The Next Enclosure

*



I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks--who had a genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING, which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

Henry David Thoreau.



And then he was caught up, shadowed, stripped; cowering in a corner. All his life he had been cowering in a corner, the belts snaking out. And now, when the nights were cold and nothing could warm him against the ancient chills, now when the most vicious ape men cartoon images populated the entire Western mindset, when his anger and emotional vacuity and his contempt for the governing classes, now when the spin meisters lied and lied and lied and whipped up hysteria on the most fragile grounds, deliberately instilling fear and hysteria into the public for their own selfish gain, to ensure their own re-election, he was gracefully pinnned, cowering, hiding; and he reached out and toucher her and said: come with me, be mine, let us walk together. And so he laughed at their own misbegotten way, at the way the seven years, or was it nine year cycles came sweeping back into his lives, back to Una's, where he had stumbled in at 3am as an utterly drunk teenager and Una would sober him up with black coffee and ice cream.

When a handsome man had bundled him into the back of a van, when a transsexual ran her fingers across his face and said: you'd look good in drag. When this moment had seemed entirely theirs and history had been written just for them, just for that moment. In the back of Brutus's. His fluorescent shirt lit up. All the faces of the old queens, his constant audience, turned to gape. At beauty. At youth. And he pretended to ignore them, the watching eyes. And decades later he stood up and spoke. And no one knew what had really happened. No one. So he wrote history as the one who had survived to tell the tale; yet he listened to others, the terrible tales, the abuse, the exploitation, The Rex. He had been there the other day, at what was now discreetly called The Rex Centre, a block of serviced apartment which told no tale of what had really happened there.

He liked to think he had not suffered. He had concocted a story to cover it; he was drunk, he was happy, he was hunted, he had put himself out there. Something to be; something to say you had been; rent boy. As if he could really make any difference. And decades later he stood on the paved ground; so different from the dark clay and the mysterious alcoves which had once been this place. Before they had brought in the fully grown trees; planted them right there. He heard the stories of the evil pain those boys had suffered. They shook uncontrollably as they told their stories, as they spoke of something they had seen as pure evil; those bars we had been allowed into purely as bait, those bars where the men had queued to buy them drinks, to bid for the attention. The biggest payer always won; but things were never that simple between the payer and the client.

He remembered to this day the delegation from the ruling queen; when they had cornered him at the Rex, sat him down and offered him everything. These criminal gangs, he had known them well; always attracted by the lure of the illicit. It was an offer, not a threat; well at least at this stage; and he, already zipping around town in a fast new sports car and already hopelessly drunk on his way to recovery, to university, to a normal life, listened to the offer with a degree of interest. He always needed a sugar daddy to protect him from the slings and arrows. It was a compliment. He was the best looking boy on the block, at least at this fragile moment. He knew the gangster who had sent them to make the offer. They had talked drunkenly on a night he could not remember, their little group, drowning in a sea of alcohol, losing consciousness. He liked the lads who had been sent to make the offer; they all said the bloke wasn't very demanding in bed and always saw them right; but there was something that warned him off. Only the other day the body of one his friends, forced to dig his own grave at gun point in the National Park, had been discovered. He was already well cared for and could afford to say no, dangerous though it might be. Already another desperate queen desperate to save him from the streets; who's money he always took, who's expensive apartment he lived in, who's smart fast car he drove, who's account he used to fill up with petrol; looked after him. And the current provider was an easy touch, barely requiring him to lift a finger as his tongue explored his body. They were almost friends, the sex required so little effort.

The gangster wouldn't be like that; delighted at the crumbs which fell from the table, the bulges he allowed to be fumblingly exploited. Every prostitute knew that fantasy was more powerful than truth; that the flesh was weak but the heart even weaker, that desire was more lucrative if unfulfilled. That prick teasers always got paid the best. All my life I've just wanted to be a normal person; he declared. They listened, were they listening? The rows of blank faces in dingy seats. Normal? He laughed. They had no idea. But his own shadows were just that, shadows long past. Those embraces, those adventures, those fabulous drunken nights, they were all so long ago history had swallowed up their import, and when he heard the voice of strangers, boys who's stories echoed his own but now came from the mouths of grown men, he tried to remember if he had seen them, there in those foul nights, in the dark corners at the Bottoms Up Bar and the infamous Rex Hotel. And now, as an older man, he stood and looked at the neat little sign: Rex Service Centre; and only he could know what really went on here, at this very spot, and know the stories of those boys, their suffering, their exploitation, their braggadocio, their bluster, their sadness and distress as yet another bastard pumped his money and his semen into their fragile, underfed bodies.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/man-with-swine-flu-dies-in-adelaide-20090619-cr4y.html

A West Australian man has become the first person with swine flu to die in Australia.

The 26-year-old man died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) on Friday afternoon after being diagnosed with the virus on Thursday.

South Australian health authorities could not yet confirm whether the man died because of swine flu, as he had been suffering from a number of other serious health conditions.

The man had been transferred from Alice Springs Hospital to the RAH intensive care unit on Monday.

SA Health Minister John Hill said the RAH would continue to investigate the cause of death.

"What we do know is that this man was seriously ill from a number of conditions and the reason he was sent to the Royal Adelaide was because of those conditions," he said.

"How the swine flu interacted with those conditions and what's the ultimate cause of death is something we can't really speculate about."

SA Health's chief medical officer Paddy Phillips said he did not, as of yet, have all the details surrounding the Aboriginal man's death.

"Although the patient was diagnosed as positive for swine flu yesterday, his other medical conditions had dramatically deteriorated by the time he got to Adelaide," Professor Phillips said.

"We will be letting the Commonwealth know exactly whether or not H1N1 was a major contributor or not."

Prof Phillips said WA health authorities and the commonwealth's chief medical adviser had been informed, and that the man's death would not yet be added to the list of casualties from swine flu.

"This is very recent and while we have a large amount of information, we clearly don't have all of the information - that will require further review."

Prof Phillips told reporters on Friday evening the RAH would work with the Communicable Diseases Branch.

He said it was incredibly unlikely the man could have contracted the influenza A (H1N1) virus at the RAH and that staff who treated the man prior to him being diagnosed with swine flu had since been prescribed a course of Tamiflu.

"All of the appropriate procedures have been followed," he said.

"So I think it is incredibly unlikely this was caught in SA.

"Swine flu in the vast majority of people is a mild illness.

"However, we know from overseas experience that a certain proportion of people do get so sick they need to be in hospital and, unfortunately, a certain proportion do ultimately succumb - largely people with pre-existing medical conditions.

"Unfortunately, there is a higher incidence of the illnesses that make people vulnerable to complications from influenza, as well as H1N1, in the Aboriginal population and they tend to get those illnesses - diabetes, lung disease, heart disease, kidney disease - at younger ages."

In a statement released on Friday night, Federal health Minister Nicola Roxon said all governments were focused on minimising the number of cases of serious disease as much as possible.

"During the PROTECT phase announced this week, the government is focused on identifying, targeting and treating those most vulnerable to severe complications from swine flu," Ms Roxon said.

It is understood the man came from a small Aboriginal community about 700km west of Alice Springs.

