A Neutron Bomb

*

They say that home is where the heart is. Having no heart, just a sad little collection of collapsing landscapes which passed for a splintered consciousness, the saying had never meant much to him. Oh to be normal. To have a craven heart. But thus it was that he found himself wandering the streets of Sydney after having been away all year, shocked and appalled, well shocked and astounded anyway, at how quiet the streets, how quaint the signage. Ten thirty at night and already the streets were deserted. No wonder I was so lonely here, he thought, and that, briefly, was all he could remember, the long spooky walks at 2am, with the mist dripping from the trees amidst signs of collapse, the well walked dog scurrying ahead, the pain of a restless spirit. Always, always, walking far and wide. There was never anybody there. He sat in alcoves in the cliffs, gentle overhangs, on tops of buildings, in deserted early morning parks, in the way of the truth and the light, holding to some stubborn, perhaps noble principle, aching, disconsolate, always the same.

So he abandoned the job which had become such an over-arching nightmare and headed off to Thailand, where juvenile dreams on the Coca Cola trail had left him with the impression that he could be happy there, he didn't know quite how or why, under a palm tree, on a beach, in a cheap house in the mountains with sweeping views down the valley. It wasn't what happened at all. Instead he discovered that Western men with a couple of bob in their pockets didn't have to sleep alone; and so he determined that was exactly the circumstance. And instead settled in a peaceful, read beautiful, house in the heart of Bangkok. Where everything slid and collapsed and he was the feudal lord, accepting of his status. Lights burnt through the long warm nights. In the early hours he could hear every movement of a motor cycle, their gurgling cries, their strange emphases, as if heading your way, a lost obsessional love who could tell you, too, were awake and sleepless, pomh kow choi passah thai nick noi karb, I understand a little Thai thank you, and knew, deeply, lohp luen, that he had been deceived, was being deceived, and some criminals could never change their spots, never not rip off a foreigner, never act with any degree of kindness or integrity.

And so it was that in the aching hearts, in the strange things that had happened to him, he developed a certain survival wisdom. Strange then that he would have made such a simple mistake as to take a Thai national to Australia. They don't travel well, he had already heard, but he had no idea how badly. If a plane flew overhead the boy would look up plaintively and bleat: Thailand. Once he had discovered a Thai restaurant with authentic cuisine and staff who spoke Thai he refused to go anywhere else. He looked at Bondi Beach, one of the world's most famous and most beautiful beaches, and sighed: falang mak mak - lots of foreigners. As if it had never occurred to him that there might be lots of foreigners overseas. If he wasn't on Skype talking to friends back in Thailand or headphones on listening to Thai music he was under a doona pretending to be asleep, shutting out the outside world, so full of foreigners and incomprehensible social behaviours. Nor was the reaction from others very helpful. Dad, you gay, the kids said. Number one daughter declared, all in one sentence: he's obviously a gold digger dad, I need $500 for my formal dress. Number one son, quite the ladies man by his own reports, officially declared he was now disowning both his parents. His mother declared that by wilfully defying God's word and living such a dubiuous lifestyle he was throwing away his greatest asset, his access to the keys to the Kingdom of God by duty of being her son, a loyal servant and one of the Lord's chosen ones. They would all much have preferred he continued to sleep alone. Well, he wasn't going to do that, not for now, that was for sure. And Peter put it succinctly enough: that's why we all build lives far from our families.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/renegade-premiers-workplace-deal-angers-pm-20101014-16lwf.html

JULIA GILLARD has threatened to use federal powers to force NSW to comply with uniform national workplace safety rules after the Premier reneged on a deal as part of a raft of concessions to the union movement.

Business, industry and the federal government were united in anger yesterday after Kristina Keneally said NSW would not honour the deal it signed with other states and the Commonwealth last year to introduce uniform occupational health and safety laws.

The agreement, which required significant concessions by business and unions, was cited by Ms Gillard as one of her greatest achievements as workplace relations minister.

Advertisement: Story continues below ''A deal is a deal and the federal government requires this deal to be honoured,'' Ms Gillard said.

She said nothing was being ruled out as she sought departmental advice ''on what options are available to the federal government to ensure that the NSW government honours this deal''.

