, the same history. Many were surprised we had families at all; as if we had come full blown into these shrieking, disturbed malcontents. How many loves had passed us by? Why weren't we comfortably ensconsced in the suburbs, driving in smart cars, raising successful children. What did we believe any more? Anything but conservative; the left was surely there to support us. People like Colin would never have thought of voting anything but left; yet the left had betrayed him as surely as it had betrayed so many others; their pack mentality, their brutality, their stifling lack of conscience. He could see that gaunt face, those fragile bones, that frail frail body that could not have been thinner. Beaten away. Eaten away. He tried to hold back the tears.

And all was lost; all was chaos; and in these sad days for the funeral of the lost, he was our lover, our boy, our funny man. Oh Daaahling, but these darlings had turned into sad sighs. Shadows of former selves. Reflections from an earlier age. He had eaten heartily and drank to his soul; but it was gone. He had joined his best friend Lyn Hapgood, who had overdosed while pregnant. Ian Farr who had gone to the doctor one week with a stomach ache and was gone to the next. All the old lovers, who were dead. Each and every last one of them, dead. "I've had enough," he said, months before. He didn't remember the walk we had been on. But he remembered those days, 30 years ago, when we had thought we were on the cusp of everything, the little band of artists that would change a conservative, stifling country, that would open us up to some great form of liberation. Instead we shrivelled, instead we died.

None of it was his best. He had no idea what to say. He was teary, but there was nowhere for it to go. It's not as if it was unexpected, his 16-year-old daughter said, entirely unfamiliar with death. It's a relief, surely, that he's not suffering anymore, he told himself. And of course it was. If he was a dog he would have been put down long before. The virus got into his brain. He didn't know where he was. But he remembered me; and I was shocked by the sadness of it all; so far away; these distant times; we were strangers not in a strange land but in a strange time. Not well dear, not well. And they laughed. And he sat up in bed with his lover, a cheeky look on his face. They were all so daring. They could see the city from their squat, the musty straw carpet smelling of bong water. They embraced each other. And 40 years later they embraced each other again; in death. The lone voice of record; the loneliest role. He sought a new generation; and shuddered at the depths of his own dysfunction. And here was hope, in death, another life. And he smiled, eyes glittering through tears. Or that was what he hoped; at athe memory of it all, the fun times; the laughter only they ever knew. The wild tribe. The forgotten tribe. The dead tribe.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/26/2474568.htm

As debate rages over whether January 26 should be Australia Day, some Indigenous leaders are protesting against what they call 'invasion day'.

The new Australian of the Year, Mick Dodson, says the use of January 26 as Australia Day alienates Indigenous Australians because it commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet, and he has urged national debate on whether or not to change the date.

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has emphatically ruled out any change with a "simple, respectful, but straightforward no".

Mr Rudd said there have always been controversies about national days but that Australia is a nation for all Australians.

"A nation which has apologised for the mistakes of the past, and there have been many. But a nation now resolved to close the gap. A nation now resolved to close the gap in education, in health, and employment, and those things which matter in people's daily and practical lives," he said.

Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull also says he does not think there is a need to change the date, which he describes as "very appropriate".

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees say Australia Day may be controversial but it should still be celebrated.

But the organiser of an Indigenous rally in Brisbane, Aboriginal activist Sam Watson, says Australia Day should be moved to another date if Indigenous Australians are to deal with the emotional turmoil that the day represents.

Mr Watson was speaking prior to leading a march from State Parliament to Musgrave Park in inner Brisbane, in protest over Queensland's long-running stolen wages dispute, and the Northern Territory intervention.

"January 26 is only the day in 1788 when the First Fleet arrived to set up the colony of New South Wales," he said.

"It's got nothing to do with Aboriginal people, it's got nothing to do with the nation of Australia as it stands today.