Prof Phillips would not detail the medical conditions the man was suffering from, except to say they had affected a number of his organ systems.



http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25656849-7583,00.html

STEVE Fielding recently attended a climate change conference in Washington, DC. Listening to the papers presented, the Family First senator became puzzled that the scientific analyses they provided directly contradicted the reasons the Australian government had been giving as the justification for its emissions trading legislation...
The questions posed were:

* Is it the case that CO2 increased by 5percent since 1998 while global temperature cooled during the same period? If so, why did the temperature not increase, and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?

* Is it the case that the rate and magnitude of warming between 1979 and 1998 (the late 20th-century phase of global warming) were not unusual as compared with warmings that have occurred earlier in the Earth's history? If the warming was not unusual, why is it perceived to have been caused by human CO2 emissions and, in any event, why is warming a problem if the Earth has experienced similar warmings in the past?

* Is it the case that all computer models projected a steady increase in temperature for the period 1990 to 2008, whereas in fact there were only eight years of warming followed by 10years of stasis and cooling? If so, why is it assumed that long-term climate projections by the same models are suitable as a basis for public policy-making?

As independent scientists attending the meeting, we found the minister's advisers unable, indeed in some part unwilling, to answer the questions.

We were told that the first question needed rephrasing because it did not take account of the global thermal balance and the fact much of the heat that drives the climate system is lodged in the ocean.

Que? What is it about "carbon dioxide has increased and temperature has decreased" that the minister's science advisers don't understand?

The second question was dismissed with the comment that climatic events that occurred in the distant geological past were not relevant to policy concerned with contemporary climate change. Try telling that to geologist Ian Plimer.

And regarding the accuracy of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's computer models, we were assured that better models were in the pipeline. So the minister's advisers apparently concede that the models that have guided preparation of the emissions trading scheme legislation are inadequate.

These are not adequate responses.

It was reported in the Business Age last July that the ministry of climate change's green paper on climate change, which was issued as a prelude to carbon dioxide taxation legislation, contained scientific errors and over-simplifications. Almost 12 months on, our experience confirms that the scientific advice Wong is receiving is inadequate to justify the exorbitantly costly upheaval of our society's energy usage that will be driven by the government's ETS legislation.

All Australians owe Fielding a vote of thanks for having had the political courage to ask in parliament where the climate empress's clothes have gone. Together with the senator, and the public, we await with interest any further answers to his questions that Wong's advisers may yet provide.

Geologist Bob Carter, carbon modeller David Evans, hydrologist-climatologist Stewart Franks and meteorologist-climatologist Bill Kininmonth attended the meeting between Steve Fielding, Penny Wong, Chief Scientist Penny Sackett and ANU Climate Change Institute executive director Will Steffen. Sackett has so far declined to answer Fielding's questions on this page.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25646975-5013450,00.html

For better analysis, you need only jump in a taxi to understand what happens when there is a sense that a nation has lost its way. My taxi driver from Heathrow told me he voted BNP for the first time. The next day, another taxi driver said the same. Another day, another taxi driver, another first-time BNP voter. For them, mainstream parties stopped listening to the concerns of working-class people about immigration. Likewise, you will learn more from the letters pages of British newspapers than from the reams of so-called expert analysis devoted to denouncing the BNP's success as a depressing moment for democracy. "The political process must address such concerns, not simply dismiss them as wrong. Denial simply makes things worse, and repression fuels rage among people who feel they have lost their country and want it back," one correspondent wrote to The Independent.

The emergence of the BNP - and, indeed, other similar anti-immigration parties across Europe - is yet another wake-up call that large swaths of the West have failed to discuss the consequences of fast-growing immigration honestly and openly.

Once again we are reminded that multiculturalism rendered such discussion distasteful, where elites presented immigration as a necessary part of a tolerant society, no matter how incompatible the values of these migrants. All cultures were equal, they preached, while deriding Western culture as somehow less equal. Any reservations about the costs and consequences of immigration were discarded as vile xenophobia from the ignorant, intolerant masses.

It is easy to dismiss the concerns of the working class when you are far removed from the daily, social challenges of immigration.

Our own Mark Latham best described that disconnect back in 2002 when he said that: "In my experience, the strongest supporters of the rights agenda are those who do not have to face the daily consequences of irresponsible behaviour. They have the resources to buy themselves away from social problems ... This gives them the luxury of being able to talk about human rights without the need for social responsibility."

How horrifying it must be for the Left to discover that they are partly responsible for the rise of anti-immigration parties such as the BNP. When people feel disenfranchised, ignored by mainstream politicians who have failed to treat them as adults entitled to a serious debate about immigration and a fading national identity, they will resort to unattractive fringe parties to vent their anger.

They turn to parties such as the BNP and the obsessively nationalist UK Independence Party, which out-polled the ruling British Labour Party. And to Hungary's far right party Jobbik, otherwise known as the Movement for a Better Hungary, which won 14.8 per cent of the poll, securing almost as many votes as the ruling Hungarian socialists. And Geert Wilders's Freedom Party in the Netherlands, which doubled its vote campaigning on anti-Islamic concerns, nationalist parties such as True Finns in Finland and Denmark's far-right Danish People's Party, which picked up a second seat in Strasbourg.

Years ago now, writing in Prospect magazine, David Goodhart wrote an important essay warning liberals about the progressive dilemma that confronts many Western countries: sharing and solidarity can often conflict with diversity. "Acts of sharing are more smoothly and generously negotiated if we take for granted a limited set of common values and assumptions," he wrote.

Yet, the more diverse that once homogenous societies become, the more the common culture is eroded. He warned that the reaction to growing diversity will happen through decades, if not generations. After last week's European elections, more people are now realising the inevitable price of diversity.




The NSW coast, north of Sydney, Australia.

Lives Without Consequence

*



Grievances are like flowers - if you water them, they will grow, and self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness.
Phillis Schlafly



And so yes, it was finally admitted. The Block was a no-go zone for whites. You were likely to be bashed. After all the talk of racism; this was what it boiled down to. They were free to bash us while living off the tax payer tit. Even their elders excused the bashings. How could this be? When the whites bleated constantly, did anything for them, paid and paid and paid. White c...ts they shouted or sniggered as we passed. White c...nts. The only time in the eight years he had lived there he had let his guard down he had been robbed. Once he came home from work at midnight, had a cigarette on the backstep and accidently left the back door open, over-tired from work, stressed from the impossibility of living in this rotten town, with its marauding goons known as parking cops, its utterly incompetent governments at local and state level, the joke that passed for governance as parasites drove the city further and further into the ground; hocking off public streets for private toll companies; raking millions of dollars of ordinary working people by their own refusal to provide any parking.

He was sick of it, sick of them. And sick of the fact that as far as the authorities were concerned it appeared perfectly alright to bash people up, as long as it was the aboriginals doing the bashing. How outrageous was this? How much it violated all the normal civilised codes? How much damage the crooning, dribbling, apologetic left did to these people. No one ever said: stand on your own two feet, make a life for yourself, behave with honour, decency, humility. Instead any behaviour was excusable; and he saw the magistrate pounding down his decision on the young aboriginal mother of two: the counsellors may see hope, I see nothing but a long history of dishonesty and drug abuse. Nine months. Where were the kids to stay? What possible use could the sentence do? White c...ts they whispered as he passed; checking him out for the bulge of a wallet, for anything they could steal. And they wondered why everyone was sick of them, sick of being robbed, harassed, sneered at. Sick of the one way street.

