ARCHERS ACROSS THE SKY

Oak Flats, NSW, Australia

These times, with the archers spread out across the sky. Their departure had been a hurried storm. There was a pit in his stomach as he raced towards the end. Things would not be the same. He would not be the same. The death of one was the death of many. These things were a distant future, housed in a creature with a short lifespan. The places fled were everywhere, but he was becoming more familiar with them. He crossed the roads he used to travel to work on five days a week, and was barely familiar with them. A feeling like a dejavu playing difficult to get. Then he could feel the beach nearby; where he had lived a couple of passing times. Nothing stayed here. Some people did. There was no street life. After Asia it was quiet, too quiet, as the saying went. But there was beauty everywhere, everywhere.

So he walked and thought stupid thoughts, under a bright blue skly, across glinting sand, the sun from the surf semi-blinding. These periods were always intense. Things coming full circle in some psychic offering. He saw Equus at the theatre downstairs in the Italian Forum, everything full circle. They went to dinner after, and to the caste party. "Youth is wasted on the young," Piers commented, standing in the kitchen as Martin took court. All fell into place. Great performance, good performance, you were really excellent. Bottles of red wine had built up on the kitchen table. There wasn't any urgency. Decades had passed. He was caught in some terrible flight/fright phenomenon that was difficult to escape. "The boy, the boy was excellent," an inebriated Martin mimicked in high self mocking camp, referring to the young male star of the show. "Thank God it wasn't you taking your clothes off."

Yes, well once there hadn't been much else he wanted to do. Martin had been with the same boyfriend now for 20 years, Martin and Martyn,  He had always dismissed the friend as some simpering hairdresser, but it turned out to be makeup, with clients like Gucci and Lansome. And he was shrewd and funny, friendly and amused at an appearance from Martin's past. All time had passed. There was no going back. They had said goodbye at the front door the next day, as the RBT, the Random Breathalyser Test which had destroyed so much of Australia's social life, for the sake of a few lives. This sort of lament over the deadening effects of the RBT met with little sympathy. The RBT was here to say; and he had got out of the cab quicly, letting Martin fuss over coins with the taxi driver  Some things never changed. In the morning he talked for hours with Martyn, sympathised with their elderly labrador, envied them their stability, their enduring time.

"You're quite the bourgeoise now," he had said as they sat out the back of the large house after returning at 3a.m. from the cast party.  The party had gone for an hour to long with decreasing numbers, he was transfixed sometimes by their personability, their natural, clever charisma. Just like other cast parties, none of them knew what they were doing next. A flash, or an ephemeral art form, so it seemed at times. The bourgeoise comment had been provoked by news of the holiday house they had acquired down South  a spectacular piece of coastline with pristine waters. "They used to call you the provincial hieress," he said. "Who?" he demanded to know. "Bitches, they were all bitches," he said. And most of them were dead by now anyway. They talked and they talked, he and the boyfriend; and laughed. "Your ex is still here," Martyn said when Martin finally emerged. They had coffee and he left, into the great world, or a permanent state of fright and flight.

THE BIGGER STORY:

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd cut a lonely figure on the streets of New York on Friday – while just a few blocks away his old rival Julie Bishop stood confidently, addressing world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.

A forlorn-looking Mr Rudd, who only a month ago enjoyed the privileges of an enormous entourage, was spotted strolling alone in Manhattan – no security personnel, no chief of staff and no friends.

It was in stark contrast to Australia's freshly minted Foreign Minister who spent Friday meeting the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, and also the United Nation's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/kevin-rudd-out-in-the-cold-in-new-york-20130928-2ukqf.html#ixzz2gJy1BLQm

THE PLACES FLED X

Shot of a jigsaw

This is the last goodbye, the song by Jim Buckley, from the album Grace, kept playing through his head; an eternal loop. It was Sexy Night at the Lakeside Hotel, and girls in tight bikinis wandered through the clusters of working class men, and he would remain an outcast. Always passing through. If there was anything to be said, he wasn't saying it, and they weren't asking. "You're not gay?" someone asked; and the red rain kept falling down. Wind whipped across the Illawara, and a great fragment of life, of time, drifted away as the gums churned with each new gust.
"They're very beautiful trees, gums," he commented to a pleasant enough old soak in the corner.
"I like the apple gums," he said.
"They're not gums, they're angophoras," he said. "You mean the ones that curl around a lot?"
Yes.
"They're coastal angophoras. There's desert ones as well, big. Beautiful trees."
They contemplated this for a moment, as the wind whipped up the trees behind them.
"You a little depressed?" the man asked.
"A little," he said. "Nothing. I didn't expect to be here. I'm doing stuff I've never done before."
Men gathered for a smoke on the verandah several of them man mountains.
They all knew each other.
He didn't know anyone.
The day crawled into evening and he took a thousand steps home, counting the rhythm inside his brain, everything at odds.
Played The Last Goodbye and slept.
There was no way out; he got up and went again.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24288868

International police body Interpol has issued its highest level wanted persons notice on behalf of Kenyan authorities for Briton Samantha Lewthwaite, known as the 'white widow'.

