Lucky Is Alive

*



William James has observed that 'the power of alcohol
over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to
stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature
usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry
criticisms of the sober hour'
'Mystical faculties' here refers to that flood-tide of
inner warmth and vital energy that human beings regard as
the most desirable state to live in
The sober hour carries continuous demands on the energy
sense-impressions
thoughts
uncertainties
suck away the vital powers minute by minute
Alcohol seems to paralyse these leeches of the energies
the vital warmth is left to accumulate and form a sort of
inner reservoir
This concentration of the energies is undoubtedly one of
the most important conditions of the state the saints call
'Innigkeit'
inwardness
The saint achieves inwardness by a deliberate policing of
the vital energies
He comes to recognize the energy-stealing emotions
all the emotions that do not make for inwardness
and he sets out to exterminate them in himself
As he moves towards his objective
he increases steadily his supply of surplus vital power
and so increases his powers of foresight and hind-sight
the sense of other times and other places
there is a breaking-free of the body's sense of
imprisonment in time and a rising warmth of life-energy
that is spoken of in the Gospel as 'to have life more
abundantly'
he was no longer the same person

Simo Sakari Aaltonen (2008)



There were voices crying in the wind. Lucky was still alive. He looked across the back fence and there he was, whining at their back door, begging for attention. But no longer barking. What had happened? Had they put an electronic collar on him, shocking him every time he barked? Had he had his vocal chords cut? Why, suddenly, this spooky silence, and the sad shuffling sound of the dog at the back door, crying in the cold, the wet, the winter now settling in on Sydney. He was shocked, amused, daunted by the cycle of higher fates, when he realised it was happening again, all the threads were coming together, marking yet again the shifting time, the period of life when things changed, when he looked back across everything that had happened, circled once more through the Cross, looked at the landmarks which had once been so significant.

He passed once more under the giant Coca Cola sign at the top of William Street, the sign underneath which he had swayed as a drunken teenager. Life had come full circle. He was shocked and saddened, frightened of the future, frightened of a higher fate. Would he became a painter now, as once he had dreamed, perched on the high cliffs of then remote Thai islands, passing the days drawing in intricate detail the cafe he had made home. God, destiny, even talent, were bound up in those drawings which now lay obscurely packed he knew not where. Would all these threads welcome him into a new life? Was God not finished yet?

The threads were coming together in every way possible. The Cross had always been symbolic. Sacrificing himself on the Cross, that is the way he had seen it. And now, as a semi-old man, he was creeping across the same landscapes, viewing them, this time, in a very different way. He passed the workers in the shallow lakes, figures bent over on the encrusted salt, the shimmering heat. He wasn't sure why; just knew destiny held greater things. It couldn't have all just happened for nothing, all the signs, the parties, the trips, the uncanny linkages. Everything he looked at reminded him of something else. The scrawny worker in the doorway reminded him of a fat pro he had once known; the men loved her. She was nonthreatening, cheap. She would tighten her fat legs together and pop! they were done.

He had swayed drunken as a child underneath that looming sign; and now the shadows were more alive than ever, the park down behind Elizabeth Bay where he once used to go to watch the gold fish, the looming, unwelcoming apartments above as he took the guilty secrets, shot through with ecstasy, the shimmering plants, the distant comings and goings, expensive cars, limousines. It was all so long ago. He had been so frightened; not just of the future but of everything, the fabric of things falling apart, the malignant tides shimmering across the ground, the sneering voices of others, condemnation, police, the frightening shadows. He couldn't believe he had survived.

That he was here, again, decades later, walking the same streets which had once seemed so ominous, so dark, mysterious, gloomy, profound. Now he knew, no longer a boy, what life was all about; abnegation, failure, descent. He came to walk through the spring paths, to look at the ponds again. To be profoundly altered. Nothing surprised him more than having survived. They had pulled him out of swimming pools and fished him off the streets, they had dragged him out of gutters and left him on his feet. And here he was with grey hair, walking the same places, completing the cycle. Because he knew nothing would be the same again. He knew we were walking into shallow park lands and social disgrace; and the history of everything. And he knew the decades had done what he had so irrevocably feared; changed his powers. He was no longer telepathic. Simply an observer, caught on a physical plane.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25559037-5018985,00.html

PASSENGERS will have to quarantine themselves for a week when they leave the flu-stricken cruise ship Pacific Dawn in Brisbane today, but hundreds of fellow travellers may be free to go when the vessel docks in Sydney.

Queensland Health yesterday said all 150 passengers due to disembark in Brisbane would be asked to isolate themselves at home for seven days, regardless of whether they were sick with swine flu.

"Given that we're not quite sure what's going on, we're taking the most ultra-cautious approach and asking people to be in home isolation for seven days," Queensland chief medical officer Jeanette Young said.

But NSW Health is refusing to say if it will quarantine the remaining 1850 passengers after they sail into Sydney on Monday.

NSW asked 2000 Pacific Dawn passengers who disembarked from a previous cruise in Sydney on Monday to isolate themselves at home for seven days, after two children on board were confirmed with the virus. But 49 of those passengers have since tested positive for swine flu, as well as three crew members who remain aboard the liner.

One in four of the 207 Australians with swine flu were on board the Pacific Dawn cruise, which arrived back in Sydney on Monday.

The ship has now spent five days at sea on its new cruise, after Queensland authorities refused to let it stop in north Queensland when crew members were found to be infected.

A boat was sent to intercept the cruise ship off Gladstone yesterday to collect swabs taken from five passengers with flu-like symptoms.

Dr Young said no one would be allowed off the ship until swabs were tested today.



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25559027-2702,00.html

AUSTRALIA'S irrigation sector has contracted dramatically because of drought and government water buybacks.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released this week show that Australia's agricultural water use decreased by 18 per cent in 2007-08, following a decrease of 27 per cent the year before.

Between 2005-06 and 2007-08, there was the loss of 5189 irrigation businesses and the area irrigated fell by 27 per cent. The lion's share of that decrease came from NSW, where water use decreased by 41 per cent in 2006-07 and by 35 per cent in 2007-08.

Most of the decrease was due to drought, but government buybacks are also taking water out of irrigation. The biggest buyback program is the federal Government's $3.1 billion Water for the Future program, which this week purchased 240 gigalitres from Twynam Agricultural Group in NSW. The Living Murray program, funded by the Murray River states and the federal Government, has a program to purchase $50 million worth of water licences along the Murray.

The NSW, Victorian and federal Governments are partners in the $425 million Water for Rivers program that aims to return 212GL to the Snowy River and 70GL to the Murray by 2012. And the NSW Government's Riverbank program is also spending $105 million to purchase water licences.

The impact of those purchases is being felt in the irrigation communities.

Terry Hogan, a Coleambally irrigation farmer and chairman of a group of 18 councils along the NSW side of the Murray River, said: "I am very concerned about the impact that will have on our communities, our jobs, our businesses, our kids' future, our grandkids."

He said while the federal Government had been rolling out programs to create and maintain jobs, "at the same time we have got the federal Government buying water out of our regions that has in the past grown food and fibre for the world".

When irrigation goes, so too do the jobs of many contractors and factory workers.



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25559172-5013404,00.html

FIRST," new Telstra chief executive David Thodey says, "I am Australian.

"This is an Australian company. We are based in Australia. We have a great Australian Government. We have regulators who have got to do their job."

And no, he says firmly, Australians are not racist.

Mr Thodey, in his first interview since replacing Sol Trujillo this month, does not want to comment directly on his predecessor and his embittered criticism of Australia as racist and backward.

"I have been really focused on going forward," he tells The Weekend Australian. "Sol has left the company.

"He has moved on.".

It sounds like the polite way of repeating Kevin Rudd's supposedly racist, one-word farewell, "Adios", but it's more an indication of how much the style of Telstra will change under a new leader.