They had taken everything, despite there being two kids and two dogs asleep in the house at the time. His phone, keys and wallet, his son's playstation, anything they could get their hands on quickly. The police did nothing, of course. They never did. He had almost laughed when, on a recent assignment, the rioting Indian students had claimed their houses were being robbed and the police were doing nothing about it. Must be because they're Indian. Don't think so. They don't do anything for us either. Forlornly, shortly after six am. because he had always been an early riser, he had searched the back of his house, the once notorious Caroline Lane, a narrow little alley where they had gathered to shoot up and argue and a man had died not long before, blood streaming as he staggered up towards the station after selling the brother of the killer a bad deal on which he overdosed.

They took everything and he was just the sucker that got up and went to work. He watched them every pension day, walking up and down up and down, carrying cartons of booze paid for by the taxpayer. Drunk and getting drunker. Their loud, aggrieved voices drowning through the night, churning into the darkness, painting an image of infinite despair. White c...ts. It had taken him weeks to get everything back together, the keys, the wallet, the phone, all those numbers lost. Everything lost, because the thugs were like cockroaches, able to get in anywhere, light fingered, dirty, fast thieves. That was the only time, the only day, in eight years he had left the back door open for more than a few minutes; and bang, robbed. It's not even an easy place to get into.

He found his Medicare card drifting uselessly in the dirt, discasrded by the robber. Even the local garbage men described him to a tee. A young man, red shirt. He must have been on the cameras. The police did nothing. None of his possessions, or those of his son, ever came back. The next robbery was perhaps even worse. It was shortly after Kevin Rudd's famous apology, and blacks and whites alike were aglow with a sense of something, reproachment, fulfilment, peace, reconciliation, aglow with their own good sense and their own good feelings. And so when Steve Green knocked on the door, he let him in. Steve had been a friend of his ex; who had fed him and his five children Christmas lunch in Moree only a couple of years before while he had been there. He had been in jail for murder, had tats all over him, was running an obvious heroin habit; and yet for some reason, the glow of the Apology, the fact that Steve had known the family and the kids for years, he let him into his house.

Steve Green wanted cigarettes; so he told him to stay put; and dashed up to the bank to get some money and buy some fags. He couldn't have been more than five or six minutes. He locked the grill as he left, just in case. When he got back, puffing from the exertion, Steve Green was waiting at the grill, trying to get out. He looked surprised. I've got the cigarettes, he said. I was just going to see a mate down the Block, he said. You've locked me in. And they went back inside; and smoked. But Steve was in a hurry; and left shortly afterwards. He never noticed that Steve had slid Henrietta's brand new $2000 white Apple laptop into his duffle bag. Never noticed until the next day, when Henrietta came back from a friend's house where she had stayed the night; and came down the stairs, shocked, asking: where's my laptop? It had been her absolute pride and joy. So much for family friends. So much for decency. So much for doing the right thing.

The next day, when saw Steve Green lurking at the station and confronted him, Steve offered to get the laptop back: for a $100 shot. That's what life's like in Redfern. Crap.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/16/2599944.htm?section=entertainment

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's wife Therese Rein has visited The Block at the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern to launch a book about the Stolen Generations.

Back on the Block explores the childhood of Bill Simon, who lived at Kinchela Boys Home for eight years after being removed from his family.

Ms Rein says the book captures a dark chapter of history.

"The shock, the bewilderment and the terror of the children, of the babies, is palpable," she said.

"The helplessness of his mum as the children were taken away is just appalling."

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/letters/its-time-we-all-discarded-the-labels-of-victimhood-20090615-c96g.html

Bill Simon's article ("The hourly struggle for survival on The Block", June 15) struck a chord with me, particularly in juxtaposition with Derek Kelly's reference to indigenous Australians as the "rightful owners" of the country (Letters, June 15). In my experience, Simon is correct to say that many residents of The Block are wonderful but misunderstood people, who will cheerfully accept friendship and practical help. He is also correct that many appear to believe their situation in life is solely due to their colour and they can be quick to hurl racist insults at white people, often without provocation.

After five years of living in Redfern, it has become increasingly apparent to me that non-indigenous Australians are creating a climate of victimhood in some of those they most want to empower, and endorsing mixed messages. They tell Aboriginal people on one hand that they have the ability to rise above their circumstances, and on the other that they are victims of historical injustices that should be met with indignation or hatred, and division from mainstream Australian society.

The latter perspective has undeniable aspects of truth to it, but it creates a divisive "us and them" mentality, in which all non-indigenous people are seen as intruders and usurpers. Yet many of us, or our ancestors, were also victims of history, being sent here as criminal, undesirable elements or coming as refugees from lands that were also, to some degree or other, stolen from their "rightful" inheritants.

How about a change of rhetoric, so that all Australians, indigenous or otherwise, are seen as caretakers of a land that nobody owns?

Obviously, all non-indigenous Australians are not about to up and leave. So it seems fruitless to perpetuate the idea that there is only one culture or race that has a "right" to live in Australia.

Thea Gumbert Redfern

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/the-hourly-struggle-for-survival-on-the-block-20090614-c7a1.html?page=2

Unfortunately, both sides practise racism and some on The Block hate white people to the point that they will do bodily harm whenever they can. There was a time when I was like that and I can relate to what they feel. Inequality always breeds contempt.

The Block's people are hard. Their self-preservation mechanism is astute. Even those who have slept under the same awning for months will not trust one another beyond a certain point. Everyone performs as an individual working for his own purposes, until an outside problem faces them. Then they band together, as if they have worked as a close-knit community at all times, which makes it hard for the police to operate.

Any person who robs or assaults somebody from outside is safe on The Block. There is an unbelievable amount of covering for one another.

Money is a constant source of problems for the residents. Keeping their dole payment day a secret is very difficult. Most know when one another's payment is due. On pay days the only way recipients can keep their money for themselves is to be far away until it is all spent. Only after they are penniless can they return, usually with a small supply of drugs, a full belly and totally inebriated, to face their indignant "friends".

Everyone operates independently, but not for grog. Drinkers pool their money to buy a carton of beer or casks of wine, and sit together to drink. Only those who have contributed may drink and everyone is expected to drink the same amount. Fights break out if one is getting more than the other. Food comes a poor last to drugs and grog.

Winter is the worst time for the homeless. The nights seem never to end. Life is an hourly struggle for survival and so they do what they deem necessary to stay alive.

The homeless see themselves as a society of have-nots. The homeless do not see that it is their addictions that ensure they stay the way they are. They do not see that those on the outside have problems of their own; they just see that they themselves are homeless, penniless and Aboriginal. Believing their situation is solely caused by their colour and not for other reasons ensures they will pay out on non-Aboriginals whenever they feel the need.

People on The Block live far below the accepted standard of living, and this situation is not about to change soon. Most will die before anything changes in their lives. Those who so badly need our help are in the main ignored and shunned by society.

The forgotten people in Redfern desperately need friendship and interaction with others to show them that someone does care. Just talking to these people brings benefits for them. Their lives are so void of affection that the result is anger and hostility to those who happen to get in their way.

This is an edited extract from Back On The Block: Bill Simon's Story, by Pastor Bill Simon, Des Montgomerie and Jo Tuscano.


Australia.

Vicious Hypocricies

*



Once I cried: 'Oh, God Almighty! if Thy might doth still endure,
Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of Earth a cure.'
And, lo! with shops all shuttered I beheld a city's street,
And in the warning distance heard the tramp of many feet,
Coming near, coming near,
To a drum's dull distant beat,
And soon I saw the army that was marching down the street.