Ms Keneally, who is seeking union support before the March 26 election, will not honour the national agreement unless union-friendly provisions that were part of NSW law are included. These allow unions to prosecute for workplace safety breaches and put the onus of proof on the defendant.

Ms Keneally also demanded an exemption from the federal Fair Work Act so her government can cut a separate ''project agreement'' with unions to guarantee the $6 billion Barangaroo redevelopment will be completed on time and on budget. She also declared Easter Sunday a public holiday to ensure workers are paid more on that day.

The Unions NSW secretary, Mark Lennon, said yesterday was ''a sweet day'' for workers, and was backed by the ACTU, which claimed the changes would maximise workplace safety.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/40128.html

What a week this has been. A week of high emotion and smouldering passions, where the glorious triumph of the human spirit was tempered by the depths of human depravity, and we all longed for a return to the days when politics was marked by dignity, respect, and non-bastardry.

The name of the game this week, of course, was Afghanistan, or at least that’s what Julia Gillard would say, as she has demonstrated clearly that she regards the actions of our brave fighting men and woman defending our freedom as a game, to be played for political points.

It was an unedifying way to behave in a week when Abbott, putting his graceless rival to shame, did in fact go to Afghanistan, to reassure the troops that not only did he fully support them, he was quite willing to join them personally.

“Bitch says I don’t like the troops?” he snarled. “I’ll show you how much I like the troops! Give me a gun! Give me a tank! Let’s go get those terroristers! Bang bang bang! Check out my pecs! Look how much I can bench-press! I will fight the prime minister ANY TIME SHE WANTS! BRING IT ON” And so forth.

Having gone to the theatre of war, Abbott was at great pains to emphasise this tendency of the PM to use defence policy as a political weapon, before going on to emphasise it a bit more, and then proceeding to hammer home his emphasis in case we hadn’t got it yet.

Some might have questioned why, after last week’s gaffe in which he claimed he couldn’t visit the troops because he wouldn’t have time to put his face on for dinner with the Tories, Abbott insisted on continuously drawing more and more attention to it by bringing it up at every possible opportunity for days on end like some kind of gibbering excuse-chimp. This however would betray a total misunderstanding of the reality of politics, as Abbott himself explained, telling us all that:

“One of the things that so disappoints me about the election result is that I am the standard bearer for values and ideals which matter and which are important and … as the leader of the Coalition, millions and millions of people invest their hopes in me and it's very important that I don't let them down. When I am unfairly attacked, I've got to respond and I've got to respond in a tough way.”

And the Australian people, once they had got up off the floor, wiped the tears from their eyes and taken a few deep breaths to overcome the crippling stomach pains that are such a common consequence of hearing Tony Abbott describe himself as a standard-bearer for values and ideals, nodded in understanding.

Indeed, we do not want Tony to let us down, and that is why, whenever anyone is cruel or nasty to him, we see the necessity for lengthy, protracted, hyperbolic defensiveness. It’s what we all want in a potential prime minister.

What we don’t want in a prime minister is Machiavellian bastardry, which is, as Abbott helpfully explained, what Gillard was guilty of, and Labor is expert in. The plot hatched by the prime minister was deceptively simple, but fiendish in its ingenuity: laying a trap as skilfully as any French-Canadian furrier, she cunningly invited the Opposition Leader to accompany her to Afghanistan, and sat back to watch the carnage she had wrought.

It was such a callous, vicious piece of passive-aggressive thuggery it took the breath away. To be so calculating as to actually invite an Opposition Leader to a war zone, knowing full well that due to security requirements Abbott would have no choice but to say something unbelievably idiotic, was a ploy worthy of Lucretia Borgia herself.

No wonder it drew such a sharp rebuke from the Shadow Minister for Taking One To Know One, Christopher Pyne, who – lip trembling at the injustice of it all – pointed out that Gillard was guilty of “back-alley bitchiness”, almost certainly accompanying his statement with a clawing hand gesture and soft hiss. Pyne declared that Gillard was unfit to be prime minister, a stinging blow to the PM: if even the Opposition doesn’t want her in office, what must the voters think? Especially after she flagrantly and shamelessly declined to offer any further comment on the matter in a deliberate and transparent attempt to further smear Abbott’s character by making him look like he was talking to himself.

http://www.coreideas.com.au/wp-content/bondi-beach-dust-storm.jpg