In the post-Trujillo era, the Telstra board was determined to present a much friendlier and very Australian face, choosing the 54-year-old insider to do it.

And while Mr Trujillo suggested the Government's $43billion national broadband network was a bluff, Mr Thodey says he is "absolutely convinced the Government will do it".

That leaves him facing one of Australia's greatest political and commercial challenges - much of it certain to be played out in public.
Mr Thodey has to find a way to make the Government's grand plan stack up for Telstra shareholders, as well as for the Government. Many in the market doubt whether that will be possible and are nervous that Telstra may have to compromise its own shareholder interests to meet government demands.

Lucky

*




THE MAN FROM IRONBARK by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"'Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."

The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed the wink, his dexter eyelid shut,
"I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut."
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
"I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark."

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused awhile to gloat,
Then slashed the red-hot razor-back across his victim's throat:
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark -
No doubt it fairly took him in - the man from Ironbark.

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And though his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
"You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! one hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life the man from Ironbark."

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with nail and tooth, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And "Murder! Bloody murder!" yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun—
'Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark."

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

The Bulletin, 17 December 1892.



For years the dog next door had barked ceaselessly. Sometimes, when bored, he would count the barks, losing track somewhere after 30 or so in the first few minutes. It just kept going on; and on; and on. Ceaseless. Why the dog's vocal chords didn't fall out from over-use he would never know. It was the same sad obsessive repetitive behaviour he had seen in other caged animals, circus elephants in the Australian landscape tethered tightly to poles, rocking back and forth under the gums. And this deranged dog, known ironically as Lucky. Lucky!!! It was the old joke, seen a one-eyed three legged pooch answering to the name of Lucky? It's yellow eyes glared up, absolutely deranged.

The concrete yard where the Alsatian was kept was small, typical of inner-city terraces. The views across Darling Harbour and from the often yet-to-be built fourth floor attics gave the sense that one day these terraces would be worth money, built as they were along a natural ridge line. Where he could still hear the ancient voices where the bush once was. Animals scurrying under trees. And in this modern era, the trapped, tragic barking of Lucky, as he prowled restlessly his concrete domain, desperately lonely, barely if ever walked, barking and barking, please hear me, please see me, please touch me, for God sake someone show me some affection.

So it barked and it barked and it barked. To the point where one day, sent home from work after he coughed, spreading fear of swine flu, and he cowered in the front room away from the noise, with the door shut, the only room where he could get any peace. And even then he could still hear it barking and barking and barking and barking, on and on and on. And he picked up the phone. Several days before his neighbour Craig, a kind-hearted dog-loving man, had told him that the rangers had been around asking whether Lucky was bothering him. There had been some kind of complaint. No doubt from the shift workers at the back. They had complained before. They had even come knocking on his door when that foul smelling miniature sausage dog Estie had been dumped on him by the Ex, and Estie, an indoor dog who absolutely hated being outside, had joined the barking chorus; driving the shift workers insane.

They had come knocking on his door pleading for it to stop. It had. But Lucky never stopped. Maybe they were new people. There had been council notices about planned renovations. Whatever, we who lived there, who had tolerated the noise and tolerated each other for years, would never have complained to the authorities. I told him I didn't mind Lucky at all, and I told him, because you weren't home, that you didn't mind either. That you were more concerned about other noise in the neighbourhood. He raised his eyebrows. Well, they'll take Lucky off to the pound, they'll kill him. That's what they do. No body's going to want a dog like Lucky, an Alsatian which has spent its entire life on a block of concrete. Mad. I couldn't be responsible for that, sending it to its death. Just as well for Lucky I wasn't home, he said. The damn thing drives me insane. It just never stops; you wake up with it barking, you go to sleep with it barking.

And then he'd been sent home from work, and could find no peace inside his own home. I'm paying more than $400 a week rent and I'm cowering in a room trying to get away from the noise, it's ridiculous he thought, and picked up the phone and rang the council. A nice young woman answered promptly, took all his details, empathised with the situation, empathised with him that he didn't want anything bad to happen to the dog, there just must be a way to stop it barking all the time; training, a special collar or something. And then the silence descended. Within hours. The thing which had been driving him insane for so long had ceased. It seemed spookily, frighteningly, dangerously quiet. It was quiet, too quiet, as the old saying went. He couldn't believe how the fabric of everything had opened up; he could hear a bird in the gum tree out the back, the rumble of traffic at the front. The deranged barking of a desperately sad animal no longer populated his every minute at home. He no longer, after a crescendo of barking peaking over several hours, yelled out: Shuttup Lucky!!! Shuttup!!!! And he felt guilty for the nervous pleasure of all that silence. And sorrow for an animal that should never have been called Lucky.




THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-warming/value-of-natural-capital-priceless-20090528-boxa.html

Prince Charles: Extract of Speech:

To me, three dimensions provide the framework to Copenhagen.

The first is urgency. There is now only a mercifully small (if vociferous) number of people who do not accept the science of climate change and who should know better, but there are still a great many who fail to recognise the urgency of the situation.

Even in the past few weeks there has been further evidence from scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the University of Oxford that it will take much longer for the climate to recover from excessive warming than previously thought. We are already in the Last Chance Saloon.

We have only 97 months in which to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions reach their absolute peak - otherwise it may well be too late to stop temperatures rising beyond dangerous levels. This would render unbelievably large parts of the world uninhabitable as sea levels rise, bringing massive disruption to global food and freshwater supplies, and eventually lead to billions of environmental refugees, with all that means for global security.

Global decision-makers must be persuaded that strong, committed and coordinated action is needed now, not in 10 years, not even five, but now - otherwise there will be little left on which to base our economies.

The second dimension is human interactions with nature. Climate change is undoubtedly the greatest challenge of our age but it is far from the only global ecological challenge we face.

In our human-centred world, with its emphasis on economics, and following decades of apparently unending material "progress", it has become all too easy for us to believe that we can continue to take what we wish from natural systems on the assumption they will indefinitely replenish themselves. As we are discovering, in the real world it doesn't quite work like that.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25552775-5013479,00.html

Ian Plimer:

The Emissions Trading Scheme legislation poises Australia to make the biggest economic decision in its history, yet there has been no scientific due diligence.

There has never been a climate change debate in Australia. Only dogma. To demonise element number six in the periodic table is amusing. Why not promethium? Carbon dioxide is an odourless, colourless, harmless natural gas. It is plant food. Without carbon, there would be no life on Earth.

The original source of atmospheric CO2 is volcanoes. The Earth's early atmosphere had a thousand times the CO2 of today's atmosphere. This CO2 was recycled through rocks, life and the oceans...

The fundamental questions remain unanswered. A change of 1 per cent in cloudiness can account for all changes measured during the past 150 years, yet cloud measurements are highly inaccurate. Why is the role of clouds ignored? Why is the main greenhouse gas (water vapour) ignored? The limitation of temperature in hot climates is evaporation yet this ignored in catastrophist models.

Why are balloon and satellite measurements showing cooling ignored yet unreliable thermometer measurements used? Is the increase in atmospheric CO2 really due to human activities?...

Comments by critics suggest that few have actually read the book and every time there was a savage public personal attack, book sales rose. A political blog site could not believe that such a book was selling so well and suggested that my publisher, Connor Court, was a front for the mining or pastoral industry.

This book has struck a nerve. Although accidentally timely, there are a large number of punters who object to being treated dismissively as stupid, who do not like being told what to think, who value independence, who resile from personal attacks and have life experiences very different from the urban environmental atheists attempting to impose a new fundamentalist religion.