Then, like a swollen river that has broken bank and wall,
The human flood came pouring with the red flags over all,
And kindled eyes all blazing bright with revolution's heat,
And flashing swords reflecting rigid faces in the street.
Pouring on, pouring on,
To a drum's loud threatening beat,
And the war-hymns and the cheering of the people in the street.

And so it must be while the world goes rolling round its course,
The warning pen shall write in vain, the warning voice grow hoarse,
But not until a city feels Red Revolution's feet
Shall its sad people miss awhile the terrors of the street
The dreadful everlasting strife
For scarcely clothes and meat
In that pent track of living death the city's cruel street.

Henry Lawson



And so it was, in infinite shadows and beneath the trees, in caring weights. Finally someone said what everyone in Redfern already knew to be true, that it was not safe for white people to go down the Block, that they were likely to be bashed. Pastor Bill Simon has released his book, Back To The Block, with the Prime Minister's wife Therese Rein weeping as he told stories of being a member of the stolen generation. This is the same government which appears determined to wind back the clock and remove still more fathers from their children. They weep tears on an emotionally convenient, emotionally charged moment. And ignore the cruelty and injustice which lies all around, implement policies which make these people's lives worse. Hypocrisy and cant, it was all he could think of. They talked about it everywhere, in his local cafe, A Little On The Side, finally someone had said it: it is not safe to go there as a whitie.

This is The Block where tens of millions of dollars of public money are poured every year; money some poor bastard "whitie" has had to work hard in a factory for, to pay taxis so public servants and politicians could give it away on self serving causes they consider worthy. The nation is full of immigrants from war torn countries who arrived with almost no resources and built prosperous lives out of hard work. And then there's the indigenes; almost entirely welfare dependent, full of grievances, bitter at the soft blows of victimhood which rained constantly upon them, bitter at the past injustices perpetuated against them, enthralled by the victimhood industry which constantly encouraged them to see themselves as different. To think it's perfectly alright to spend four million dollars of public money on a community centre which can only be used by the 16 local families who live down there, because everyone else is in danger of being bashed if they go there.

Everyone who lives in this area has stories to tell, of being bashed, bashed, bashed, in corners, outside pubs, outside the station, walking down back lanes, in the main street. Tiny little Asian girls are their favourite victims, because they are cashed up and defenseless, with their little designer handbacks and credit cards from daddy in Hong Kong. No one speaks for them. We have all said sorry now, thanks Kevin, but no one says sorry to all the local residents who have been bashed, no one. Bill Simon, a priest, they talk about it at A Little On The Side, a priest justifies the bashings saying they are white, they've been taught to hate whites, the whites that work to pay for their welfare, for their entire lives, and so it is forgivable. A priest teaches violence, why doesn't he stand up and tell them to behave with decency and honour and stop bashing the locals.

Well, there is no answer because everything has been justified by race. So hundreds, some said thousands, turned up on the Block, the parasite public servants and the worthy troops of do gooders and all those people who clearly don't work from one year to the next, and have plenty of time to be showing up to events such as this. They show up and once more the streets are full and attention focuses on a tiny block of vacant land, worth a fortune because of its proximity to the station. We are crystal clear and paralysed, not just with the most harmful hypocrisy, the cant which justifies the worst kind of racism, treating and indulging one group differently to the rest. Because the gangs of totally unsupervised eight and ten-year-olds who go round smashing cars and overturning garbage bins makes it all worthwhile, we can see the little gangs of thieves targetting the tourists, and we ignore them.

And we ignore the massive cost as the police go down there yet again. And I hear the policeman as he leans over to speak to a woman on the side of the road: "You were there when she died?" The prostestations of innocence are not believed. We have derided our own values. Truth is of no consequence. All is spin. In a country dominated by the superficial, ruled over by Mr Sheen, pseudo eggheads hoping the public will fall for their nerd impersonations, mistaking it for intellect. How cruel life really is. Unjust. And so he saw Margaret bleeding on her balcony, tears in her eyes; and Margaret is one tough little cookie. He sees Gersch hobbling after being gang bashed by ten of them, kicking into him on the ground, kicking into his back, into his head, barely able to walk for days. And they knew him. But they still bashed him. And no one says: this is wrong, don't do it. Their elder stands up and says: it's alright, they're white.

That's the state of race relations in Redfern; after the glow of saying Sorry and the parties which erupted on the Block, as everyone, teary, came rushing to the fore. Cash up. Cash out. See the stairs leading to nowhere. Pay taxes to support arrant nonsense. Treat everybody differently depending on their race. Inculcate a sense of grievance. And watch as the little ferret drug dealers dart here and there, waiting for their next victim to be stupid enough to try and score off them, watching for an unlocked car; encouraged by their elders.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8103577.stm

Supporters of Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi have held another big rally in northern Tehran, witnesses say.

The protest came hours after Mr Mousavi urged them not to march in the centre of the city where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's supporters were rallying.

Tough new restrictions on the foreign media mean the BBC is unable to confirm the scale of the opposition protest.

It came despite an offer to recount votes the opposition disputes.

The new media restrictions have been imposed amid apparent surprise and concern among the authorities at the scale of popular defiance over Friday's official election results, correspondents say.

The government demonstration today certainly didn't look on the scale of the opposition demonstration on Monday, and also the people didn't look as enthusiastic.

I think the opposition has been slightly disrupted. They were going to have a rally in the same location and decided not to to avoid confrontation. The rally that has broken out this evening is completely spontaneous. Just people who have been exchanging e-mails and somehow worked out where everyone is gathering. They have closed down the mobile phone network here but people are still managing to communicate.

There is no doubt in my mind that the opposition are not being deterred, even by the shooting there was at the demonstrators in Tehran yesterday and reportedly in seveal other cities.

President Ahmadinejad was declared the easy victor of the presidential poll on Saturday, with results giving him 63% of votes against 34% for Mr Mousavi.

But the opposition alleged widespread irregularities.

The powerful Guardian Council says it is ready to recount some votes from the poll, in a move backed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25648359-2702,00.html

KEVIN Rudd is considering offering Peter Costello a job, revealing he wants to use the former treasurer's experience in the service of the nation, despite Mr Costello's decision to retire from parliament.

Although the Prime Minister has no particular role in mind, Mr Costello likes the idea, confirming Mr Rudd had approached him about the idea of an undefined appointment in the future.

The former treasurer, who announced on Monday he would not contest the next election, revealed the approach yesterday.

He also insisted he would leave parliament still committed to workers being allowed to have contracts with their employers without union involvement.

Mr Costello also warned that higher inflation and "whirring interest rates" were likely in the future, because of government spending in response to the global recession.

Earlier, Mr Rudd called for change in the political culture to embrace former politicians, saying: "Mr Costello is a highly intelligent individual who's made a big contribution to Australian public life.

"So I would not rule out at all the possibility of appointing him to a position in the future. This is a nation which should properly harness its talent."

Mr Rudd said the Howard government had failed to use significant talent from the Hawke-Keating period and described it as a national tragedy.

"We actually need to change our political culture a bit so that good people, intelligent people who have extensive national and international experience, can be properly deployed," he said.

Mr Costello said Mr Rudd had invited him to his office after he announced his retirement and was "very supportive of some things that I might be able to do to help the country".

"If I can, I would like to," Mr Costello said.

