AUSTRALIA DAY

Central West NSW, Australia

"It's just like any other day," the woman said, leaning over her front gate.
He picked her straight away.
She could complain under water.
And sure enough she did.
Australia Day just wasn't what it used to be.
For a start, the woman complained, the streets were empty and the wheelchair race, which normally ran past her front door, hadn't made it that far this year.
Heavily sponsored by disability organisations and the state and local governments, the event drew a scattering of curious onlookers and a line of supporters, friends and family.
They rolled through the normally traffic choked streets, and even the last to cross the finishing line had something of a triumphant air.
For some it's climbing Mount Everest, for others it's crossing the street.
The woman's grown son stood next to her, assessing him. As best the clearly different could. The man had a pair of shorts drawn up high around his waist, and a nickname in the local area, Bovver Bob, or something to that affect. A troublesome child in a man's body.
Perhaps it was brain damage, Michael didn't know, didn't care. Millionaire's row lapped up against a conglomerate of the mentally ill, schitzophrenic, drug addicted or alcoholic and a mix of old time residents, some from the old Maritime Union houses.
There was the ultra-renovated and the utterly unrenovated, the smells of rotting vomit and opposite a gold porsche. The more knocked off you were, the easier it was to fit in. Or better still, go un-noticed. On the knocked off side of the street.
The best story to tell, or so he was advised, was to say, if anybody asked, that he had just got out of the big house. Nobody blinked twice at somebody freshly out of jail.
"It's just another day," the woman reiterated after a string of complaints about the deteriorating state of everytihng.
"Just like Christmas," he said cheerfully, before wending on his way. "Just another day."

THE BIGGER STORY:

Protest leader killed as anti-government demonstrations disrupt advance voting in Thailand

Updated 39 minutes ago

Photo: Thai anti-government protesters gather outside a polling station in a bid to prevent people from voting in Narathiwat, southern Thailand. (Photo: AFP/Madaree Tohlala)

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-26/an-thai-anti-government-protesters-disrupt-advance-voting-for-d/5219744

 

A Thai anti-government protest leader has been shot dead in Bangkok.

The protest movement's spokesman, Akanat Promphan, says Suthin Tharathin was giving a speech from a pick-up truck in the Thai capital when he was shot and killed.
"The government has failed to provide any safety and security for anybody today despite the emergency decree," he said, referring to a government order empowering police to control protests.
Bangkok's Erawan emergency centre confirmed one man had been killed and nine injured in the shooting in the city's suburbs.

Voting disrupted on tense day across Thailand

Anti-government protesters forced the closure of 19 out of 50 polling stations in the Thai capital, Bangkok, on Sunday, disrupting advance voting for the disputed general election.
The country's election commission says protesters surrounded buildings, blocking officials from entering to hold advance voting in Bangkok and several southern provinces.
"Nineteen poll stations reported closed out of 50 in Bangkok," said Puchong Nutrawong, the secretary general of the election commission.
"Election officials at the poll stations could not go inside because of the protesters."
He added it was unclear how the advance votes not cast ahead of the scheduled February 2 election will be tallied.
Protesters have prevented commission staff from delivering ballot boxes to polling stations.
Candidates in 28 southern electoral constituencies have been unable to register for candidacy as protests disrupted registration.
More than 2 million people are registered for the advance vote ahead of next week's polls, which was called by prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in an attempt to defuse rising political tensions after weeks of mass anti-government protests.
Advance voting is being held for those who are unable to take part in next Sunday's polls and is routine, although this time it is being seen as a litmus test for the possibility of holding the vote without violence.
Demonstrators have rejected the election and vowed to gather around polling stations.
The protesters have staged a so-called "shutdown" of Bangkok for almost two weeks, in an effort to disrupt the vote.
The prime minister is scheduled to hold a meeting on Tuesday with members of the election commission to discuss possible change of date for the election.
At least nine people have died and more than 500 injured since political violence started late last year, after the lower house of Thailand's parliament passed an amnesty bill appearing to benefit the prime minister's brother, former leader Thaksin Shinawatra.
The bill was later voted down in the Senate.