Green politics have taken the place of failed socialism and Western Christianity and impose fear, guilt, penance and indulgences on to a society with little scientific literacy. We are now reaping the rewards of politicising science and dumbing down the education system. If book sales, public meetings, book launches, email and phone messages are any indication, there is a large body of disenfranchised folk out there who feel helpless. I have shown that the emperor has no clothes. This is why the attacks are so vitriolic.

Ian Plimer is emeritus professor of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne. His book Heaven and Earth is published by Connor Court.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-little-light-music-and-action-any-idea-what-this-vivid-festival-is-about-20090528-boxb.html

A little light, music and action. Any idea what this Vivid festival is about?
Elicia Murray

What's got five arms, six heads and is run by a committee? Sydney's winter festival. But that's not what it's called. It's called Vivid Sydney. Even though it kicked off this week, you could be forgiven for not having the faintest idea what it's about.

The event has about as many elements as dollars spent on it. For what? It's hard to say, as there is no unifying theme. It's supposed to be a celebration of music, light and ideas. I've been quite fond of music, light and ideas for some time, but bundling them together and calling them Vivid Sydney strikes me as an Iron Chef approach to events management. Reach into the cupboard, pull out a handful of mystery ingredients and serve a dish that will make the kooky Japanese actress gush, "Oh, what a delicious combination of flavours."

Take the title, Vivid. A lovely word. No doubt it rolled off the tongues of the creatives enlisted by the Government's events and tourism agencies to spruik the city during the dull winter months. I might even be able to cope with Vivid Sydney if it stopped there, but come summer, we'll be asked to remember that a disparate group of warm-weather activities are lumped under another banner, Vivacity. Turning a gorgeous word into a cogent concept takes more than a few ideas scrawled on a whiteboard. No idea might be a bad idea in a brainstorming session, but plenty turn bad once inflicted on the real world. And the closer you look at Vivid, the harder it is to understand.

It has four festivals. There is a light festival, but it is not the one called Luminous. That's the name of the music festival, curated by the British music supremo Brian Eno, at the Opera House. The light part is called Smart Light Sydney. It has its own theme, "city and memory". (Eno also has a bit-part in the light extravaganza, having led a team that splashed fancy colours onto the Opera House sails.)

Then there is Creative Sydney, which pumps the city's role as the creative hub of the Asia-Pacific region. And, finally, Fire Water re-creates an exploding convict ship for three nights. With music. And light. Geddit?



A river park in western Sydney.

And Then What Happened?

*



Then I saw the road, I heard the thunder
Tumble, and felt the talons of the rain
The night we came to Moorebank in slab-dark,
So dark you bore no body, had no face,
But a sheer voice that rattled out of air
(As now you'd cry if I could break the glass),
A voice that spoke beside me in the bush,
Loud for a breath or bitten off by wind,
Of Milton, melons, and the Rights of Man,
And blowing flutes, and how Tahitian girls
Are brown and angry-tongued, and Sydney girls
Are white and angry-tongued, or so you'd found.
But all I heard was words that didn't join
So Milton became melons, melons girls,
And fifty mouths, it seemed, were out that night,
And in each tree an Ear was bending down,
Or something that had just run, gone behind the grass,
When blank and bone-white, like a maniac's thought,
The naphtha-flash of lightning slit the sky,
Knifing the dark with deathly photographs.
There's not so many with so poor a purse
Or fierce a need, must fare by night like that,
Five miles in darkness on a country track,
But when you do, that's what you think.
Five bells.

Kenneth Slessor




And the nobility of the savage, that was not right. He could see teetering drag queens on their high heels, blowing kisses, reeking of cheap perfume, telling tales of outrage and personal courage with every lisp. Not well dear not well they shrieked at each other, like giant malformed parrots. He was stunned; everything had gone back to normal. Lucky finally stopped barking; someone called the council, the barking dog ranger came around. Suddenly it all seems so quiet. The loud constant obsessive barking which had populated his every free moment at home for years was finally gone. He hadn't realised how sick it was making, that constant bark, never being able to relax, constant, constant, the drip, destroying every last spark of sanity as the deranged creature howled and barked and barked.

It was shocking what had happened. Not just the goons roaming the streets, extensions of the thought police, searching for everyone who did not accept the government was marvellous, the courts fair and just, the bureaucracy running like a well oiled machine. The farcical state of decay into which democracy had fallen, with salutary warnings coming from Britain as politician after politician fell on their sword, exposed for rorting the system. No one could have any faith any more. The Westminster system was in crisis. The jihadists rallied. He was shocked, more at how quickly it had happened than anything else. The young ones had never seen Labor in power, they didn't realise how profligate they were, what hopeless administrators they were.

The voice was clear. Take no enemies. Take no prisoners. Fight strong. Be proud. Go back to the village and find your soul, discover the person who once was. Most people's lives were pretty damn boring, he realised that when he came to write about them. He had once thought everyone had an interesting tale to tell, but the school yards were empty and the same all over the world, a triumphant bully, a cowering victim, bright shiny eyes let me go let me go. The drum beat had gone. And the old voices, the imaginary wasps, they drifted on the wind. The stories of the city were already tiresome. Dealers and spruikers and street walkers, He had tried to join them, to become part of the criminal trash, but his impulses were more artistic.

He wanted, he never understood why, to transform ordinary events into artistic objects, to make statues out of clay, to aspire to a higher cause. These aspirations were decades old, and linked back to the voices of his ancestors, now weak in the modern world, overwhelmed by noise and information static. There was no way to really know what would happen. There was no way to be blessed and courageous all at once? All because modern man had defied the church. All because the shadows were marching through the corn, the shadows of clouds winging across the fields, brief moments in the torture scheme where the world was blessed and God prickled in the plant life as they admired another stunning day.

These gasps of beauty were rare in a city bleak with winter and a population groaning under their mortgage payments as they peer out from their flash four-wheel-drives. The city was a place inside his head; street view. It ignored all the casual beauties just around the corner; the bright bright views up and down the harbour, islands floating in the sun, rich greens and blues painted across their vision. He had wanted to go down, down, into the heart of the matter, but instead nausea gripped him and shadows ran fleeting from his side. The silence of this place, after a dog had barked constantly for more than five years, had spooked him. There was no other way. Did they kill it in the gas ovens? Was it trapped in an even smaller concrete prison with the guards outside? Were they warming the ovens already? Was this animal's sad fate really his fault?



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/26/2581485.htm

The number of swine flu cases in Australia has risen to 44, with eight more Victorians confirmed as having the virus and Queensland recording a further five positives.

The latest confirmed cases are a 32-year-old man and seven children aged between six and 18, all of whom live in Melbourne's northern and western suburbs.

Health officials are yet to reveal which schools the children attend.

The Queensland cases are five people among 13 who were tested at the Gold Coast Hospital after arriving on a flight from Sydney.

They had been passengers on the Pacific Dawn cruise ship, which docked in Sydney yesterday.

Those who tested positive were children aged five and seven, two 37-year-olds and a 45-year-old.

So far there are 24 confirmed cases in Victoria, nine in New South Wales, seven in Queensland, two in South Australia, and one each in Western Australia and the ACT.

Four people aboard the Pacific Dawn have since been diagnosed with swine flu and authorities say there is a risk the Victorians may have had contact with them.

Authorities are also trying to track down dozens of Victorians who were on the Pacific Dawn.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/818261/bogan-clare-may-have-hollywood-future

Hollywood funnyman Will Ferrell says Australia's most infamous bogan Clare Werbeloff may have a future on the screen after watching footage of her famous "eyewitness account" on a shooting.

Appearing on A Current Affair, the Talladega Nights star said Werbeloff's fabricated testimony about a Kings Cross shooting was "pretty good, pretty convincing" — although he suggested her accent might be a bit too thick for international audiences.

"I have no idea what she said," Ferrell said, before asking what a "wog" was and prompting interviewer Ben Fordham to bring the exchange to an abrupt close.