"Obviously I have to earn an income. If, in addition to that there are things that I can do to help Australia on the international stage, I would like to."

Reflecting on his 20 years in parliament, including nearly 12 as treasurer, Mr Costello told reporters he was proud of his public service and pleased he had managed to leave at a time of his own choosing.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25648914-31037,00.html

NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal will today begin spruiking the state Budget he has called a "beacon of hope".

Mr Roozendaal confirmed a deficit of $1.3 billion for the current financial year, but a modest $86 million surplus is forecast for 2011/12 on the back of several measures in the Budget.

He will present the Budget at a lunch in Sydney organised by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia this afternoon.

The Government revealed it will halve stamp duty on new homes and rein in public-sector spending in an effort to swing back to the black within two years.

The stamp duty cut from July 1 until the end of the calendar year will be available to anyone buying a newly built dwelling worth up to $600,000, saving homebuyers up to $11,245.

The measure attracted mixed reactions. Urban Taskforce Australia welcomed the move, while the Real Estate Institute of NSW said the cuts should have been made across the board.

The Government has vowed to reduce public-sector spending by amalgamating 160 agencies and offices into just 13 departments in what the Government describes as the biggest overhaul in 30 years.
Related Coverage

Among the Budget winners are the sick and the elderly, with a record $15.1 billion health Budget and taxpayers, with no new taxes.

But commuters may be disappointed to learn there are no newly announced projects to help deal with congestion.

Unions NSW secretary Mark Lennon said overall there was a lot to applaud in the Budget as it would move the state in the right direction by stimulating demand.

However, the NSW Business Chamber was more circumspect about the Budget and the $1.3 billion deficit, saying the economy is in a precarious position.

At The Edge Of The Clearing

*



Life's fairly tough on The Block - poverty, despair, lives without much hope. But it does not deserve the reputation it has; most permanent residents are good people.

There are always new faces around, some scared, most penniless, many with an addiction and others who are just plain lonely, all trying to fit into a very small, very harsh environment. Crime is rampant and quite often the people responsible are the visitors who use The Block as a lawless refuge.

Redfern still is a sad place, although occasionally some good things have happened there. Once we had some rap dancers from America come in big limousines. Cathy Freeman, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jackson have been. For many, The Block remains a curiosity. Celebrities go there just to see what all the hype is about.

The really important people are not those in limousines. The important people are those who have been forgotten, whose voices and faces are not seen or heard - the dispossessed, the poor, the stolen generation, the addicted and homeless. When curiosity becomes generosity these people may have a chance.

It is no exaggeration to say The Block has often been an unsafe place for unaccompanied white people. Occasionally, someone unknowingly takes a short cut and will be bashed or robbed.

Things have improved since the new community centre opened but it is still not safe for white women to enter The Block unaccompanied at night, and even driving through there is not advised. Some non-Kooris come there trying to buy drugs but usually end up injured and without their money.

Trust is not something that is extended to many people. If you are not accepted, you are a "them". This applies to all colours and races. It is the same for the police. They are always treated as outsiders. This is unfortunate as there are some very decent police, but too many locals have had bad experiences with them.

Bill Simon in the SMH.





And so it was, in clouded circumstance and clouded days, that he became successful in what he did, his taut face and piercing eyes everywhere as he watched each movement in the bar, as he drank in the scene and the hysterical cast of characters. Wave upon wave of ecstasy. Normal people did not experience alcohol or drugs like this, but he did, and he sat on the bar and caught every flicker of connection, every wan joke, every flirtation. Later, in Gerch's derelict house, he realised that this wonderfully intelligent and entertaining man did not even know who the Deputy Prime Minister of the country was. Er, Julia Gillard. The Prime Minister, well every one knew that - Kevin Rudd, Mr Sheen as he was now known, after the advertisements which had melted into all our consciousnesses: wax as you polish with Mr Sheen. An egghead cartoon character. A parody of life.

He entered into the church. He drowned in their dogma. He dodged the zealots but was caught up in his own despair, in his own search for a way out. Clarify, clarify, rang the bells, but in those toning cries across the misty Thames, in the freezing dark of his ancestor's lives, in the journey into hope that he had just begun, all of it was cruel, embattled, nonsensical. He didn't know where his weary heart would take him, the tired tramp of soldier's feet, the terrible mud, the cold dawn, the very real possibility of death. Their camaraderie was built around black humour. And in later life, he longed for their company. He wanted to be a normal person. He wanted to stand at a bar and drown not just his sorrows, but his entire consciousness, his entire life, all those regrets.

It was not to be. They circled, the sick feeding off the sicker, until they realised how deeply compromised he had become. Don't waste time on people, the voices cried around him. Don't waste time on things you don't understand. He reached down, he was shattered, and the tears flowed uncontrollably, and they talked of Bob Hawke and his famous crying episode. Margaret had just got off the plane from England back in the eighties and there was this man on the TV screens, blubbering away. Who's that? she asked. The Prime Minister, she was told. Him, the one that's blubbering away up there, and she pointed at the screen, ignoring the crowds of holiday makers around her. Yeh, him, he's the Prime Minister. What's he crying about? His daughter's a heroin addict.

What, and he only just found out? But what's he crying about. They tried to explain. He's a hero of the people, one of us, not a bad bloke. That was his qualification for office. Bright, people accepted that, but one of us. For a brief moment, in this city's dark streets, Hawkie was a hero in every taxi. A working class man had made it to the Lodge. And he carried the nation's best wishes with him. And we were all applauding - one of us, one of us. Take our hopes, dreams, aspirations, take them with you, fulfil your destiny. And the shadows which were stalking him flickered faster, shredding the light. Oh sweet Jesus, come and save us from this terrible sense of dislocation, from ourselves. Save us, redeem us, marry us with the spirit.

Instead he got up and went to work, year in year out, and abandoned his partying ways. Stern eyes looked from every corner. There was hypocrisy everywhere, and he did not know how to match it, to block out the grime which was heading directly for his soul. He didn't know; and briefly he didn't care, thought disordered, multiple images crowding in upon him at every turn. The zealotry, that's what got him, the zealotry of the newly sober and the dark shapes which were warning him: don't go there. Don't give up now. Don't turn back. Be strong, be courageous, have the courage to enjoy your life. He could hear the echoes, muffled from the drugs, and he went back, back, to that gold fish pond in the tiny garden between the high rises; and knew that he had been dissembled, that he was totally unloved, that in order to survive he would have to adopt a persona, be someone, pretend to be real. He breathed deeply, because none of it was real, and knew that all the old rationalities had crumbled with age. There truly was: no way out.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25641076-5007146,00.html

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd was generous in his praise of Peter Costello yesterday, knowing that one formidable political opponent was removing himself from the field of combat.

However, in rising to mark Costello's decision not to re-contest pre-selection for the seat of Higgins, which he has held for the past 20 years, Rudd dwelt on the various international roles Costello successfully played during his nearly 12 years as treasurer.

He omitted to mention the tremendous contribution Costello made to the nation.

Rudd concentrated on the work Costello put in to establishing the G20 finance ministers' meetings in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, and the development of the G20 in which Rudd places such store during the current global economic crisis.

He should have mentioned the part Costello's policies played in creating a tremendous economic legacy, the surplus which Rudd and his vandals inherited, when they took office in 2007.

Costello's decision to go lifts an unwelcome cloud of leadership speculation that has been hanging over the Opposition.