"If they want to have a true national day, it should be June 3, for example, which was the day the Mabo decision was handed down in 1992."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/26/2474607.htm

New South Wales authorities say serial killer Ivan Milat has cut off one of his fingers and put it in an envelope addressed to the High Court.

The Department of Corrective Services says Milat used a plastic knife to sever the little finger from his left hand inside his cell at Australia's highest security prison - Goulburn's Supermax jail.

A spokeswoman says the 64-year-old put the finger in an envelope addressed to the High Court.

She says he then handed the envelope to a prison officer at lock-up time this afternoon.

Milat has been taken to Goulburn Base Hospital under guard with his severed finger on ice.

The department says he seemed to be in shock after the incident.

He has been serving a life sentence since 1996 for murdering seven backpackers in the early 90s.

The High Court dismissed his application for an appeal in 2004.

Deep Fried

*



Empty out your pockets, toss the lot upon the floor.
All those treasures, my friend,
you don't need them anymore.
Your days are all through dying,
they gave all their ghosts away,
so kiss close all your wounds and call living life a day.
For the planets gravitate around you,
and the stars shower down around you,
and the angels in heaven adore you,
and the saints all stand and applaud you.
so faraway,
so faraway and yet so close.

Say farewell to the passing of the years,
though all your sweet goodbyes will fall upon deaf ears.
Kiss so softly the mouths of the ones you love,
beneath the September moon and the heavens above.
And the world will turn without you,
and history will soon forget about you,
but the heavens they will reward you,
and the saints will be there to escort you.
So faraway,
so faraway and yet so close.

Do not grieve at the passing of mortality,
for life's but a thing of terrible gravity.
And the planets gravitate around you,
and the stars shall dance about you,
and the angels in heaven adore you,
and the saints all stand and applaud you.
So faraway,
so faraway and yet so close.

Faraway, So Close
Nick Cave



He needed help. But urgent was not the right word. He was, if possible, worse than a Belsen victim; the only thing astonishing that he was still alive. Colin was dying. It had been a long death, and the extended melodrama had wearied many. But this was it. He didn't know, yet, whether he had survived the night. But any death was now a relief. If he was a dog you would have put him down already. Modern medicine kept him alive. Please hasten death. They were shocked, after the long drive to Newcastle, to walk into the hospital room. Mercifully, he had the room to himself. There wasn't any mistaking it this time. There wasn't any chance of leaving this time. The gaps, the aching gaps, filled his heart and left him with a terrible longing. He had been warned that he was confused. Yesterday he had thought he was working at the hospital. Today, he didn't know where he was.

"I don't know why I'm here," he said. And Joyce and he looked at each other. "What have they told you?" he asked. "I don't know," he said. "They haven't told me anything." And later he whispered: "I was doing so well." The stories kept changing. At one time he was living with his father. At another he was going back to Brisbane. At others, he simply couldn't remember where he was living. He rang old friends they had had in common; preparing them, saying, this is your last chance to say goodbye. "Does his family know he's here?" he asked the nurse. "We're not sure," the chubby, happy looking little blonde nurse said. "Is there anything we can do?" he asked her. "Not really," she said. "He's well cared for here. There's nothing else that can be done. He's very confused."

He went back in the room. Joyce was there, a real brick, although at 84 she had her own problems. But lucidity was not one of them. Colin was suffering short term memory loss. But he could remember 30 years ago. By some weird coincidence; the flux of the traffic, changing demands, before they had left Sydney God had led them to the old house where they had lived, celebrated. The little old terrace next door to the Bellevue Hotel. The one Jenny had sold for $30,000 when they were short of money to support their partying ways; and was now worth more than a million. We painted every spike on the iron gate a different colour, he recalled, silver, orange, pink. And every day we were in that pub. He was the only one that went to work, at the time as assistant manager to the Pacific Island Monthly; his shrieking queen the boss taking great delight in bossing around a young university graduate; trying to convince everyone he was a hopeless case.