Werbelloff had revealed earlier on in the program that she has received death threats.

"I'm under fire — one lady phoned in [during a radio interview] and said I deserved to be shot and asked how I would feel if I got hit by a bus and someone made money off that," she said.

Werbeloff said she was not seeing the things as a joke and was now "taking it quite seriously".

"It's horrible — it makes me feel like a really bad person … we need to focus on the crime that’s happened," she said.

"I don’t condone violence at all."

Werbeloff, who polarised the country with her controversial and false report about a Kings Cross shooting just one week ago, also apologised to the victim of the incident.

"I'm so sorry — I couldn’t imagine having a gun pointed in your face and being shot," she said.

"I'm sorry that it's come to this and if there's anything I can do ... I'd love to meet with him … it wasn't my intention to make him feel bad."

The northern beaches local said her life had changed dramatically since her bogus report aired on Nine News.

"I am 19 and it's just changed my life … I've got fans and I've got people that hate me and I don't know what to do … I don't know what the future holds," she said.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=817894

Twitter, the website that asks what everybody's doing, says it wants to be doing a TV series.

The social-networking site has teamed with Reveille productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners to develop an unscripted series based on the popular site, which invites 140-character postings from members around the world.

The show would harness Twitter to put players on the trail of celebrities in an interactive, competitive format, the show's producers announced on Monday.

"Right now, Twitter is an incredible technological and cultural phenomenon," said executive producer Amy Ephron, who created the TV show and took it to Twitter.

The producers call their proposed series the first to bring the immediacy of Twitter to the TV screen.

"It captures what's best about Twitter, and it's a compelling TV show in its own right," said Noah Oppenheim, head of unscripted development for Reveille.

Like Ephron, he was tightlipped on any details about the show, its format, even its title. He said the partners are saving all that for their upcoming pitch meetings with networks.

Once a network deal is signed, "We're ready to go into production," Oppenheim said.

In The First Instance

*



Time that is moved by little fidget wheels
Is not my time, the flood that does not flow.
Between the double and the single bell
Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells
From the dark warship riding there below,
I have lived many lives, and this one life
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells.

Deep and dissolving verticals of light
Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells
Coldly rung out in a machine's voice. Night and water
Pour to one rip of darkness, the Harbour floats
In the air, the Cross hangs upside-down in water.

Why do I think of you, dead man, why thieve
These profitless lodgings from the flukes of thought
Anchored in Time? You have gone from earth,
Gone even from the meaning of a name;
Yet something's there, yet something forms its lips
And hits and cries against the ports of space,
Beating their sides to make its fury heard.

Are you shouting at me, dead man, squeezing your face
In agonies of speech on speechless panes?
Cry louder, beat the windows, bawl your name!

But I hear nothing, nothing...only bells,
Five bells, the bumpkin calculus of Time.
Your echoes die, your voice is dowsed by Life,
There's not a mouth can fly the pygmy strait -
Nothing except the memory of some bones
Long shoved away, and sucked away, in mud;
And unimportant things you might have done,
Or once I thought you did; but you forgot,
And all have now forgotten - looks and words
And slops of beer; your coat with buttons off,
Your gaunt chin and pricked eye, and raging tales
Of Irish kings and English perfidy,
And dirtier perfidy of publicans
Groaning to God from Darlinghurst.
Five bells.

Kenneth Slessor



He knew he was on the precipice. Vistas, spectacular views across the valleys, kept opening up. The trouble was the destsiny bit. He could see them all smoking and dying, polluting their lungs and praying for a better day. But it wasn't just these neglected kernels, it wasn't just the passwords into deeper truths, it was a fragile sense of being, as if, truly, we were only here for the blinking of an eye. He was saturated with love. Or was it longing? A semester of pain. The police monitoring his every move. The spectacular day when he became a spokesman for his generation. That day in the streets of Darlinghurst when he looked up and said, profoundly, intensely, as if it was a major discovery, the world is not going to be the same in 30 years, we'll barely recognise it.

They agreed, in ragged jeans and long hair and scruffy presence, they pleaded for release. For comfort. For a return to the suburbs. He was already shattered. He wanted to be protected, looked after. He didn't want the cruel abandonment he had always known, the search for books that would tell his story, the stranger in a strange land now collapsed on a strange street, a significant outcome. He was spinning, his head was spinning, and he remained tight on the planet surface, anchored, longing. Speak to me of God, he said, and all that happened was the fabric of things collapsed even further. Sent as observer, he wasn't going to die. But he was frightened.

In all the morrows, in all the mourning, in the funeral processions in remote villages and in the strange debates over social issues. They couldn't bear to be contradicted. They couldn't debate on open ground. The pack mentality of the left was in full sway. They backed away from the emissions trading scheme; they were shadowed. He had seen it so often, waves of belief. They treated the public like fools. They instilled fear in order to gain power. It was so crass, so blatant, and then the global financial crisis took over from global warming as the scare tactic of the day, and all those earnest believers, all those wide eyed and fresh faced believers, their skin scrubbed with good health, their wide eyes sparkling clear and dangerous, did not know where to go.

It was a shadow of a former time. He had seen it all before. They were criminals, these rulers, these manipulators of the public fate, criminals because dishonest to the core. They themselves did not believe in the apocalyptic visions they so eagerly shoved down every body else's throat. They flew in their mighty jets and expected everybody else to pay. Sol Trujillo has exited the country after ripping $30 million plus out of Telstra, in massive salaries, massive bonuses, in expense bills miles long as he roamed the world from luxury hotel to luxury hotel, as if he too was a chief justice on an endless junket, a mightier, better person than the toiling masses who paid his salary, who contributed to his wealth with every phone call they made.

He was amazed, still amazed, at the pack stupidity of the masses, lifting and following every belief with infinite passion, believing and seeking, in God, in paradise, in justice, in re-distribution of wealth. It was hard to believe, in a Godless world, in a place where the fabric, the texture of things, was already barren, heartless. They wanted dto believe, those earnest masses. Walk lightly upon the earth. Be humble. Live simply. Adopt solar power and cleanse your soul. He was shocked at the pack mentality, and yet he had been the one monitoring it all along, his ancient role, the observer, the transmitter of truth, his ancient eyes seeing what this newly educated populace should have been able to see, that their vicious, blind hatred of everyone who did not agree with them, their determination to beleive, that it would not change because he had changed. Educated into ignorance. Stimulated into despair. Believe not what you are told; for there is little truth, not in this world, not in this culture, not now.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/26/north-korea-missiles-test

A defiant North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its east coast today, according to news reports, hours after the UN security council condemned the apparently successful test of a nuclear weapon as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima.

The 15-member UN security council will begin behind-the-scenes negotiations today designed to strengthen sanctions against Pyongyang, after an emergency meeting last night. Diplomats scrambled to forge a united front against a test seen as a provocative step towards North Korea gaining a full nuclear arsenal.

Tensions on the peninsula rose as Pyongyang accused the US of "hostile intent" today and the South Korean news agency Yonhap said the North had fired two missiles, citing an unnamed government source.

Seoul announced it would immediately join a US-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, component parts or missiles to deliver them. Pyongyang has warned it would consider membership a declaration of war.

Barack Obama spoke at the White House last night, denouncing North Korea's action as "a blatant violation of international law". He said North Korea "will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons".
Justin McCurry reports on North Korea's nuclear test Link to this audio

Japan, which considers itself high on Pyongyang's potential hit list, said it would seek a fresh UN resolution condemning the test.

Gordon Brown described the test as "erroneous, misguided and a danger to the world".

The UN security council talks in New York produced no fresh initiative last night beyond a statement condemning the test. But there were signs that several members were prepared to press for tightened sanctions when the hard work begins today seeking a resolution that would be acceptable to all parties.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, made clear she would urging fresh punitive moves, saying the US would seek "a strong resolution with strong measures".