Ms Lewthwaite is the widow of one of the four suicide bombers who attacked London on 7 July 2005 and has been linked with the Somali militant Islamist group al-Shabab - the organisation behind the attack on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall.

Security correspondent Frank Gardner explains why Samantha Lewthwaite's Kenyan charges relate not to this month's Westgate attack but to her "alleged possession of explosives in December 2011 and an alleged plot at that time to bomb a number of tourist resorts".

- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/election-2013/joel-fitzgibbon-says-kevin-rudd-wrotepolicies-on-the-run-during-the-election-campaign/story-fn9qr68y-1226719437784#sthash.EEq9rs1D.dpuf

FEDERAL Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon admits some of Kevin Rudd's election policies were written "on the run".

But the key Rudd supporter insists Labor performed better under Mr Rudd than was expected before he seized back the leadership from Julia Gillard in June.

Breaking her silence on Labor's election loss, Ms Gillard has ridiculed some of Mr Rudd's 2013 policies, including proposals for a different corporate tax rate for the Northern Territory and a plan to move naval assets from Sydney's Garden Island to Brisbane.

Writing for the Guardian Australia, Ms Gillard said both ideas should be ditched.

“There were some policies on the run, there's no doubt about that,” Mr Fitzgibbon told ABC's Insiders program today.

“I think Kevin was playing a bit of catch-up football, I'd expect that, we were coming from behind. Sometimes you throw a wild pass and it pays off, on other occasions it gets intercepted and it doesn't work, but I don't, I wouldn't criticise him for trying.

“I defended the Garden Island proposal on the basis that it was a long-term thought-out plan that came out of the strategic posture review and he was talking about forming a committee to look at a plan over 30 years.

“The Northern Territory policy was fine on principle. I think it fell over because of lack of detail. I think if you're going to put out big policies like that during a campaign you need to be ready to put some meat on it.”

THIS IS THE LAST GOODBYE

Coniston Graveyard, NSW, Australia

Fetched, the lyrical flow, if he could have caught it when it happened, but it was gone, stumbling down lonely streets, before he even had the chance to swipe it from the air. "The thing I don't understand about Australia, is, when did the wowsers win?" he asked.
"Political correctness won," came the answer from someone not in a position to know. Who had never been anywhere.
"You can't do anything anymore, you can't even make a noise."
Well that was the Christmas that had gone, and with it the circus.
Nothing he said held any resonance for anyone. They talked about things so mundane he couldn't even kick the gravel.
As if, as if, just in the air, out of the sky, out of universal acceptance, then came something that could touch them, the village, the feeling of being loved, appreciated, recognised. He had never belonged here, and now belonged here even less.
Subsumed into the circus, there was no place to go.
They had moved on to other prey, leaving a cold husk. And as he regrouped, for the umpteenth time, a cold pit, discomfort, filled his stomach. There was so much to do; and so little time; and yet in the delinquent glory, in the heroic dissolution that had been their past, these feats went unrecognised. They were never meant to be here; here in the future. And so he smiled; crossed his legs, didn't care anymore what they thought. If nothing else, he was done with hiding.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://qz.com/128144/car-crazy-thailand-the-detroit-of-southeast-asia-emulates-the-motor-city-in-more-ways-than-one/

A generous car-buying incentive program has hit a major pothole in Thailand, which touts itself as the Detroit of Southeast Asia—presumably referring to the auto manufacturing, not crushing levels of government debt—in the latest in a string of questionable stimulus programs.

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The $2.5 billion car-buying scheme was similar to the US “cash for clunkers” plan, but without the clunkers—first-time buyers simply received a tax refund of up to $3,200 in an attempt to encourage lower-income Thais to buy domestically made cars.

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Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra launched the program after massive floods in 2011 hit the country’s auto industry. Thailand is a regional hub for many car companies, especially Japanese manufacturers such as Honda, Mitsubishi, and Toyota, and autos comprise 12% of the country’s GDP, and at first the plan seemed to work like gangbusters, with 2012 auto production skyrocketing 67% from the previous year.

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But the problem with encouraging low-income buyers is they often can’t make their car payments. Reuters reported this week that more than 100,000 new buyers have defaulted on their loans, with their cars seized by finance companies. With the resulting used-car glut and the absence of the subsidies, demand for new cars has cratered, threatening the very industry that the plan was meant to help.  

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/julia-gillard-and-kevin-rudds-political-horror-stories-to-hit-shelves/story-fncynjr2-1226727181297#ixzz2fwKRU4GE

LABOR'S blood feud between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd is set to spill over into the literary arena as the former prime ministers pen their memoirs.

