This Wonderful Place

*

Your breath is sweet
Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky
Your back is straight your hair is smooth
On the pillow where you lie
But I don't sense affection
No gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me
But to the stars above

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee 'fore I go.
To the valley below.

Your daddy he's an outlaw
And a wanderer by trade
He'll teach you how to pick and choose
And how to throw the blade
He oversees his kingdom
So no stranger does intrude
His voice it trembles as he calls out
For another plate of food.

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee 'fore I go.
To the valley below.

Your sister sees the future
Like your mama and yourself
You've never learned to read or write
There's no books upon your shelf
And your pleasure knows no limits
Your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean
Mysterious and dark.

One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee 'fore I go.
To the valley below.

Bob Dylan

He didn't know how to focus, he didn't know where to begin. They had a final Jack Daniels and coke at Bangkok airport because that was they way they had gone on and that was the way it was going to end; no matter what stopped them, no matter what fiery intimacies had passed between them, here on the outskirts, there in the heartland, out there in the villages in a communal way of life that had lasted for thousands of years, showering together in the narrow village, cold water splashing across cold flanks. Everybody knows... But he hadn't known, blinded, entirely blinded, by things he could not see, by a glacier heart, by circumstance, by blindness when all should be able to see. He walked passed the boys lingering outside the happy ending massage parlour; he saw the girls spilling out of the brothels, they passed over the freeway and through the darkened streets and saw the 500 baht girls lingering on street corners; he knew this was Asia and anything was possible, but was taken aback, nonetheless, by the string of handsome boys dancing with their shirts off in the early hours of the morning, some self absorbed as they raged against the machine, tired, of consequence, that abysmal, tightened, splendid flesh.

The drunkest person in the room was a fat f... European of indeterminate origin, German, English, Scandinavian, maybe American although that seemed unlikely. He took a liking to the only unavailable person in the room; and in the end, punching the hardened tits of handsome lads, they steered him carefully, for he was too drunk to stand, too devastated to bear fruit, too conscious only of himself to know what had happened, to understand the crimes against nature that had already been committed, that would be committed against him, flesh wobbling in black out, pawing, pawing the handsomest of men, who, in a strangely kind way, led this bedraggled entity to safety, would clearly take care, would be kinder to him than he probably deserved; and would, of course, take his money for the service. Not robbery; just fair pay, coming fast out of the bolt box; laid waste and yet standing, derelicts of humans preserved by those for which they held nothing but contempt, the working boys.

These times he couldn't be sure. He wanted to be free. He was in love and yet it was all a financial arrangement. I love you. Of course. A practical love. I take care of you; you take care of me. Good care. They laughed. They held each other's hands. He wrinkled his brow. He wanted him to be happy. But this was all the future. In the past they had drunk the blackest of black drinks, black coke as they sometimes called it, whisky and coke, or Black Label and coke, and knew in that failing intoxication, because nothing could get them smashed any more, nothing worked, not after the triumphs and the yabba and the ice and the prostitutes and the orgies, the highest times and the low, the best of times, the worst of times, dawns when he was the only one left standing and while indolent Thai men went to sleep and he tossed fitfully before rising and pacing and knowing there was no way out, nothing to be said, nothing that could rescue him. And so it had ended, there under those high ceilings, there in that little restaurant. And they had walked to the airport gate, to the sign, Passengers Only Beyond This Point, and embraced under the watchful, cynical eye of security guards; and he walked misty eyed through security into a different world, and shortly into a different country. Yes he had been taken for a merry ride. Yes he had known it all along. No it didn't matter, not one little jot. He understood everything; he made way for nothing, he granted them no peace.

Those who questioned could only be dark forces and shadows of rationalisation and forces for evil, conservative f...s he didn't want to know. People don't matter, Peter kept saying, after he came to stay, getting off the bus shortly after 6 am. With little sleep, it was the first time he had been out, out, since coming back to Bangkok and settling down, clean and clear, a new life, back on the wagon back on the straight and narrow doing everything he could to recover his sanity and his physical health, those lithe handsome dancing forms, the boys lingering at the front door of the club, the paid dancers with their leather straps going for it in the elevated corners, the boys from all the other clubs coming in after 2am, even the mamasam he had come to know, she was there, looking after her tribe, drinking with her tribe; and the boys pranced and giggled, the trissiest boys on earth, in Thailand every fifth son is a daughter; trissy? Alex his American author friend asked? You mean queeny? Yes, he said, although we don't use that term much in Australia. We are too PC - politically correct - to cast such aspersions. Well let me cast them for you. He came from a different place, a different time, far ago, long ago, when such things as pride were for other people, when desperate liquidation was all that the future held for any of them; and now, all these years later, with all those voices and all those characters long since faded into history, he could smile as if he knew everything. And smile at Alex, who had finally relented and become friendly; after finally understanding that here was a different place, a different person; and all was well. My wonderful life, he said of his engaged lifestyle; from massage parlour to sauna to reading galleys and back again, cautious, angry, in love, never wanting to leave this wonderful place.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/talk-of-news-bid-to-get-rudd-sees-objectivity-go-out-the-window/story-e6frg736-1225887767678

ON the Sunday before caucus started to abandon Kevin Rudd, The Sunday Age reported to its heartland in Victoria that Mr Rudd would be safe.

"Government MPs are in no mood to change leaders before the next election despite concern about Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's personal performance, bad poll results and the ongoing damage being inflicted by the mining tax stoush," wrote Josh Gordon and Stephanie Peatling.

"A survey of the government back bench by The Sunday Age found only a tiny handful of Labor MPs admitted they would back Julia Gillard over Kevin Rudd if a leadership spill were to happen before the federal election."