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-26-voa6.cfm

Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to testify Tuesday at her trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest, by permitting an American intruder to stay at her home earlier this month.

Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyer Kyi Win told VOA Burmese Service that the Nobel Peace laureate's three co-defendants - her two caretakers and U.S. citizen John Yettaw - will also take the stand. The lawyer says the defense team did not get time to consult with the defendants prior to their testimonies.

Burmese military authorities say they will permit some observers to attend Tuesday's proceedings. Authorities allowed foreign diplomats and some journalists to attend the trial once last Wednesday.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years. Her current six-year term is due to expire Wednesday.

A spokesman for the military government, police Brigadier General Myint Thein, says authorities considered releasing her this week, but canceled the decision after an incident in which an American man swam to her house. The military says the incident violated Aung San Suu Kyi' rules of detention.

Burmese prosecutors on Friday filed official charges against the pro-democracy Nobel Prize laureate. She has pleaded not guilty.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25541785-2703,00.html

MEL Gibson has confirmed his Russian girlfriend is pregnant and admitted he did a "hatchet job" on his marriage to his Australian wife of 28 years.
The actor, in a playful mood and looking relaxed, made the revelations on US late night TV talkshow The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

“This is true. We're gonna have a child,” Gibson said when Leno raised the rumours girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva was pregnant.

The US-born, Australian-raised Oscar winner apparently does not plan to marry 38-year-old Grigorieva, who he said was not responsible for the break-up of his marriage to Robyn.

“Why would you get married twice?” Gibson responded to the marriage question.

Robyn, a former Adelaide dental nurse who has seven children with Gibson, filed for divorce last month and with no pre-nuptial agreement, is expected to get half of the reported $US900 million ($1.15 billion) family fortune.

Gibson said he remains “friends” with Robyn.

“My wife and I, our marriage ended three years ago and we've been separated ever since then,” Gibson said.

“These things happen. It's unfortunate, it's sad, but you know she is an admirable woman - we still got kids together.

“We're friends.”

When Leno probed Gibson about why his marriage failed, Gibson replied: “Look, when it's all said and done, I did a pretty good hatchet job on my marriage myself. I'm to blame.”

With his eighth child on the way, 53-year-old Gibson joked his nickname was now Octo-Mel, playing on the label slapped on controversial Californian single mother Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to eight babies in January.

Falling In A Defensive Wave

*



They lie, the men who tell us for reasons of their own
That want is here a stranger, and that misery's unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
My window-sill is level with the faces in the street
Drifting past, drifting past,
To the beat of weary feet
While I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.

And cause I have to sorrow, in a land so young and fair,
To see upon those faces stamped the marks of Want and Care;
I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet
In sallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street
Drifting on, drifting on,
To the scrape of restless feet;
I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.

In hours before the dawning dims the starlight in the sky
The wan and weary faces first begin to trickle by,
Increasing as the moments hurry on with morning feet,
Till like a pallid river flow the faces in the street
Flowing in, flowing in,
To the beat of hurried feet
Ah! I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street.

Henry Lawson Faces In The Street.



All is not lost. But governments are wise to listen to the voices of the people over the those of bureaucrats and the funded caste, and all is not lost, not lost, but we can't shake the shadows and we can't frighten the horses, we can't stoop in abject pity and make fools of ourselves, only to climb back on, to defy all logic, to begin again. And again. And again. That was why we were so curdled. It was why the darkness was so bleak. It was why Christmas would never come, not for him, not now. The loneliness of whores. They only pretended to be mean, cool, human, they sought in their own blackness another way of being, and were ashamed. He wasn't going to give up. Not yet. Not now.

But the entire project of abandonment, of sinking into the swamp, of being halleluyah in the dark ages, all of it with criminal intent, all of it asking, rescue me, rescue me, because there wasn't any other way of being saved. That was when they knelt down. When they were beaten. I've never known one who reached that point to fail, the man said. A doctor. A well respected man. He listened and was in awe. Everything was so vivid, so profound. Every last second of the conversion. The time-honoured Yungian thing; as if the entire civilisation was caught in a mundane street, in a derelict house, in arbitrary and misguided friendships.

And so it was that he came begging once more. Liquid delight had turned to liquid fear and the good times, when there were any, were but graffiti splashes on the wall several over; behind the pole. There were so many high-gloss images now, with TV and the X-Files, he set out to watch every last one of them, in sequence, and had reached 3.20 - the 20th episode in the third season. If shame came stalking, shame and gusts of emotional embarrassment, as if his own bleak soul had failed to eradicate the tired old glue, the ancient crone, as if anyone cared. I'm sorry to have dragged you into all this, he said.

We were committed. It's all over in a flash, my dad was right, he said. Standing on the stairs. His gaunt face the result of one too many parties. Oh how it had seemed as if everything was ours. As if no other generation could have so fully held the truth. As if our discoveries would make all the difference. And the tide, though it had never ceased, would stop here, at this moment in history, this point in time, and he would let his ancient fingers brush across his still handsome face. But that was not what he wanted. Oh, you're wonderful, a real man, he minced when Ken produced a Peter Stuyversant and every cell in his body said thank you.

So it was that the inner voice and the outer voice became so garbled there was no easy solution. It wasn't just thought disorder. It wasn't the usual melancholy, creeping across everything, flattening the landscape, deadening the hues. No, it was something more invidious, more poisonous, more momentous. Change was afoot, the seven year cycle, and all the signs pointed upwards, take your prize, be rewarded, grow up, grow old, laugh in an expensive car as they swerved around a bend on the Algerian coast. And remembered, oh he remembered, when he met Paul Bowles and life was going to be the grandest adventure any doomed agent had ever lived.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/25/2579791.htm?section=business

Treasurer Wayne Swan has admitted he got it wrong over proposed changes to employee share ownership schemes, but will not detail how the Government will change its Budget promise.

The Government wanted to limit tax breaks for the share ownership schemes to people earning less than $60,000 per year, to prevent high-income earners using them to avoid tax.

But the proposed measure caused a backlash from unions and business, which called for the income threshold to be raised.

Mr Swan says the scheme will be changed, but is not saying what changes will be made.

"I certainly think mistakes have been made in this area," he said.

"I accept responsibility for that, and the commonsense thing to do in this situation is to go out and consult and get it right.

"I'm not going to buy into the income level [debate]. We've acknowledged that the $60,000 income cap for access to the tax exemption may be too low.

"We're going to go out there and consult about it, but I'm not going to pre-empt the outcome of that consultation."

Meanwhile, Mr Swan has defended the Government's decision to increase the pension age to 67.

Two major unions have written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd complaining about the Budget move to lift the official retirement age from 65 to 67.

They argue it will be particularly tough on people in physically demanding jobs.

Mr Swan says he acknowledges that point, but he argues the Government cannot set different limits depending on the type of work people do.

Shouts Snatched In The Wind

*



Small Scenes In Sydney

It's when
the first bus
goes down
Oxford Street
with
the daylight
just
pinching the edge,
the rim
of
the night,
the noise
begins.

Someone whistles,
passes
this window,
quietly
whistling.

It's these
working days
and
the restless
cars and scooters
at the lights.

In the middle
of the
Messiaen concert,
suddenly,
I wanted
to be
outside the hall,
to have
stumbled across
this building
full of music
while walking
in the
winter night.

At dusk,
before
the storm
broke,
the bats
flew in
above
the
gigantic
fig trees.
It was
remarkable.

I get up
from
a chair
to watch
the rain
outside
and
stub my toe
on the
table leg.