The poisonous rivalry between the two ex-Labor leaders is set to reignite: Ms Gillard confirmed her memoir - to be published in October 2014 - will comb her “political and personal journey”, and Mr Rudd is also shopping around plans for an autobiography

The Mandarin-speaking Mr Rudd - who was ousted by Ms Gillard in 2010, before returning as leader in June - is also hoping to have it published in China.

The prospect of duelling memoirs will not be welcomed by Labor MPs hoping they could bury the poisonous rivalry between the former PMs.

''We are about to start the 'history wars','' one Labor MP said.

ELECTRONIC STORM

Clunes - North Coast, NSW

And so, here where the electronic dancers kept their secrets, where the haunting shadows settled into a warmer place, there came days of a kind of archival bliss; they talked about almost everything. He hadn't been amongst native English speakers for years; anything complex was simplified into almost mono-syllables. Sure, there was an educated class, but he had not sought them out;  and remained fascinated by the bars he should have left long ago. There was a way forward, he just didn't know what it was. Frightened of the future, mortified by the past, he remained frozen in a kind of juvenile detention; half baked, half longing.

So instead they ordered another bottle.

There was going to be an end to it all, he just didn't know what it was.

He could spot the miscreants from a hundred paces if needs be; but they weren't going down that path. You could always find whatever golden stream you sought, if money was no object. Kept imprisoned, in a strange way they also kept him safe. So he just bided his time and waited; and soon they peeled their way off in boredom, and the shock of what had happened, it, too, peeled away into an alternative past, a healing present. Roads not taken. A ruthful shrug. "I know, I know."

And still they said: "I didn't know that about him."

As if they should have cared.

And so he embraced the new, if not with open arms, with an increasingly positive attitude. Less frightened of being alone. Less horrified by the dance he had embarked upon, or been led on. "The problem was nobody among the devils cared about you," Gerardo said.

And having embraced so many disparate groups down the decade, and normally been welcome, he had not realised he had been caught in a group of thieving, poisonous snakes; until it was too late.

"I will never see you again." The thought ran like a loop for days, and then disappeared.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/militants-kenyan-security-forces-locked-in-protracted-battle-at-mall-and-on-twitter/2013/09/24/5912ee72-251a-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story.html

NAIROBI — Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta declared Tuesday night that the four-day-long siege of an upscale mall in the capital by Islamist militants has ended with the deaths of five attackers and 11 in custody. He announced three days of mourning for the more than 60 people killed in the attack, a death toll that he said is expected to rise with the recovery of more bodies from the mall.

“As a nation, our head is bloodied but unbowed,” Kenyatta said in a televised address. “We have ashamed and defeated our attackers.”

The Liberal strategy to turn the focus to Rudd’s dysfunction was supported by a secret tactical tool.

The Financial Review reports that held deep within the top strategy group of the Liberal war room was a document which gave a name and a diagnosis to the personality of Kevin Rudd. It was a document provided to the Liberal’s strategy team on an informal basis by a psychiatrist friendly to the Liberals after Rudd had returned to the Labor leadership on June 26. In a nutshell, this document offered an arm’s-length diagnosis of Rudd as suffering a personality disorder known as “grandiose narcissism”.

The document was not shown to Abbott, but rather remained within the strategy group as an informal check-list, often as a tool for comparison after Rudd had already behaved in ways that the Liberal strategists believed could be leveraged to their advantage. The Liberal war room had reached its own conclusions about Rudd long ago, based on his public behaviour and the damning revelations of his colleagues.

Describing grandiose narcissism as less a psychiatric disease and more a destructive character defect, the document suggested Rudd was held together by one key strut: an absolute conviction of intellectual superiority over everyone else. “Kick out that strut and he will collapse".

Rudd, the document went on, was vulnerable to any challenge to his self-belief that he was more widely-read, smarter and more knowledgeable than anyone else “on the planet”. Such a condition of grandiose narcissism would make Rudd obsessively paranoid, excessively vindictive – “prepared to wait years to get revenge”.

Rudd would be threatened by a rival in any of his fields and would be obsessively paranoid and ready to retaliate to real or perceived threats; he would suffer from excessive suspicion. This could be tactically exploited, the document suggested, by promoting the idea that Rudd was merely a caretaker prime minister, to be terminated by colleagues once the election was won.

The document – simple in its construct and in many ways echoing a view clearly held inside Labor itself where many of Rudd’s colleagues had described him as dysfunctional – raised a riddle no one could answer; if the symptoms were all so obvious and the character flaws so marked, how was it that Labor had chosen Rudd not once, but twice to lead the country?