A charitable view: gee, they sure changed their minds fast -- just what was that last straw added to the camel's back in the ensuing three days?

"The only way Gillard would win is if Rudd stood down and backed Julia for the job and I can't see that happening," one MP told The Sunday Age. "She doesn't have the numbers."

You're only as good as your sources, perhaps. But critical to the timing of The Sunday Age's story was what had appeared in The Weekend Australian the day before, when this newspaper's veteran political editor, Dennis Shanahan, along with Patricia Karvelas, wrote: "Key Labor MPs are prepared to move against Kevin Rudd's leadership to make way for Julia Gillard as early as next week if Labor's polling does not dramatically improve and the dispute with miners over the super-profits tax is not resolved soon.

"Labor MPs surveyed by The Weekend Australian believe the government's support has 'tanked' in western Sydney, Western Australia and Queensland, and that Labor should change leaders to restore confidence or risk losing the election."

Then on the day the leadership crisis came to a head, Peter Hartcher and Phillip Coorey of Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald led their paper with a story that included: "While some caucus members are edgy about their electoral prospects, (Rudd's chief of staff Alistair) Jordan's exercise (in sounding out caucus members) evidently discovered no defectors from the Rudd camp."

Ironically, the story was the trigger for the leadership spill since it implied Rudd was questioning Gillard's loyalty.

"When our bureau saw that story in the Herald we immediately started chasing it. It was a legitimate leadership story and by mid-afternoon it was clear things were moving," Shanahan says.

But these stories illustrate the extraordinarily divergent narrative between this newspaper and that in other media outlets, particularly in the Fairfax media, over the collapse of the Rudd prime ministership.

To readers of The Age and SMH, Rudd looked to be safe right up to the morning of Wednesday, June 23. But later that day no one in Labor was backing him.

As this newspaper scrutinised the government on issues such as the waste of taxpayers' funds in the $16 billion Building the Education Revolution program and, more recently, the mining tax and Rudd's missteps, many in the media have tended to view the reportage as part of a grand News Limited/Rupert Murdoch conspiracy.

Or, as Radio National Breakfast host Fran Kelly told Barry Cassidy on ABC1's Insiders in February: "I think the government understandably feels that there is a campaign being run against them in News Limited. If you pick up the front page of The Australian on Friday, I think there was -- I didn't count them but my impression was every story, but perhaps it was three out of four, were very detailed, anti-Rudd government stories. There is no doubt about it, that they are taking a hard line at every point, harder than the Fairfax press."

Cassidy responded: "Yes, but it's a cause on The Australian's part. It's an ideological position."

Since April 30, according to archive searches, just three stories on the BER made it to page 1 of the SMH compared with 30 for The Australian.

Similarly it was top-rating radio host Ray Hadley of 2GB, along with this newspaper, reporting on the government's insulation debacle, that most objective observers would cite when assessing why Peter Garrett was demoted in late February.

"I would suggest that viewers of the ABC and readers of Fairfax newspapers would have been terribly surprised by those events; even some of my friends were asking what happened to him, what was the problem?" says The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell.

Indeed, anyone who cares to quiz Mitchell on the "ideological position" of the newspaper will soon find him wandering over to the framed print of the first front page of The Australian in 1964 announcing itself to the nation.

Under the heading "Good Day", the editorial states the paper will pursue stories of national interest, it will be a newspaper not affiliated to any party and "we will not be influenced when there is public need for us to be outspoken".

In this way the newspaper was a thorn in the side of John Howard's government in its later days -- the former prime minister openly acknowledges that -- when The Australian hammered the government on infrastructure bottlenecks, the pork barrelling of marginal electorates and links to the Australian Wheat Board controversy. It also gave Rudd and now Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan plenty of space in its opinion pages to prosecute Labor's case against Howard. The paper backed Rudd in the 2007 election, as it did Rudd's ascension to the leadership over Kim Beazley in 2006.

But in the narrative of the past two weeks this has been lost. In many circles, rather than look to why Rudd fell, some in the media curiously want to shoot the messenger, and blame the "Murdoch press".

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWA1ZDU9yhPmQENG1wMu0gk8SX_w

Thailand must lift emergency rule, hold polls: think-tank
(AFP) – 15 hours ago
BANGKOK — Thailand must immediately lift emergency rule imposed during the recent mass opposition protests and hold an election as soon as possible for national reconciliation, a leading think-tank said Monday.
The emergency decree was invoked across about a third of the country during the "Red Shirt" rallies in Bangkok that sparked clashes leaving 90 people dead, ending with an army crackdown on May 19 and a subsequent rampage by protesters.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) said the emergency law, which has handed sweeping powers to the police and military, had empowered authorities to stifle the anti-government movement and should be lifted at once.
"While the Red Shirts have no opportunity for open and peaceful expression because of draconian laws, their legitimate frustrations are being forced underground and possibly towards illegal and violent actions," ICG said.
A new report from the think-tank, "Bridging Thailand's Deep Divide", said Thailand should lift the law "or risk further damaging its democracy, hindering much needed reconciliation, and sowing the seeds of future deadly conflict".
The state of emergency is due to expire on July 7 but Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said last week it would be extended in the capital and possibly elsewhere, although "for how long depends on the situation".
He also said Friday he had no plans to hold elections this year because more time was needed for reconciliation following the deadly political unrest.
Although Abhisit does not have to go to the polls until the end of next year, ICG's Asia programme director Robert Templer said a vote "should be held as soon as possible" to begin a process of broad political reforms.
"Only a new government, with the legitimacy of a fresh mandate, if it is accepted by all sides, can move forward with such a complex reform agenda," he said.

Picture by Peter Newman taken on his recent bicycle trip through Laos.