Pam Brown



And so it was that criminal neglect came his way, that old emotions circled and his own sickness took full sway. He listened to the self-absorbed messages of the sick and the dying, the rabid justifications, the extensive cries for help. He didn't know what was happening, but knew change was afoot. Everything could alter in a moment, his job, his status, his house, his car, everything could just fall over, pass away, leaving him even more bereft. The black skeleton imprinted on the landscape, what was once a shadow. These voices called him. He knew there were other paths. Criminal gangs roamed the street, but he felt no responsibility. Slow train wrecks, slow moving disasters, everything we were shocked to hear, these voices could only calm him.

So it was that he came to find a new soul, that he recognised his own journey was just one of millions; that these tortured voices would redeem him. If that was true. If he could but tell the truth. He missed his children even before they were gone; and now they were old enough to live their own lives his primary purpose had been abandoned. He had fulfilled the biological urge. He had passed on his genes, his fortune, a wealth of chaos and mumbling discontent. He looked at piercing eyes in the faces of strangers, knew there was a deeper discontent, a deeper spirit behind it all. He smiled, but the smile was so thin, the shadows so darkened that there was no redemption, there was no saving himself from the cruelty of failure. And so it was he came to rest.

He was shocked now, daily shocked, that so much of the story was already over. That everything which had happened, all those strands which were meant to make a greater story, only came in whispers. The deliberate obscurity of the academics; the post-narrative post-modernist strictures which had danced on the outskirts of all their intellectual lives, this garbage, this pointless rubbish which had filled so many essays, occupied so many careers, it was all over. He hadn't understood it all. He hadn't been broken apart. He hadn't wished for ill amongst the blessed. He had known he was being selected. God was on the lookout. So that private desolation, the feelings he so feared, it was all gone. That's what he wanted.

He wanted the shame, guilt, regret and remorse to scurry away. He wanted to be a new person without doing the work. He wanted to be resuscitated, revived, risen up. He wanted to be a new person and he could but smile at their unshapely forms, the unprepossessing, unauthoritive shapes of ordinary people. The welfare mob. The land of methadonia. Of broken dreams and broken hearts, faces lined from cigarettes, weak eyes and weak hearts. He didn't want to be like them, living failures. He wanted to shout out: I am comfortable in my own skin. But of course it was not to be. He was sharp and he was shadowed, shallow. Why weren't they all shrieking out of their own skins? Why did they sit so calm? Why did they seem so happy?

The broken hearts spoke of a time far off; where shadows bent and bones ached, where new spirits like new star systems rose out of the great dust clouds of the universe. Beauty to the beholder, and he had eyes to see. But it was the pit of his stomach, the core of his belief, the hearts and the shadows, these things, they rose up from the breeding grounds. Only he had eyes to see; from these stark angles and falling masses, from their ancient place where worlds were born anew. We fell and we picked ourselves up again. Across the wall, through the wall in a sense, he could see other souls, ignorant souls, struggling for redemption. They could not understand their own failures, their own lack of success, despite their own good will and their own best intentions. And so he came full circle, and he sat and listened to the wisdom of others; the anecdotes. He even found himself laughing in unison with others. And joined again the toiling mass; took up the cudgels once again; and fulfilled his role.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8064754.stm

The UN secretary general is to press Sri Lanka for unrestricted access by aid agencies to civilians caught up in fighting against Tamil Tiger rebels.

Ban Ki-moon is the first senior world figure to arrive in Sri Lanka since the government said it had defeated the 26-year rebel insurgency this week.

About 275,000 Tamils are sheltering in camps in need of aid, but the army is still restricting access to the area.

Mr Ban is visiting an area in Vavuniya, where most of the displaced are held.

Aid groups have complained that their access to the displaced camps has been greatly restricted.

"There should be promotion and protection of human rights and there should be unimpeded access to the sites of the displaced by international, humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations," Mr Ban said when he arrived in the capital, Colombo.

Mr Ban said he would also appeal to the Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to resolve the long-standing grievances of the Tamil minority.

"It's time for Sri Lankans to heal the wounds and unite without regards for religious and ethnic identity," he said.

Without a political settlement that gives Tamils real rights, UN officials believe the fighting will begin anew, says the BBC's Laura Trevelyan in Colombo.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/23/2578874.htm?section=justin

Residents in the northern New South Wales town of Kempsey have been ordered to evacuate, although the flood threat is easing on the far north coast.

While rainfall on the north coast will continue today, it is not expected to cause a renewal of flooding elsewhere.

Flooding in Maclean has also been revised down slightly to 3.2 metres. This is still very close to the top of the levee, which is 3.3 metres.

Grafton has escaped major flooding but 220 people have been evacuated from the city to Coffs Harbour.

The Clarence River at Grafton peaked at 7.3 metres, half a metre lower then expected.

The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting moderate rainfall in the north of the region today. It is predicting about 30 to 50mm of rain for the Northern Rivers.

The latest evacuation order is for residents in the Kempsey CBD, Smithtown, Gladstone and Jerseyville.

The SES says residents should leave their homes as soon as possible to risk congestion on roads.

Residents of Yamba and Maclean, north of Grafton, could also be asked to leave.

The SES says it has been a busy night in Kempsey for authorities.

Residents in Kempsey and surrounding areas are being evacuated to West Kempsey Public School.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25524807-5006788,00.html

A DECISION to upgrade the status of the Tasmanian devil to endangered casts further doubt on plans to build a $23 million tourist road through the Tarkine rainforest.

The change in status of the carnivorous marsupial from vulnerable to endangered will significantly increase the weight given to expert concern that the 133km road would hasten the demise of the species.

Devil experts and scientists have written to Environment Minister Peter Garrett warning that the road will hasten the spread of the deadly devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) into the last remaining disease-free habitat.

Mr Garrett, who has the final say on the project under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, yesterday declined to say what impact the federal endangered listing would have on his assessment of the road.

However, he confirmed it meant the species, reduced by DFTD to just 30 per cent of the wild population of only 13 years ago, had "additional protection under national environmental law".

"It means that we intensify our efforts to make sure that we can look after this important animal," he said. "I understand there will be a referral that will come through to me in relation to the Tarkine road. It will be the subject of an exhaustive evaluation."

The federal Coalition has called on Mr Garrett to reject the road proposal, which controversially includes a 5.4km section to be carved through part of the nation's largest tract of temperate rainforest.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt has backed the state Liberals in opposing the project, arguing that former prime minister John Howard did not protect the forest from logging "only to have it destroyed by ... aroad".

The Tasmanian Government argues that the plan, initiated by former premier Paul Lennon, will drive tourism to the state's often neglected northwest corner and that rainforest lost will be offset by additional reserves.

However, there are divisions within the ALP, with some key players hoping Mr Garrett will kill the project on environmental grounds.


Bondi Beach, dusk.

Well, In The Beginning...

*



Stay, I'm burning slow
With me in the rain, walking in the soft rain
Calling out my name
See me burning slow

Brilliant days, wake up on brilliant days
Shadows of brilliant ways will change all the time
Memories, burning gold memories
Gold of day memories change me in these times

Somewhere there is some place, that one million eyes can't see
And somewhere there is someone, who can see what I can see

Someone, somewhere in summertime
Someone, somewhere in summertime
Someone, somewhere in summertime

Moments burn, slow burning golden nights
Once more see city lights, holding candles to the flame
Brilliant days, wake up on brilliant days
Shadows of brilliant ways will change me all the time

Somewhere there is some place, that one million eyes can't see
And somewhere there is someone, who can see what I can see

Someone, somewhere in summertime
Someone, somewhere in summertime
Someone, somewhere in summertime
Someone, somewhere in summertime
Someone, somewhere in summertime

Simple Minds.