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/grandiose-narcissist-the-secret-diagnosis-that-helped-bring-down-kevin-rudd-20130909-2tfum.html#ixzz2fqEx7gEP

THE PLACES FLED VIII

Oak Flats - Google Phone

We were coming around the corner when we first saw them. We didn't know our own faces were being dismembered with the wind; and for a moment were glad at the sight of other humans. All else had been let loose. Caravans came and went. Ancient voices were easily detected. But in a strange way the silence that now enveloped him was equally as disturbing as the haranguing chorus that had been with him for so long. The Thais had never heard of Privacy Legislation; didn't like foreigners and were prepared to believe what they wanted to believe. That was a strange chorus, a jerking dance of despair. So many resources, for what, an elderly foreigner? To ridicule someone they had deceived and stolen from? To protect their own?

"They're incredibly racist," Peter said, sitting on his North Coast verandah as they shot the breeze.
"They're the most racist people on Earth," he responded; and they made sounds of agreement as they watched the palms at the bottom of the garden turn into silhouettes against the darkening sky.
"But you were always fascinated. You used to ask me about it all the time."

Peter had done a stint subbing at the Bangkok Post; and he always wanted to know everything, the mystery.

And still in those most beautiful places there was mystery; an air of opportunity.

Here flowers decorated the neat small garden beds at the front of fibro houses; there were no conspicuous displays of wealth; or any wealth to start with. And the casualties, of brand, of honour, the death of personality; all these things creeped through the lowering air and were gone; because there was no solution. Everything crept slowly away, as if forever depleted. He still envied other people their ordinary lives; and tried to go quietly about his own; as if the agony ripped across his soul wasn't there; and we were all gone to a better place. "I can see that now."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/explosions-gunfire-at-kenyan-mall-as-armed-attack-enters-3rd-day/2013/09/23/b0b558be-2442-11e3-b3e9-d97fb087acd6_story.html

THE BIGGER STORY:

NAIROBI — Kenyan security forces on Monday seized control of a luxury shopping mall that had been attacked by Islamist militants, but officials said some assailants remained hidden inside stores in the mall and little was known about who staged the brazen attack and what countries they came from.

A total of 62 people were killed after the gunmen, from the Islamist al-Shabab militia, burst into the Westgate Premier Shopping mall at lunchtime Saturday and began shooting, said Joseph Ole Lenku, a senior official with the Interior Ministry.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/data-point/rudd-saved-labor-leaked-polling-shows-20130921-2u6my.html#ixzz2fkeJf7Lc

Labor would have been reduced to a parliamentary rump worse than in the Whitlam defeat of 1975 had it not replaced Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd as prime minister, according to leaked internal polling.

Mr Rudd saved Labor at least 15 seats, including those of enemies Wayne Swan, Warren Snowdon and Gary Gray, who would all have lost their jobs if Labor had persisted with Ms Gillard, according to the polling.

In the months before the June 26 leadership coup, Labor's pollster told the party's national office to expect negative swings as large as 18 per cent, wiping out key electorates across Australia. It suggests Labor seats would have been reduced from 71 to 40, rather than the 55 it is now expected to hold.

THE PLACES FLED VII

He could feel them, the lice in the wall; so it was that they came full circle, to the places they had fled. There wasn't room for regret, or so he would have liked to think. Other pictures, other stories, curled in a ceaseless loop. He could have been shadowed; but there was no need. Time took its own toll. In an advanced state of whimsy. He went to the site of the old hospital where he was born, in the North Coast village of Bangalow. It had been demolished some 20 years before, replaced by an Area Health Service. The car park, perhaps, was where it took place. He said a thank you for his life and moved on; although some days were wretched still. In the frigid heat, in the established routines of other people's lives. He was still just passing through, wherever he was. These days you could spend $10 on a pie and a milkshake in Bangalow.

Except for here, now with good coffee, a range of services and ever rising real estate prices, the dead hand of socialism, or whatever it was, had hoovered every last cent off the populace and cast them back a decade. For k after k on the Pacific Highway from Sydney, there were no new shops, hotels, businesses. Petrol stations were increasingly far apart. Nobody had spent any money on their houses. For Sale signs were everywhere.

The only industry expanding was red light cameras, speed cameras, school zone cameras, average speed cameras; crewsing cops. Itinerants were lucky to survive any sort of misidentificatoin. They were curling between the reaches; the wowsers had won. Closing Time is 12 o'clock ran the campaign in Bryon Bay, supposedly an international destination. Alcohol fueled violence they parrotted; as if noone should dare do anything.  The Death of Fun, as the old headline had gone. There was almost no visible black money running through the economy; over-regulation had seen to that. But without it was gone the cream; money churning through the place, immediately spent. Now nobody was spending anything. And nothing was more difficult than being legitimate.

There was a new Prime Minister on the throne.

"It's important to be modest," Tony Abbott said.