It has been there since Costello rejected former prime minister John Howard's encouragement on the night of the Liberal government's 2007 defeat to put himself forward for the leadership.

Costello, said Howard, was the heir apparent - but the heir didn't want the inheritance. Not only did he not want it - no one really did.

Being Opposition Leader after a long-running government falls is no cake walk. It fell to Dr Brendan Nelson to take up the poisoned chalice but his leadership, courageous as it was, was always going to be temporary.

The current leader, Malcolm Turnbull, enjoys greater support and is unlikely to be challenged before the next election.

What should not be lost as the current of politics runs its course is that Costello was, in his own right, a great contributor to Australia who helped redraw our political landscape in the 1980s and 1990s.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25642620-2702,00.html

A RESURGENT Malcolm Turnbull is free to go to the next federal election without speculation over his leadership after Peter Costello eliminated himself as a rival yesterday by announcing his retirement.

And as the former treasurer told parliament he would end two proud decades in parliament at the next election, a Newspoll showed the opposition had smashed Labor's long-standing first preference lead to move to within a percentage point of the government.

While Kevin Rudd continues to command strong personal popularity, the poll, conducted at the weekend exclusively for The Australian, has Labor on a primary vote of 41 per cent with the opposition on 40 per cent.

The gap between the government and the opposition has narrowed from five percentage points in the past two weeks, while Mr Turnbull's satisfaction rating continues to rise.

Last night Mr Turnbull, released from the spectre of a Costello leadership bid for the first time since he ousted Brendan Nelson last September, said he would do everything he could to lead the Coalition to victory at the next election, due late next year.

"The Coalition will continue to hold the Government to account for its reckless spending and debt binge," Mr Turnbull told The Australian.

"We will provide a responsible and constructive plan for recovery which will focus on small business and jobs and enable the energy and the enterprise of Australians because it is they, as opposed to government, who are at the centre of economy."

It is understood Mr Turnbull will move quickly to consolidate his new strength by reshuffling his front bench in coming weeks to sharpen his bid for power.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/16/2599086.htm?section=world

Shots have been fired at a rally in Iran where hundreds of thousands of people were demonstrating against the result of last week's election.

Unconfirmed reports say one protester has been killed and several more hurt when security forces opened fire.

A local photographer says the protester was shot in the head and that several more were wounded when violence erupted outside a local base of the Islamic Basji militia, which had been set ablaze.

Shooting was also heard in three districts of wealthy northern Tehran.

The violence flared after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's defeated rival Mir Hossein Mousavi appeared in public for the first time since an election that has triggered a wave of protests and rioting.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered a probe into allegations of vote-rigging.

The UN's chief Ban Ki-moon has voiced his concern about the vote.

"When there is an election, the genuine will of the people should be reflected and respected in the most transparent and fair and objective manner," he said.

The Capacity For Self Deception

*



Then there is the abuse of trust by a figure in authority, whom the child has been trained from the cradle to revere. Such additional resentments should make us all the more careful not to rush to judgement. We should be aware of the remarkable power of the mind to concoct false memories, especially when abetted by unscrupulous therapists and mercenary lawyers. The psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown great courage, in the face of spiteful vested interests, in demonstrating how easy it is for people to concoct memories that are entirely false but which seem, to the victim, every bit as real as true memories. This is so counter-intuitive that juries are easily swayed by sincere but false testimony from witnesses... There's gold in them thar long-gone fumbles in the vestry - some of them indeed, so long gone that the alleged offender is likely to be dead and unable to present his side of the story.

Richard Dawkins




And in all those night skies, in all the times when humming machines and barking dogs disctracted him from his duty, then, in these tiny lives, he was confronted with a course. He knew there had been a great deal of damage done. He also knew that in those moments of terrible isolation lay the cure for his ills. Shadows flickered across the landscape, although the sky was cloudless. Everything was at odds. Great men pinned squirming bodies to the beds. Fragile screams, barely born before they died, teased him with the thought of salvation. He was shattered; that was now his normal state. Have you thought about practising the steps, some sharp eyed rodent asked him. He glared back, sick of their pack mentality, sick of their religious fervour, sick of the hypocrisy. He mumbled something to avoid the topic, and laughed for no accountable reason. There would be more.

In those days before the 24-hour news cycle, when even hippies were treated with respect in the back alleys of India, time stretched into an infinity it was now impossible to imagine. Mobile phones constantly pierced the gloom. The young female driver in front of him weaved across the road as her conversation on the mobile phone became even more animated. This would have been science fiction once, only a few years ago, he said, looking at the shadows, seeing the shape of fish, whiting, flick in the shadows. The merest approach scared them. Around the picnic place were the dark, gloomy spirits of the bush. Nothing much changed here, amidst the screaming of the cicadas. Nothing changed, nothing stopped, he was convinced the modern world had gone insane and it was now impossible to live here; in Sydney, in the arse-wipe bottom of the universe where the convicts came so long ago.

There was beauty, he couldn't deny that, in the glittering harbour, in the "Emerald" city, as it was once known. No Sydneysider ever doubts the meaning of life, said David Williamson in that famous play, it's to get a water view. Now the traffic is full of brand new four wheel drives and he cannot understand how so many people can afford them. Hocked to the eye balls was the usual answer. We were being shadowed. He had dared to say things which should not be said, the courts are corrupt, the experts rigged, the prejudices paramount. In Madrid, he aranged to meet her on the corner of the square while he went off to score. Sooner or later they would hit the jackpot, meanwhile there were adventures to be had. He sat in the elegant bar, English rock pumping out, and drank bourbon and cokes in tall glasses, watched the customers smoking hash joints, gazed at the history outside the very door.

His heart had been lost, his very purpose questioned. He couldn't see where this was leading. He couldn't imagine what was happening, falling in or out of love, abandoning his soul. Those rich medieval streets, he must have been here in a former life, he felt so at home. Nearby was the Museo del Prado. Nearby was the Spanish equivalent of the Pink Elephant, only opening at 2am. And then they lingered, and then they stopped, caressing each other's faces. How strange to be here. The baby hadn't even been born. They were just another young couple in their twenties, playing up, their lives ahead of them. He couldn't bring himself to sleep with her, that was the problem, and while the bars pumped into the night and he lingered on street corners, everything else, his soul, his heart, his purpose, was leaching away.

They had come from such distant places, Australia, the other side of the world, literally. They had walked the streets together, and even held hands, but nothing came to fruition. Old romance, old soul. He could remember everything he had done with another lover, a young man, Paco, here in this fervent city, here in this place where his heart was poised for love and adventure lay around every corner. He sat in another working class bar, drowning Brandy at dawn. He watched the huddled, rough shapes of the shift workers, drinking coffee with their shots to warm themselves up. The layers of lives which lay in every cobble stoned street, he could feel them all. They closed in on him and he lay screaming, blood on the pavement, his soul escaping, another tourist bashed. She was running towards him. She held his hand. They hadn't even made love. She held his hand and he could see hysteria and tears in her eyes; but couldn't tell what she was saying. This was the place, this was the place, he tried to say, where we were at home, where all his souls belonged, where there was no excuse to be anyone else.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE55B67120090612

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama plans to pursue attempts to engage Tehran whether hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his moderate rival Mirhossein Mousavi ultimately emerges as the winner of Iran's election.