And Colin was all a part of this. "He was a boy in the 70s," he told the obviously gay nurse Kevin when he was asking if it was a good idea that he made the two plus hour trip from Sydney. "Yes, I can tell," Kevin said, and they laughed that knowing laugh together. While on the other side of the planet Obama fever was reaching fever pitch on inauguration day, and this "transformational figure" attracted the attention of hundreds of millions, billions of people. While Colin died, almost alone.
The parties, those fabulous days, all gone.

Does his family know, does anyone know? he asked. He hasn't had any visitors, the nurses said. A few phone calls. We've been looking around, trying to find numbers of old friends that we could call. We don't know who to call. It would be marvellous if you came. And so he did, seeking and getting the company of Joyce for what would otherwise have been have been an immensely sad, a truly awful day.

Colin was barely conscious, drifting in and out. He sparked up when they entered, but almost immediately drifted back into unconsciousness. His teeth were out, and his gaunt face even more crumbled. Why don't you put your teeth back in now you've got visitors, he suggested. I can't, he said. They won't let me. He let it slide. He had short term memory loss; and couldn't remember the walk he had taken him on around the ocean foreshore only three months ago. He looked vaguely puzzled; and then forgot what he was trying to remember anyway. But he remembered 30 years ago; Hargrave Street, the times they had together. The endless party. The little gang of hyper-talents who were going to change the world.

"Daaarrling!!!!!!!" she shriekd. She had always shrieked, everything had always been fabulous. "Not well dear, not well." Remember Russel; of course. Remember Lyn. Remember Howard. Remember Ian. Remember Jenny. Remember.... But as he went through the roll call of old friends, he quickly realised that almost all of them were dead. Al of the lovers. All of the party chums. And Aids, which had destroyed so many of the city's talented artistic clique, was ready to take another toll.

Colin was more unconscious than conscious. He wasn't sure he would even remember that they had been. But they had done the honourable thing, in visiting the dying. In alerting those who should have known but didn't that all this was going on. After an hour of sitting there; watching this terrible visage who had once been a handsome, dynamic, immensely funny man, after enduring a toilet accident which required the nurses to clean up the bathroom, when they could hear the splattering and the pain coming from behind the bathroom door, they knew it was time to leave. Nothing they did, nothing they said, could make any difference now.

At times, as they sat there, Colin reached out his skinny hand and they held hands, unashamed.

Goodbye honey, he said, as they stood up to go. He reached again; clearly desperate for affection. And he said it again: "Goodbye Colin, goodbye." And he held his skeletal frame; and hugged him. And as they reached the door he turned around and went back; and gave him one last hug. "Goodbye mate, goodbye."



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-01-19-voa37.cfm

Excitement is building in Washington in anticipation of Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. An estimated one- to two million people are expected to witness Mr. Obama take the oath of office as the nation's first African-American president.

People gather on the National Mall during the 'We Are One: Opening Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial' in Washington, 18 Jan 2009
People gather on the National Mall during the 'We Are One: Opening Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial' in Washington, 18 Jan 2009
Hundreds of thousands of visitors are descending on Washington, hoping to witness a bit of history on Tuesday.

"It is a monumental historical event. There was no question of being here. It was just how we were going to get here and when," said one woman.

"We really wanted to come here and be a part of this because this is so exciting, and just being here is a real experience," said a young man, who is with a group of middle-school students from Iowa.

On the eve of his inauguration, President-elect Obama visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.

Mr. Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden also paid tribute to the late civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. Monday is a national holiday in honor of the Reverend King's birthday. The incoming president and vice president joined volunteers working on a community renovation project during what is described as a day of national service.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5549140.ece

Barack Obama will tomorrow be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States and then urge his country to unite in a common resolve for "renewing America's promise".

He is expected to temper hope with a recognition of tough times ahead - and balance the historic charge surrounding the inauguration of the first black president with a message that what binds America together matters more than that which for so long drove it apart.