And the world turned on its axis, and the so-called unelectable was convincingly elected.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/22/world/africa/kenya-mall-attack/

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) -- Authorities in Kenya appeared close to ending a deadly siege early Monday at an upscale Nairobi mall, where attackers have killed at least 68 people, injured 175, and were believed to be holding about 30 people hostage.

"All efforts are underway to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion," the Kenyan military announced on Twitter.

It said that "most of the hostages have been rescued and security forces have taken control of most parts of the building."

Earlier, police had tweeted that a "MAJOR assault" by security forces was ongoing.

The developments come two days after Al-Shabaab militants first stormed the shopping center, spraying bullets and unleashing chaos.

There are believed to be between 10-15 gunmen involved in the attack, according to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Sources within Al-Shabaab told CNN that nine names listed on a Twitter site -- now suspended -- were people who were among the alleged hostage-takers.

Three of the alleged attackers are from the United States, two are from Somalia and there is one each from Canada, Finland, Kenya and the United Kingdom, according to the list.

Kenyatta vowed Sunday to hold those responsible for the violence, accountable.

The tragedy is personal for the president; one of his nephews and his fiancee were among the dead.

"They shall not get away with their despicable, beastly acts. Like the cowardly perpetrators now cornered in the building, we will punish the masterminds swiftly and indeed very painfully," Kenyatta said.

'Bunch of cowards'

Sporadic gunfire could be heard throughout the day Sunday, and at least one explosion. Those sounds were followed by periods of tense silence.

Soldiers kept vigil outside the mall, guns dangling from their shoulders. Helicopters approached later in the day.

The Kenyan Red Cross tweeted that nine bodies were recovered Sunday night, bringing the death toll to 68.

More than 175 were injured in the attack, Kenyatta said. He and other Kenyan officials visited hospitals Sunday morning.

"No one should lose their life so needlessly, so senselessly and no family should have to receive news that their loved ones have been killed by a criminal bunch of cowards," the president said.

The mall siege was the deadliest terror attack in Kenya since al Qaeda blew up the U.S. Embassy there in 1998, killing 213 people.

GONSKY: THE PERFECT STORM

Tony Abbott The Australian Election 2013 Courtesy The Herald Sun 

Kevin Rudd has finally gone, trailing with him the same peculiar circumlocutions of thought, the same baby talk and the same Canberra bureaucratic babble that had infested his brain throughout the campaign. Gone were the glory days of signing Kyoto and the national reconciliation, giant thought bubbles which had the nation enthralled in euphoric virtue.

Gonsky; as he said on his Kitchen Cabinet interview with Annabelle Crabbe for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. 

Gone, but not forgotten for a very long time. 

Kevin earnt his nickname Captain Chaos until the very end; showing up to cast his vote with wife Teresa Rein but not having alerted the Australian Electoral Commission prior to his arrival. And thereby creating pandamonium as the media fought with AEC officials over access and jostled for position; because whatever the shot, you cannot afford to miss it.

While Michael sat on his elderly mother's couch and watched the election on television. He missed, badly missed, being in the centre of everything.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24000133

Australia's opposition has crushed the governing Labor party in a general election that has returned the Liberal-National coalition to power for the first time in six years.

The coalition won 88 seats to Labor's 57 in the 150-seat parliament.

Liberal leader Tony Abbott, who will be prime minister, promised a competent and trustworthy government.

Outgoing PM Kevin Rudd earlier admitted defeat and said he would not stand again for the Labor leadership.

The main election issues were how to tackle an expected economic slowdown, whether to keep a tax on carbon emissions, and how to reduce the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat.

Mr Rudd called the election after defeating Julia Gillard in a leadership challenge in June, amid dismal polling figures that showed Labor on course for a wipe-out.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/kevin-rudds-concession-speech-20130907-2tcxi.html#ixzz2eErHbUxL

Kevin! Kevin!

Rudd: Gees, I thought we'd lost. My fellow Australians, my fellow Queenslanders. And follow members of the great Australian Labor Party. Today we have fought the good fight as the great Australian Labor Party. Tonight is the time to unite as the great Australian nation. Because whatever our politics may be we are all first and foremost Australian. And the things that unite us are more powerful than the things that divide us which is why the world marvels at Australia.

This country which can manage its political differences peacefully and conduct the most vigorous of debates peacefully and resolve our politics peacefully and with civility, that is why this country is such a great country is such a great country. And that in this marvellous tapestry of modern Australia, the mosaic of our multicultural nation that with fashion such unity out of diversity, therein lies the great Australian miracle.

Which is why we are all proud to be Australian. A short time ago I telephoned Tony Abbott to concede defeat at these national elections.

As PM of Australia I wish him well now in the high office of PM of this country. Therese and I wish he, Margie and their family well in coping with the stresses and strains of high office that lie ahead. We know a little bit of what that is like.