"The president's decision to engage Iran was not based on a particular electoral result. We are going to engage the Iranian government whether it is led by one faction or the other," a senior State Department official said.

State media declared Ahmadinejad the winner but challenger Mirhossein Mousavi alleged irregularities and claimed victory for himself after the hotly contested election.

Washington hoped that, whoever wins, the election will end the acerbic tone from Iran and reduce tension as major powers seek to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Experts said a second term by Ahmadinejad would make it tougher for Obama to change the tone but they also cautioned against excessive optimism if former prime minister Mousavi wins.

"This is going to be hard and complex, regardless of who is elected president. There are a lot of different factions and mixed views on the idea of engaging the Great Satan (as Iran has sometimes called Washington)," added the State Department official. He was speaking on condition of anonymity before the results were known.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZfgLuKrg3QBRltJ0qQMIzgIohdQD98Q28P80

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario (AP) — The U.S. on Saturday refused to accept hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim of a landslide re-election victory in Iran and said it was looking into allegations of election fraud.

"We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran, but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a news conference with Canada's foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon.

Minutes after Clinton spoke, the White House released a two-sentence statement praising "the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians," but expressing concern about "reports of irregularities."

Despite the challenge from reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi to incumbent hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, many officials and experts thought a Mousavi victory would result in only incremental shifts toward the U.S.

Because real power in Tehran is still wielded by religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, some say an Ahmadinejad re-election may make it easier to build an international consensus against Iran.

Administration officials remained silent out of concern that any comments might influence the results. But they were privately hoping for a victory by the more moderate Mousavi.

President Barack Obama's previous overtures include his recent address in Cairo to the Muslim world as well as, earlier, a televised New Year's address to the Iranian people and a series of diplomatic contacts. Officials say Obama's attempts to reach out have gone largely unanswered.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25631573-421,00.html

FOUL-MOUTHED celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay was on best behaviour at a cooking class yesterday, even keeping expletives to a minimum, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

A week after launching a crude tirade against A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw at a food and wine show in Melbourne, a humble, charming Ramsay showed his face at a cooking class at Queensland's Sanctuary Cove Resort.

"He was on his best behaviour and had the crowd eating out of his hands," an observer said.

"He didn't mention the Grimshaw thing and didn't even swear ... I think he said 'Christ' once - that was it."

Ramsay's newly demure demeanour seemed to contradict his vow the day before that he would not tone down his act.

"I can't edit myself. I am what I am," he said then.

The lunch, which included a master cooking class, cost attendees between $300 and $750 each.

Ramsay will return to Sydney for the New South Wales leg of the Good Food&Wine Show next month. In the meantime, he will take a three-week holiday with his wife and family in Queensland.

During a performance at the Melbourne show last week, Ramsay delivered a sexist rant about Grimshaw, allegedly likening her to a pig and calling her a lesbian.

A publicist yesterday denied the remarks had caused sponsors to pull out of the Good Food&Wine Show.

"No one's pulled out, and ticket sales for the Sydney shows remain strong," he said.

But an exclusive, $1000- a-head Perth dinner Ramsay was to have hosted has been cancelled because of poor ticket sales.

Grimshaw last Monday branded Ramsay a bully and an "arrogant narcissist".

He Shrugged, Soiled At Soul

*



The water was quite warm. It was that marvellous transparent blue, flecked with silver, but the sand at the bottom looked gold; when you kicked with your toes there rose a little puff of gold-dust. Now the waves just reached her breast. Beryl stood, her arms outstretched, gazing out, and as each wave came she gave the slightest little jump, so that it seemed it was the wave which lifted her so gently.

"I believe in pretty girls having a good time," said Mrs Harry Kember. "Why not? Don't you make a mistake, my dear. Enjoy yourself." And suddenly she turned turtle, disappeared, and swam away quickly, like a rat. Then she flicked round and began swimming back. She was going to say something else. Beryl felt that she was being poisoned by this cold woman, but she longed to hear...

Katherine Mansfield, At The Bay.



And then, as if to the slaughter, as if all was shadows in a braoder world he was barely allowed to enter. He was shocked, he didn't mind admitting, by the sudden change in his fortunes, the old skin, the crumbling veneer. He came from a much longer lived place, from a species that survived for millenia, there amongst the ancient Martian rocks. All was not lost, he knew that now, but the slender thread of conscioiusness was wavering; and might not last for long. It had seemed, what subjectively had been only a few minutes but in fact had been a number of years, that time was infinite, lazy, there was no need for concern. It had seemed, briefly, as if he would always be there. That there was plenty of time to evolve into one of this race's great sharmans, to be everywhere, everything, strong.

And then he blinked and all those opportunities were gone. He remembered the cave of his birth; time and again it came to him. He remembered the dry air, the cold cold desert which stretched outside, the concern of his parents. He had been so disgusted by the pack mentality of both the left and the right; more particularly now, as they were ascendant, the pack mentality of the left. He wasn't sure how to find his soul; he had been stuck in this murky place for so long, the heat, the noise, the endless compromises of this chaotic race. He was homesick for the dry desert plains of his birth. He was preparing, in some almost unconscious way, for the cessation of this form, for the neat tricks through which he would change bodies, for the disassembly of this one he had once held so much hope for.

There was room for repair, even salvation. But their forms were shallow, fragile, easily disgarded. There was little connection between their brains and their frames; and he made sure there would be plenty of tomorrows. Now that he was awake again, contacted by the governing intelligence, there was time to plan. These forms were so fragile, so imperfect, he found himself dreaming constantly of that cave of his birth, and didn't know why. There would be another path; another future; but it had been a long time since he had seen any of his own kind. Normally he would pick it up just by talking to them; the piercing gaze, the dislocated, abstract air, the immediate sense that here lay a greater intelligence than human. But years, during which he had been mostly sleeping, he had not seen a single other soul.

And so it was that the homesick images now played constantly in his brain. A simple cave. An open entrance. A stark desert landscape. He remembered how heart broken he had been when he discovered that Ray Bradbury was a conservative; he didn't think anyone with any imagination could be anything but left, a voice of the people, a sterling soldier standing in the cold. Reporting on injustice. But injustice took many forms, and was most often prosecuted by courts and bureaucracies; and all these human densities and failings, he had lost heart. When he had first arrived on this dense, warm, crowded planet, so different to his own, he had been full of hope for the adventure which lay ahead. Optimism had kept his heart warm for thousands of years; even when he made the shift to younger forms, even during war time.

What had changed? The aging of this frame he had once been so devoted to, so optimistic about. The failings that he saw all around him? The devious dishonesty that was everywhere; the entire lack of thought, of intellectual rigour? Most humans would rather die than think, one of their philosophers Bertrand Russell had said. Most humans would rather die than think, and many of them do. He stared into their cow like eyes. He was searching now for the companions he knew had taken a different course, been involved in different nations, travelled the Earth. They must still be here, unless they had failed to make the leap from body to body, which was always possible, it was not an easy thing to do. But every person he met, he gazed intensely into their eyes, hoping to see a shred of recognition, some flicker of another intelligence, some acknowledgement of superior brain power. Instead their cow like eyes reflected stupidity, greed, prejudice, obsession with their selves, and the longer he searched the more frightened he became. Maybe he really was the last, after all these thousands of years.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/11/2594928.htm

Unrest has continued for the third night in a row in Sydney's west involving Indian students angry about violent attacks.