President Bush, his bags packed, will travel the short distance down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol with his successor this morning. There, shortly after noon, Mr Obama will raise his right hand to take the oath of office.

Even as he delivers one of the most eagerly-anticipated inaugural addresses of modern times, vans will be ready to take some of Mr Obama's senior aides to the White House while a team of 60 household staff race to move the new First Family's personal possessions into their living quarters.

Although the real work will begin in earnest on Wednesday after inaugural celebrations have been completed, Mr Obama's team promise they will "hit the ground running" with a flurry of executive orders and foreign policy initiatives expected in the first week.

Today Mr Obama spent his final hours as President-elect marking Martin Luther King's birthday by volunteering in some of Washington's run-down black neighbourhoods.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24936470-643,00.html

KEVIN Rudd has reconvened the cabinet committee that masterminded last year's $10.4 billion economic rescue plan and last night began publicly selling the need for a second stimulus package.
The Government has put tax reform and fresh infrastructure investment back on the table as it faces a new threat to the economy, in the form of deflation.

Mr Rudd spent his first day back at work yesterday behind closed doors with senior ministers and public servants in the Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee, which signed off on last year's tripling of the first-home buyers grants and handouts to pensioners and families.

At an Australia Day reception at Kirribilli House last night, he delivered the first in a series of speeches on the global economic crisis and the Government's "framework for responding".

"I am doing this because I intend to be absolutely straight with Australians about the impact of the crisis, and what we intend to do about it," he said.

"The impact will be big. But so will our response."

Another Tired Sad Old Analogy

Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the USA
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She says, Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side
She said, Hey honey
Take a walk on the wild side

Candy came from out on the Island
In the backroom she was everybody's darlin'
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving head
She says, Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side
Said, Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side
And the colored girls go
doo do doo do doo do do doo

Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City's the place where they said, Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side
I said, Hey Joe
Take a walk on the wild side

Sugar Plum Fairy came and hit the streets
Lookin' for soul food and a place to eat
Went to the Apollo
You should've seen 'em go go go
They said, Hey sugar
Take a walk on the wild side
I Said, Hey babe
Take a walk on the wild side
All right, huh

Jackie is just speeding away
Thought she was James Dean for a day
Then I guess she had to crash
Valium would have helped that bash
Said, Hey babe,
Take a walk on the wild side
I said, Hey honey,
Take a walk on the wild side
And the colored girls say,
doo do doo do doo do do doo

Walk On The Wild Side, Lou Reed.




Well Colin was dying, there wasn't too much doubt about it this time. He had been dying for a decade but this was the last dive. He is confused and doesn't seem to know where he's living anymore. He wreaked. He swanned. Luvvy, luvvy, you get your cute arse back here. You tell me what should be happening. You smile in my face and for God's sake get the drugs. In Hargrave Street Paddington in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She shrieked, she absolutely shrieked. Not well darling, I'm not well. So loud even the accustomed neighbours, on their ways to work in their straight worlds, their straight jobs, their neat houses, their worthy roles. They didn't envy them for one minute, not one little bit. He could smell the stale sweat. He had been out for coffee and was coming back to a house full of bodies asleep in his lounge room. Colin was with him. He was an early riser just like him. Not well darling, not well, he said again, cackling in the daw2n at his own joke. Not well luvvy, not well. And they both laughed for no particular reason; the joy of it, the urbanity, the beautiful colouring of the white terraces against the deep blue of the Australian sky.

Back then, oh so way back then, Colin had justifiably got off his trolley the previous evening; the recent death of his first boyfriend, Phil, being excuse enough. Living next door to the hotel was one of those fateful, delightful flaws of fate. What else were they going to do? Trot off to work like everyone else? He tried to smile politely as the neighbour's door opened and she emerged, obviously dressed for work. He smiled a cheery good morning and she nodded back sternly, aghast not just at the raucous sounds that had been emerging from his lounge room for most of the night, but aghast at the sight of Colin, who even way back then was a sight to behold, tall, thin, clearly wasted; he always had that look of a drag queen out of a dress; although that was not the case. Hello Luvvie, he said in his campest drawl. It's a lovely morning. Even now, at this hour, you could see the shimmer of chemically induced thoughts dragging through his psyche. She nodded tightly and they entered their own door, dividing the world into another place.