And Therese and I look forward to greeting them at the Lodge early next week in the same gracious manner with which Mr and Mrs Howard welcomed us six years ago. Now I want to speak to Labor people and Labor supporters everywhere across Australia.

Gees, a couple more days we might have got there. I know that Labor hearts are heavy across the nation tonight and as your PM and as your parliamentary leader of the great Australian Labor Party I accept responsibility. I gave it my all but it was not enough for us to win. I'm proud that despite all the prophets of doom that we have preserved our Federal Parliamentary Labor Party as a viable fighting force for the future.

And I'm also proud of the fact that despite the pundits we appear to have held every seat in Queensland.

I saw Sky News just before saying we're all gone, including me. Anyway. I'm proud of the fact that we've held each of our seats in Queensland, I'm proud of the fact that every cabinet minister has been returned at this election. And I'm proud that practically all other members of our executive have been returned as well. But tonight, but tonight we have lost many fine Labor men and women from our Parliament and I would like to thank them personally for their courage and their unswerving commitment to our cause, to our party and to our nation.

Just as I would like to thank each and every one of you, the true believers of Australia, who have worked so hard this campaign for your unswerving commitment and to our cause and to our nation.

THE BEAUTY OF MEN

Random pics and sad songs courtesy fanpop.com

First he wrote a book called Dancer from the Dance. Then Andrew Holleran wrote an immensely sad book called The Beauty of Men. From what had once seemed an eternal party, he went back to the boondocks to take care of his aging mother. If these were the places fled, Michael did not know. "He worked so hard for it," the female officer said of the money the Thais had pillaged and he had squandered in a kind of unknowing, delinquent despair. Whether it was a broken heart or not, he did not know. "Sad story," another officer, knowing he could hear her, said. While all the time he pretended not to know a thing.

"i couldn't believe how upset the guy was," said another of his original pursuers from the house next door. Or was it opposite. He didn't know. All he knew was that everything barrelled down to a low point; and now there were times when he just couldn't handle anything. Holleran, having fled the AIDS ravaged scene of New York, couldn't have been lonelinier as he drover around the flat marshes surrounding his mother's house. Some people kept in touch, but not many, and he had no energy for them. The scene had gone, and with it, so many of his friends. Those haunting descriptions of their dying days. While inside he ached and ached; as if the natural order of things had finally come undone; and all was lost.

Holleran searched for love, or occasional contact, in all the places that men normally do, but out there, on the flat marshes or by the river, there was little movement. Sometimes there was noone at all. He fell inappropriately, hopelessly, in love with a young man down the road, not far from his mother's house, and that, in its obsession, intensely aware of his aging body, was the saddest cut of all. Nothing could be changed, not his longing, his loneliness, his age, his dead friends, thoughts unbidden. Why don't you travel? Michael thought, when he read the book, but his mother was dying and true enough, some people, most in fact, were not born to travel, it never seemed to cross their mind.

So what happened after his mother died? Michael didn't know, he hadn't read any sequels. Perhaps there weren't any sequels, but the same dismal course. The same appalling honesty. What could be dressed up as an "unblinking gaze", if one was writing advertising copy. He could see the amenities by the river. The occasional car. The men who stopped on their way home from work; or on their roamings. Searching for what, being what? Heat and damp and a terrible aloneness, was that all that was left? The Beauty of Men might more accurately have been called The Loneliness of Men, and so they swirled into a cutthroat world, unintended, full of unintended consequence, and Michael found himself in the same place, caring, just by being there, for his aging mother; a refugee from the dance, or from his own delinquent chaos, saddened by everything that had happened, still wishing, sometimes, that the light would just go out. 

And staring, yes unblinking, at the places fled.

THE BIGGER STORY:

Nearly a week into President Obama’s campaign to convince Congress that airstrikes against Syria are necessary, he has achieved little headway against a wall of skepticism on Capitol Hill.

The president’s challenge is made more difficult by the fact that the two parties are splintered on the issue — and that lawmakers say they are hearing virtually no support for an attack from their constituents at home.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/relaxed-kevin-rudd-cooks-up-a-storm-20130905-2t86s.html#ixzz2e3yDtkE3

Kevin Rudd has showed off his prowess in the kitchen  in an appearance on ABC TV's Kitchen Cabinet.

Filmed two weeks ago, hours before Mr Rudd took security briefings on the worsening situation in Syria, the episode – hosted by Annabel Crabb – showed Mr Rudd and his daughter Jess in relaxed form, baking chocolate brownies and talking about the importance of family.

Mr Rudd revealed that ''every decision I have made about what I do in life is one that I've worked through with our family''.

''We actually mull these things over for a bit,'' he said. ''We have formal family conferences when anyone wants to do anything significant and so therefore we know what we're doing and why we're doing it and if it works out that's terrific and it doesn't work out you know that you've actually approached it with a reasonable motivations.''