And then, as if nothing had happened, on a high sandstone cliff, invincible, as if nothing in these tawdry streets could ever effect him, as if the distance was all that was ever meant. Glazed over. He swanned with every tiny gesture, he encouraged the forlorn swamps to reach up into the present, he sugested that causual tragedy lay behind every move. The adoption of a farce. He was cold and the flu was worse than ever, and ancestors had crouched in winter caves forever. And felt the same sense of confinement. He was bored and restless and sick of the cold. And on those high cliffs, where everyone could seek the truth, the shadows in the memory of the summer heat, the dark cold present, the distant drum beat, the thought disorder, all of it came back.

Things went wrong which should have been routine. Shuttup you slack c..., the 14-year-old boy shouted from the centre of his mates to the girls on the other side of the road. He waded through the gaggle of swearing and shouting children; a grey spectre, old, from a distant world. Where was the confident stride? They barely noticed him as they moved either side of him, like the bow of a ship. They should never have been that concerned. They shouldn't have tried to mount a rescue. He shouldn't have listened to his own conscience and tried to rescue others. They sat in circles. They pretended. He could hear their voices even now. When the whole city meant nothing and the villages of yore were nothing but trace memories, race memories. Different worlds. Distant worlds.

So he reached down and they chanted; just for today, oh gracious fog. Just for today wipe away the cobwebs and the glaze; and be forever cherished. Treat yourself as your friend, he said to the scrawny love-torn dyke after she had once more confessed to him. Girl-on-girl action, don't you love it, he teased, when love, nature, circumstance took hold and provided the love interest she so desperately needed. So desperate to grieve. So cavalier in fashion. So roasted in intent. Sometimes he barely knew what they were, these cascades? As he heard the wind blowing and the music emanating from the computer room. And he thought of solitary confinement; and he almost died. This was the destiny. Oh black heart.

So it was that he ccame to be on yet another precipice. The story of the man who had taken his wheelchair bound wife to the edge of the cliffs and pushed her over had been in all the papers. In those brooding dark mountains to the west of the city. They called them the blue mountains, because of the blue mist that hung over them from a distance, but in reality the dark wet canyons had frightened the indigenous people, and black spirits lived there still. He had taken her out, way past the road, the public lookout, the fence that so neatly protected people from the dizzying fall, as they looked out across the once drowned valleys full of prehistoric sounds, the man; and according to the courts had pushed her. He said it was an accident. It was a very unlikely accident.

But in every neighbouring house, in every neighbouring room, through thin simple walls and down infinitely tricky side walks, terrible things were happening. He was frightened, he was sickened, he could not face it; and instead slank back to the couch and the televison and ignored the cold winter glares. He cold see people falling apart up and down the street. He could track their slow demise almost by the day, the unlikely tales of their latest eccentricities, their hefty sessions at the beloved local. He watched them disintegrate like cars in slow motion; a brief segment of a soap opera he had been summoned to watch; and faced the same guilt as a war photographer: do I intervene?



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/23/2578903.htm?section=justin

Most residents of the northern New South Wales town of Kempsey are fleeing the flooding as the Macleay River continues to rise.

The Bureau of Meteorology says major flooding in the town is expected to peak later this afternoon.

It says the Macleay River was near 10.9 metres at Georges Creek at 6:00am and rainfall of about 30 to 50mm is expected for the region today.

The latest evacuation order is for residents in the Kempsey CBD, Smithtown, Gladstone, Kinchela and Jerseyville.

SES controller Bev Davey says they began doorknocking residents at about 1:30am today and most residents are leaving.

"Houses are sand bagging... we have members of the RFS, the New South Wales fire brigade down there helping us at the moment," she said.

It has been a busy night for authorities, with residents being evacuated to Melville and West Kempsey schools.

The SES says remaining residents should leave their homes as soon as possible to risk congestion on roads.

At Woodburn, 160 people have been evacuated with flood peaks expected there and at Coraki today.

There is moderate to major flood warning for the Bellinger Valley, with the township of Bellingen still isolated.

Bill Ship from the Bellingen SES says with more rain forecast they are keeping a close watch on river levels at Bellingen and Thora.

A severe weather warning is current for mid north coast areas, while the bureau is also warning of damaging winds on Lord Howe Island.

The weather bureau says the flood threat is easing elsewhere on the north coast.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8063409.stm

Few believed him when Sri Lanka's powerful defence secretary said he required three years to defeat the once invincible Tamil Tiger rebels.

When Gotabaya Rajapaksa made the assertion, the Tamil Tigers, or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE], controlled nearly one third of the country, had a well-organised, ruthless fighting unit, sufficient stocks of heavy weapons, a small navy and a rudimentary air force.

They had no problems of fresh supplies as they had enough resources pouring in from their supporters abroad and through their commercial ventures.

Only a handful of military analysts believed that the rebels could be wiped out completely.

Today, Sri Lanka is among the few nations that can say it has successfully quelled a nearly three-decade insurgency by military means.

The entire rebel-held territory has been captured, huge caches of weapons have been recovered and destroyed, and the entire Tamil Tiger leadership is thought to have been wiped out.

So what led to the military success of a force that had been at the receiving end for many years?

'No ambiguity'

"So many factors have contributed to the success of the Sri Lankan forces. There was a clear aim and mandate from the political level to the official level and to the military level to destroy the LTTE at any cost. There was no ambiguity in that," Gotabaya Rajapaksa told the BBC.

The rebels thought the international community, especially neighbouring India, would intervene looking at the civilian suffering
DBS Jeyaraj

When the current president, his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, came to power in 2005, he made it clear that he would go all out against the rebels if they were not sincere in peace talks.

Once the peace process failed, he gave the go ahead for the war to his brother and the hard line army commander Gen Sarath Fonseka.

A massive recruitment drive for the armed forces was launched (it increased from about 80,000 to more than 160,000). New weapons, including fighter jets, artillery guns and multi-barrel rocket launchers were bought from countries like China, Pakistan and Russia and new military strategies and tactics were evolved.

"That was the time when the international community was totally disappointed with the rebels because of their insincerity in peace talks. So countries like India and the US gave their tacit support for the all-out offensive against the LTTE," says Sri Lankan analyst DBS Jeyaraj.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25525755-663,00.html

FEISTY pensioners used deck chairs to fight off Somali pirates who tried to hijack their cruise ship on the Indian Ocean, passengers and the vessel's owners say.

They sprang into action when pirates tried to board the MSC Melody off the Seychelles on April 25.
"Some passengers saw the pirates approaching and sounded the alarm. But the security guard had seen them already. The passengers were taken to their cabins, with lights off," Sarah Longbottom of MSC Cruises said.

"Mr and Mrs Rowlands were on the deck. Beryl Rowlands threw deck chairs at them," she said, adding that the ship had about 1000 passengers and 500 crew on board.

There were 74 Australians on the ship at the time.

No-one was injured in the incident, which came amid a surge in piracy off the coast of Somalia, where ransom-seeking pirates attacked more than 100 ship in 2008 and another 114 so far this year.

The owner of MSC Cruises, Gianluigi Aponte, praised the way the ship's crew and passengers dealt with the attack. "We are very proud that our crew proved to be able to promptly tackle the emergency," he said.

"At the moment of the attack, the ship was 600 nautical miles (1111 km) from the Somalian coast, in an area that is not considered dangerous, and 180 nautical miles (333 km) from Seychelles."

Ian and Jessie Moakes from Mansfield, central England, were on the MSC Melody to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.

"Some holidaymakers threw tables and chairs to repel the pirates," Moakes, 62, a retired police officer, told the Sun newspaper.



The Bondi Beach Hotel, photographed on dark while shivering on a pointless job.

Time In The Sun

*



Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations, it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.

Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience and Reading



In all the clouded circumstance and in all his wanton days, in time warped and air breathed, in a tiny trickle of the infinite which crept across the corporate carpets, which made him everything he had wanted to be. We were wounded, there wasn't any doubting that. He was shattered and yet strangely optimistic all at once. As if the worst had been avoided. He was a shallow imitation of his former self. All that depth, all those networks, had vanished in a lonely swamp and all he could think about was how quickly he could escape. From the fatal, final hurts, from the open spaces between buildings, from the apocalyptic breezes which fanned all their denials, from the most grandiose failures to the most intimate clinches, he was so sorry.

His weary tone had come back to haunt him. It was in every bone and had become part of every breath. The triumphs had been so oblique, the children so beautiful in the afternoon light. He wasn't shocked. He couldn't afford to be. The flashes of the future were pressing. They were all drowning in information, entertainment. Fads spread quicker than a sci fi virus. And so it was that now, when there was always a voice in the background, he could come shivering through the dark places, he could maintain a fulsome glare, he could laugh when he wanted to, and he literaly wept as reached out his hand to touch her. Things had changed profoundly. The weather was cold and he was frozen inside. He shouldn't have been shocked.

The threads, and that was all they were, came together slowly. He had to give a speech and he was terrified. He bought into life's most controversial areas, because no one dared to speak out. Everyone was afraid. Who would have thought, way back there in the golden sixties, in the mud and the parties and the uber-consciousness, no one would have thought that 50 years later squads of goons with dogs would be roaming the streets, arresting and harrassing people for their drugs of choice. That the thought police would monitor every deviation. That the pack mentality of the left would squash any debate. That the hypocrites teaching diversity and tolerance would flatten the culture into a terrified an colourless place.

These were the bizarre days, when communism and conservatism had united to destroy all colour and movement. When clouds shattered early and the skies were full of movement; colour, red lightning. The orange dust that settled across the land showed just how traumatic the recent cataclysm had been. Caught on open ground, he had still not found safety. His head ran around in vicious circles; but all was considered free and fair. He would find his love and eke out a living; but in each moment, in each final hour, in the treacherous passing of what once resembled hope, he knew there wasn't a resource which could save him. He knew betrayal was at the heart of every human relationship. He knew to trust no one.

Which made it so strange to find himself in love again, out here hidden in the city's garbage dump, away from her, away from everyone, hidden, watching with fascination and intense concern every movement of the hens; for they were the most precious things they owned. There had been a long debate about whether they should let them sit on the eggs; or whether, because they were starving, they should eat them now. They were both thin, and he was worried abotu the coming baby. The post apocalyptic world he had fantasised about for so long had finally arrived. He was shattered and yet now, equally determined. No reason to let time and disease and circumstance beat him now; not after all that had happened.

So he was born out of chaos, but also out of different, more primitive times. The air jelled into a grey mass; and often it was as if he was walking through liquid concrete. There wasn't time to be depressed any more; survival was the only thing which kept them going. He was sad, certainly, but there was no time for indulgence, nto now when the sky was weeping yellow rain and his late life partner was groaning inside, hungry, deformed from the rickets, groaning and laughing at the same time as they remembered the suburbs from which they came, the astonishing, casual luxury they had all taken for granted; now washed away.

He couldn't get dry but was determined to make their shack as warm and cosy as possible; and ranged wide looking for suitable blcoks of wood. He walked across an old world; pulled toys from out the mud, requested surveillance and found nothing but God. And so it was he smiled; as he knelt down to get inside the hut. He was going to make things better, for her, for the baby, for the future of mankind. She smiled back and he was once more shocked by the state of her teeth; and then realised there were no sentinals from the past to commune with; nothing but the two of them hiding in the city's garbage dump; sheltering from the storm. It wasn't even cruel, it was just the unthinking brutality of nature itself. He threw another log on the fire; and chortled to himself with utter delight. They were going to survive.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/16/2572402.htm?section=australia

While Prime Minister Kevin Rudd might be happy to let speculation of an early election continue, time is running out for his government to set up a trigger needed for a double dissolution poll.

Mr Rudd's veiled threat was designed to put pressure on the Opposition to pass the Budget, but Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has not baulked, announcing that if Mr Rudd wants to call an election, he will be ready.

The threat of an early election tends to concentrate the minds of backbenchers on their own political survival.

But prime ministers very rarely let this particular sword of Damocles fall. The last double dissolution was more than 20 years ago.

Even if he decides he wants to go early, Mr Rudd does not yet have a double dissolution trigger.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25488833-29277,00.html

Johns pulls in big ratings for Nine
AAP
May 15, 2009 06:43pm

SUSPENDED television personality Matthew Johns has delivered the Nine Network a win in ratings on his way out the door.

Johns was today stood down indefinitely from his on-air commitments with the network, more than a week after he was outed as a participant in a 2002 group sex incident involving a 19-year-old woman in New Zealand.

At the time, Johns was playing for the Cronulla Sharks, and the ABC's Four Corners revealed other Sharks players were also involved.

After being stood down by Nine, Johns and his wife Trish recorded an interview with Tracy Grimshaw, aired on A Current Affair (ACA) on Wednesday night.

Johns, who struggled with his emotions during a grilling lasting more than 20 minutes, used the interview to apologise to the woman at the centre of the incident, but said she was a "willing participant''.

His wife said she was "horrified and disgusted'' by his actions, but that his greatest crime was infidelity.

The frank interview attracted 1.372 million viewers for the show, above rival Seven Network program Today Tonight's 1.356 million viewers.

The ratings reflected a huge boost on ACA audience figures of the previous Wednesday, when just 1.094 million tuned in.

The show was the fourth most popular program across all timeslots on Wednesday, after Thank God You're Here, Seven News and Spicks and Specks.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2569625.htm

MARK COLVIN: The Federal Treasurer had his moment in the spotlight last night as he delivered his second Budget.

But today he's had to share the attention with an Opposition determined to portray the Government as economically irresponsible.

The Government has defended the strategy, including the Treasury's predictions of a return to growth at over four per cent in three years' time.

The Coalition has criticised the high deficits in the years ahead, and the mountain of debt.

But it's not yet saying whether it's prepared to back the Budget's spending cuts.

Chief political correspondent, Lyndal Curtis, reports.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The day after the night before and the Prime Minister is up for the fight.

KEVIN RUDD: The Government welcomes the debate on debt and deficit.

LYNDAL CURTIS: His Treasurer didn't seem so keen last night, not mentioning the $58 billion deficit once in speech. An omission the Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull was happy to highlight.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: So horrifying is that deficit that the Treasurer last night could not bring himself to utter the words.

LYNDAL CURTIS: But two can play the game of ignoring inconvenient truths. The shadow treasurer Joe Hockey put together a video attacking Labor for racking up deficits and debt last night.

JOE HOCKEY: Labor has lost control of Australia's public finances. We have gone from record surpluses to record deficits in record speed. Labor has combined…

LYNDAL CURTIS: But not once in the five-and-a-half minutes of voice over and graphs did he mention the global financial crisis or any role the world recession may have played in Australia's economic circumstances.

But the global downturn and how fast Australia can recover from the impact of it was very much at the heart of today's debate about the Budget forecasts and assumptions.

The Budget assumes economic growth will strengthen to four-and-a-half per cent in the two years from July 2011. It's a change in how Treasury assumes growth based on the experience of recovery from the recession in the '80s and '90s.

Some say that's optimistic and Malcolm Turnbull's in that camp.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: There is enormous scepticism about these growth forecasts; the idea that we would suddenly snap out of this downturn into seven years of above trend growth at four-and-a-half per cent per annum.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The Prime Minister, though, has faith in the forecasters.

KEVIN RUDD: These Treasury advisers are independent hard-headed individuals who have advised independently the previous Australian government as well.

There are a handful of potential triggers that have been rejected once by the Senate, but they are not a stellar line up: mainly the ill-fated FuelWatch legislation and the horse disease levy response bills.