They picked their way over sleeping bodies, including Russell Keithal, the ever so handsome boy they all wanted to sleep with, men, women and any other possible category. To be able to boast you had slept with Russell was more than just another notch on a belt; he was the dream of desire, the pinnacle of the age, their tribe's lust object. Oh to be blessed. Colin was blessed, he always was. In an age before being gay became compulsory if you lived in inner Sydney, he was a pioneer slut. The married couple syndrome he had exhibited with Phil, when they were barely old enough to have left school, was short lived and he spread his favours willingly. There was no shortage of takers. Take a Walk On The Wild Side was one of the songs of the monmet. Jackie was just speeding away, thought she was James Dean for a day. Diamond Dogs. David Bowie's admission, or was it promotion, of bisexuality transfixed us all. We wanted to be at one. Colin was more than happy to help the straight boys explore their sexuality. It was all part of everything. Jackie was just speeding away... thought she was James Dean for a day... This was the anthem of the age.

Decades later tired thoughts swirled through a tired brain. The vast empty warehouse that had been his psyche was changing. He was becoming the person he had always wanted to be. Maybe. He didn't sit on the back step quietly smoking, talking to no one, achingly lonely. You're very good value, 9.75 out of 10, a neighbour said at a barbeque. Handosme boys, georgeous girls sat in chairs or perched on low brick walls. They were so charming. Their flesh glistened with you. They were so together, so accomplished, so comfortable in their own skins. Back in the day, his day, they were off their trolleys and any comfortable scene like this would have been disturbed by someone stumbling into a corner and passing out, the sound of someone else retching in the backyard. You're the most handsome 60-year-old in this street, Bridgette said. Not much competition, he replied. Oh I don't know, she said, and they both laughed for no accountable reason.

If only Colin had been here. He would have loved it; the boy with his handsome face and long legs; shown off by shorts. He would have been whispering fervently in the kitchen, plotting his way to the prize. Everyone who had been to see Nick Cave the previous day was sunburnt. How could you go wrong? The Saints, The Laughing Clowns, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Oh my God they put on the best performance. Nick, the star turn, took the best position, the sun setting across the harbour as he took the stage on Cockatoo Island. Old rockers knew every twist of every old punk song. Men in their 50s and 60s danced with young things in their 20s and 30s. It was one of the best days of my life, he loudly declared all the following day. And indeed it was hard to beat. If only Colin could have been there. The tickets had been $150 each; and of course that would have been a drama for the old dear. But we would have all loved to be there; the beat, the heat, the drama. And Nick Cave, hey tripooolooo, our genius. Our beloved.

Instead Colin was lying in a hospital bed in John Hunter hospital, he didn't seem to know where he was or what was happening any more. Short term memory loss, they said. And loss it was, all loss. We had lived this long and we were relics from a bygone age. We thought we were going to change everything. Instead we grew old. Pioneer slut turned into a sad old man dying of AIDS in hospital, his brain rotting.
We had been so close. We had thought everything was ours. But now the dark ages had come; his own dark ages. And the crimes against humanity that were the conservatives; they had won.

Bye luvvie, that was what he wanted to say. He was going to check with the hospital staff to see if Colin had survived the night, before driving up there, the long highway, two hours at least. Bye luvvie, and the tears sparked down his face. NOt well, she shrieked, a far away echo. We made so many mistakes. At least no one can say we didn't give it a good nudge, he said on the phone yesterday. The stale smell of death he could feel from here. They gave their private life. Oh yes, they'd given it a good nudge alright. And now, in these final days, in these final hours, their glimmers of memory, the party boys, the true blue spectacular enemies who outraged everybody, who painted every railing on the old terrace a different colour, who spent their wasted days being fabulous in the dark bar; all of this was gone now. We didn't change the world. We grew old and we died. Goodbye Luvvie, it was a pleasure to have met you. Already, more than half of them are gone.