THE PLACES FLED VI

Courtesy Aus Bush Adeventure

They invaded every part of an otherwise quiet life; working, occasional outages, a slow explore. They crept under every door, through every window. Evil, black, all these things, the chorus of voices crept through every opening in the fabric; haunted. A deliberate haunting. There was no good will. No shadow of decency. The mob had taken over, and the mob had no heart. No shred of anything that could be called reason. And he could hear them still. It was a long time ago? Then put yourself through it; and see for yourself. Frail. Elderly. Gone to God. These were things that would not stop swirling in his dreams. The only cure was time. In this distant, ancient place. Away from an unpleasant world. Cursed and cast; he didn't care if he never saw the emerald city again.

He missed the routine of getting up and going to work. Which was strange considering how much of a yoke it had seemed. Miserable in the core of things. But reflections and past injustices; was that all that was left? A craven corner in a craven world; and then finished. He wasn't safe here; he wasn't safe anywhere. They flocked in reaches far out of mind; but remained. An evil head. A malicious laugh. You could tell them to stop laughing. Oh how funny they had thought it was. 

He could see, in the old Chinese policeman, the probing, angry glare which was meant to instil fear. But he looked guilty, caught in a lie, there in the Babylon sauna, guilty, stupid and dishonest, with a towel wrapped around his waist. An older man tried to kiss him; with the same guilt and sense of jeopardy. "No like," Michael declared, pulling away from a mushy kiss of death, in darkened labrynths where, comparatively early in the carnival of flesh, men lurked in dark corners and waited for the combinations of personnel to fall into place. The fast, the frantic, grappling, their much boasted about prowess over in barely seconds. They were craven, stupid, and with hearts like flinty black blancmange, and so he walked away to yet another observation post; sat on a corner bar stool, and watched.

They knew he was there. Word always spread quickly. And so they came. To see what? To get a laugh? In the hope of killing him? To try and humiliate him once again? 

Just as he had long ago realised that you could not be bullied if you did not allow it; had acquired some forms of resilience on a troubled, delinquent path, so he painfully discovered you could not be humiliated if you did not let them. It was an insanity. The police were so hated that some silently barracked for him. Everything they did blew up in their face. Why they weren't all sacked he would never know. Power came in many strange forms. In the corridors of steam, instant casual beauty. It is for some to have, and some to want. Once it was him frustrated men would say to him in luminous moments of transmission. Now, as the saying went, the shoe was on the other foot, if they had been wearing anything but a wrapped towel. 

And so they embraced and parted in a second. And he was left with a trace of a poisonous heart. Empath by nature; occasional telepath; an urban synapse; a river through which many things flowed. It was over now. He fled.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/04/fairfax-chairman-roger-corbett-rudd

Kevin Rudd has brushed aside criticism from Fairfax chairman and Reserve Bank board member Roger Corbett, who said on Tuesday that the prime minister had been "discredited by his own conduct".

Speaking to the ABC's Lateline, Corbett, who is one of Australia's most prominent business people and is a member of the Liberal party, repeated allegations that Rudd had been active in destabilising the government at 2010 election, arguing that Labor would have been better off under Julia Gillard at the 2013 federal election.

"In my view Kevin Rudd is a leader that has been really discredited by his own conduct. His colleagues sacked him because they judged him to be incapable as PM. He, it's alleged, was active against the government during the elections – maybe true, may not be," said Corbett.

"Here's a man that really has done the Labor party enormous damage, destabilised it, and is now wishing to present himself to the Australian people as a PM and as the incoming PM. I don't think the Australian people will cop that, to be quite honest, and I think that's very sad for the Labor party.

"I think if they come undone in these elections it would have been much better that they'd come undone with Julia Gillard leading them than Kevin Rudd."

Rudd responded on Wednesday morning by saying that Corbett was "talking up his own business" interests.

"I respect Mr Corbett talking up his own business book and his business interests," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

"That's a matter for him. Mr [Rupert] Murdoch does the same," he added, "But guess what: Australian voters make up their own minds."

Corbett used the interview to come out in support of an Abbott government: "I think he [Abbott] will probably be a pretty good PM because he's a very sincere, nice type of human being and I think he will be very dedicated, focused in the job and we certainly need in the economic times we're about to go into some really clear and good leadership."

Corbett also criticised the bias of News Corp Australia's papers. Asked his opinion of the Rupert Murdoch owned group, which has produced a number of heavily pro-Coalition frontpages in recent weeks, Corbett said: "To be as strongly biased as News have been in the last few months, I do think does great damage to the credibility of the press."

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/special-features/tony-abbott-on-brisbane-blitz-as-he-aims-to-unseat-kevin-rudd-in-griffith/story-fnho52jo-1226710938137

TONY Abbott says every seat in Queensland is winnable for the Liberal National Party as he embarks on a last minute blitz of electorates around Brisbane today.