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/obama_inauguration/7836315.stm

US President-elect Barack Obama has told a crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters in Washington that "anything is possible in America".

As the US fights two wars and tackles an economic crisis, Mr Obama said he was "hopeful as ever that the United States of America will prevail".

He was speaking at a welcome concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, ahead of his inauguration on Tuesday.

Some of the biggest names in music took part, among them Beyonce and U2.

Mr Obama said that meeting the challenges faced by the US would not be easy and would take more than a month or a year.

But he said that "the dream of our founders will live on in our time".

There were also readings highlighting American values and history.

The concert was one in a series of special events in the lead-up to Mr Obama's swearing-in as the 44th US president.

Earlier Mr Obama placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to remember fallen American servicemen.

The BBC's Richard Lister in Washington says it was a reminder to his supporters that while there is room for celebration over the next few days, this is also a sombre time for America, as it fights two wars and grapples with an economic crisis.

Security operation

An unprecedented security operation is under way in the capital ahead of Mr Obama's swearing-in on Tuesday, with the authorities expecting a turnout of up to two million.

Some 240,000 tickets have been issued for the festivities at the Capitol.

http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3116/236/

Believe it or not, global warming is being cited as one of the reasons a US Airways flight landed in New York's Hudson River on Friday.

Media were considering blaming the incident on the Bush administration until it became apparent that as a result of pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger's heroic efforts, as well as those of his flight crew, there were no fatalities.

With nothing bad to pin on the current President, the good folks at Time magazine found another predictable culprit (h/t Tom Nelson):

Wildlife mitigation is the official term for avoiding accidents like these, and according to the government's latest report on the topic, it's becoming an increasing concern. The report, which was released in June by the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation and Fish and Wildlife Service, found that since 1990, the number of bird strikes has quadrupled, from 1,759 in 1990 to a record 7,666 in 2007. Officials cite a number of possible causes for the increase:

• Most commercial airlines are now replacing older three- and four-engine planes with more-efficient double-engine aircraft. Because these newer engines are quieter, birds are less likely to detect and avoid them. Worse still, fewer engines mean fewer backups should a plane and a flock of birds cross paths.
• While officials use radar and radio collars to track bird populations, habitat destruction and climate change have disrupted migratory patterns.

Al Gore should be very proud of himself.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7836620.stm

With Gaza still smouldering, foreign leaders descended on the region, thinking about the future.

Gordon Brown's plane made a lazy figure of eight over the Red Sea as prime ministers and presidents vied for the right to land first at Sharm el-Sheikh.

As we banked steeply for our final approach, a container ship ploughed a solitary path north into the Gulf of Suez.

Britain and others have offered to keep an eye on this stretch of water to prevent shipments of arms being offloaded on the coast of Sinai and smuggled across the peninsula into Gaza.

Sharm, a Mecca for divers and winter sun worshippers, has seen more than its fair share of international gatherings, including the famous 1996 Summit of the Peacemakers, which followed a spate of suicide attacks in Israel and sought, in familiar language, "to enhance the peace process, to promote security and to combat terror".

Hopes voiced

Speeding to the Jolie Ville Golf Resort, scene of numerous similar events, our convoy swept past a frieze depicting participants at that event, including some, like former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan, who haven't lived to witness the latest convulsion.

Combating terror and promoting security were clearly top of the agenda, with European powers queuing up to offer technical and training assistance to stem the smuggling of arms into Gaza.



Phone camera is broken: my apologies for the decline in picture quality.