And he is targeting the ultimate prize of Labor's safest domain in the state - Kevin Rudd's seat of Griffith.

Polling suggests Rudd could lose own seat

PM loses lifetime Labor voter

All the federal election latest

In an exclusive interview, Mr Abbott said he doubted he could replicate Queensland Premier Campbell Newman's crushing victory on a national scale, but there was room to win more than the two-thirds of the state's seats already held by the LNP.

"I'm not getting cocky and I'm not predicting the kind of win which Campbell Newman had. But I do think we can win more seats in Queensland," Mr Abbott told The Courier-Mail.

"Without saying it's a done deal, I think even in Rudd's own seat we have a seriously competitive campaign and a seriously competitive candidate."

In a sign Mr Abbott believes there is swing against Mr Rudd in his home state, he has ramped up his personal attacks on the Prime Minister, who he said was "more Canberra than Caboolture".

THE NIGHTMARES FLED

Courtesy The Cursed Heart Collectors Edition

I love you I miss you I stay with you forever. These were the lies that foreigners paid for. These were the false assurances that quickly turned not just into falsehoods, but into elaborate or not so elaborate robberies. Poverty did many things. It meant you could sleep with someone purely for money. It meant you were prepared to demean yourself with lies and treachery, because your own family was a higher cause. And because foreigners were actively disliked, and foreigners who dared to protest disliked even more, it was all not just forgiveable, but perfectly reasonable. To turn a liar and a thief into a cause for national celebration was a neat feat. To rob a foreigner was easy. To pursue them from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from one part of the Kingdom to another, simple vindictiveness. To pursue them across borders, a criminal act. 

These were some of the things he had fled. Because, as he had said before, only Thais rob tourists with such malicious glee and then ridicule them for being "lek, lek", small, if they run low on the readies.

Money was everything to them. Truth nothing. Or so it came to seem to some of the many jaundiced victims of their sex industry, the AIDS ridden criminally run element of their society protected by police and by governments. His head still swirled with these sometimes stupid thoughts for one reason, he was here because he had been there. One door shuts and another opens. When in crisis deal with what is in front of your face. All these old cliches had come in handy during the process of what had happened. And now, the crysalis in the making. Everything happens for a reason. All of that. Dreams kept coming back. Of crowds celebrating Song Kran, chanting against the foreigner, swirling with hatred. Laughing, laughing, at him. He wished the dreams, the nightmares, would go away. He didn't want to think about them anymore. He didn't like them anymore, if he ever had. 

They had been so hateful, in a level beyond absurd hatred, the thousands, tens of thousands, dancing in the street, celebrating the rent boy who had robbed and ridiculed him; celebrating theft and deception. He wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't happened. The mafia tentacles not just reaching through and with the police; but with the government; with the populace. "It's the worst case I've ever seen ," one of the officers commented. And another, shaking his head at the stupidity witnessed: "They don't seem to have bothered to even do a background check."

As if they had created their own nightmare. As if life and ruin would stretch out forever. As if here, in the sun flecked valleys, there were moments of peace, when he slept and adopted routines, and days followed days and all was well. "We take care of our citizens, 
not try to destroy them." Well as may be, some things changed and others did not. It had been a long road but short as well. "Where are all your friends?" someone asked and he shrugged: "Many of them died a long time ago."

THE BIGGER STORY

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/us/politics/obama-administration-presses-case-on-syria.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner said on Tuesday that he would “support the president’s call to action” in Syria after meeting with President Obama, giving the president a crucial ally in the quest for votes in the House.

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Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, quickly joined Mr. Boehner to say he also backed Mr. Obama.

“Understanding that there are differing opinions on both sides of the aisle, it is up to President Obama to make the case to Congress and to the American people that this is the right course of action, and I hope he is successful in that endeavor,” Mr. Cantor said in a statement.

Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. summoned Mr. Boehner and other Republican and Democratic leaders to the White House as they intensified their push for Congressional approval of an attack on Syria. Conservative House Republicans have expressed deep reluctance about the president’s strategy, and winning Mr. Boehner’s approval could help the president make inroads with a group that has not supported him on most issues in the past.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, said, “I believe the American people need to hear more about the intelligence.”

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/time-is-running-out-for-a-kevin-rudd-miracle-20130902-2t0f0.html

The difficulty with Kevin Rudd promising on Sunday that we haven't seen anything yet is that a lot of Australians figure they've seen just about everything.

Labor's official campaign launch, thus, was a determined exercise in attempted amnesia.

It could be nothing else. Mr Rudd couldn't talk much about Kevin Mk I, because everyone remembers how that finished. He couldn't remind the folks about the last three years because, well, we know about that, too.