Police have broken up a stand-off at Harris Park between about 70 Indian students and two members of the Lebanese community.

The stand-off came after Parramatta Council held a meeting tonight with police, India's consul general and members of Sydney's Indian community.

The organiser said the meeting had been a success and Indian students have promised to stop protesting.

Earlier the chief executive of Universities Australia Glenn Withers echoed calls for an end to unequal treatment of international students.

Many international students believe policies of state and federal governments are partly to blame for the attacks.

In New South Wales and Victoria, state governments do not give international students travel concessions, like they do for domestic students.

It is claimed that means foreigners are more likely to walk home at night, and leave themselves more vulnerable to attacks.

Travel concessions

Providing travel concessions to all students is one of 10 action points universities have now suggested.

Dr Withers says such a move would help international students feel more welcome in Australia.

"That travel concession point is one of the things that in exit surveys of international students as they leave the country, they symbolically see as an example that they weren't truly welcomed," he said.

"And so this produces a mentally of 'we are really here as cash cows, we are not really here as welcome guests'."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25618516-2702,00.html

KEVIN Rudd has pointedly rebuked union leaders by vowing that if they seek to change Labor policy to protect thuggery on building sites he will defy the party platform.

The Prime Minister has also savagely attacked the left-wing Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union as having "real problems" and declined to do anything to prevent unionists being jailed for defying laws put in place by the Howard government.

As union leaders yesterday continued to press him to scrap the Australian Building and Construction Commission, Mr Rudd insisted his first loyalty was to the nation, not the union movement.

"I am the leader of the parliamentary Labor Party and I've been elected by the Australian people as their Prime Minister and I am accountable to the Australian people," Mr Rudd said.

His comments yesterday in Melbourne - the home of the union movement - follow months of tension over his government's refusal to abolish the ABCC, established by John Howard with extraordinary powers to control building sites, including the right to demand evidence from unionists.

Mr Howard created the building industry watchdog in response to a royal commission that found evidence of lawlessness and intimidation involving unions in the sector.

Mr Rudd went to the 2007 election saying he would retain the ABCC until 2010, after which he would roll its functions into the new Fair Work Australia. He guaranteed to maintain "a cop on the beat" in the building sector.

But since he won power, the CFMEU and other unions have demanded Mr Rudd abolish the commission immediately.

Yesterday, as the opposition accused him of feigning anger at unions, Mr Rudd made clear he would not breach his election promises even if the unions used their numbers to change Labor Party policy at next month's national conference.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jz74U5-M7d052GqcbS8hyfPF7GQgD98O05983

WASHINGTON (AP) — An elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, gravely wounding a security guard before two other officers returned fire. The assailant and his victim were both hospitalized.

The assailant was in critical condition, said Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty.

D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier said the gunman appeared to have acted alone. He was "engaged by security guards immediately after entering the door" with a rifle, she said.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An elderly gunman opened fire inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, wounding a security guard before two other guards returned fire. The assailant and his victim were both hospitalized.

The extent of the injuries was not immediately known, U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser said.

Nor did authorities immediately provide the name or any other biographical information about the assailant, who they said used a "long gun" in the shooting.

The episode unfolded inside the museum, which maintains a heavy security presence, with guards positioned inside and out. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.

Gazing Towards The Hills

*





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.

The human river dwindles when 'tis past the hour of eight,
Its waves go flowing faster in the fear of being late;
But slowly drag the moments, whilst beneath the dust and heat
The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street
Grinding body, grinding soul,
Yielding scarce enough to eat
Oh! I sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street.

And then the only faces till the sun is sinking down
Are those of outside toilers and the idlers of the town,
Save here and there a face that seems a stranger in the street,
Tells of the city's unemployed upon his weary beat
Drifting round, drifting round,
To the tread of listless feet
Ah! My heart aches for the owner of that sad face in the street.

And when the hours on lagging feet have slowly dragged away,
And sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day,
Then flowing past my window like a tide in its retreat,
Again I see the pallid stream of faces in the street
Ebbing out, ebbing out,
To the drag of tired feet,
While my heart is aching dumbly for the faces in the street.

Henry Lawson



He stood at the door of the country store, drinking straight from the carton of custard he had just bought, looking out at the street, the scraggle of humble houses, the colours of the Liverpool Plains in the distance. So saturated were their minds with American imagery, he could easily imagine, indeed expected to see, a tumbleweed bowling slowly down the centre of the street. As infinite time had kissed us; as if giraffes danced in the sky, as if anything which lured us to a sense of dislocation, of infinity, was welcome. The hard, plain faced woman behind the counter kept up with his desultory questions about local goings on, for he visited here only every few months. Kojack, the chook man, drove past and he could see Rodney, the boyfriend of the publican, lighting yet another cigarette on the pub verandah.

They had seen nothing and done nothing; and he would return here to find only minor changes in personnel, the children of welfare dependent parents looking taller, scrawnier, the grass changing from green to brown depending on the rain. They hadn't been to parties full of criminals, where no one but he made a legitimate living. They hadn't been to press conferences with the Prime Minister, Mr Sheen as the press corp now called him. Once their great white hope, anyone who wasn't Howard, anyone who wasn't conservative, now the evil march back into the pack mentality of the left and the deliberate whipping up of fear in the populace, over global warming, over the global financial crisis, over swine flu, all of it, with the politicians preening themselves like fat camp maggots before the flames of public adoration, all of it made him sick.

So he talked, as he watched the images dance on the horizon, of idle things, the bone lazy characteristics of the local alcoholics, who out here were under no compunction to even pretend to be normal. Or interested in work. It was too far to Centrelink; too isolated to search for work, to far away from the office to worry about being sprung for doing cash work on the farms while collecting the dole. They all did it; it was just regarded as normal. No one even seemed to think it was immoral. You got what you could from the government, that was the thinking. The tax payers working in the city to fund their lifestyle never got a thought.

And then it was that he knew it was over. The things he used to believe in were like soiled sheets tossed out on the landscape, breathing in places he had never seen, enraptured, failed, dead. These people had seen nothing and yet their lives were more fulfilling than his; as they pottered about certain of their place in life. Phil, never seen without a beer can in his hand; their five kids providing a handy source of income. Odetta, with the long long painted nails who rented the old post office with her equally old husband. Who was she dressing for?

And the healthy one, Lex, tucked down the bottom of the town in a yard full of derelict cars, happy to retire now he was 65 and could collect the old age pension. He beamed at everyone; as happy people did. They were all infinite; as if touched by the landscape itself. The conversation drifted, as he drained the ordinary tasting custard out of the packet, the only thing he had eaten all day. And so in the tortured sky, his own spirit fled. He could feel the sun moving through the sky. He could see the ancient wisdoms cloaked in the landscape. He could remember the expensive party, where he had been only days before, a world of triumph and money, secrecy and bullying tactics, triumphs of indulgence in a place the mainstream would never know about, and he held their hands and walked towards the light, because everything was different, because he had lost hope, because those strange Dali images dancing on the horizon were only the result of mental exhaustion; and he smiled as he turned to the hard faced woman. This custard's pretty ordinary, he said. Don't know how you can drink it, she replied, even though she had been the one to sell it to him.

A truck roared through the town; and he watched it until it disappeared out of sight.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/09/2592617.htm

A rally in Sydney's west over an attack on an Indian student last night has died down, with about 50 students remaining.

Police say one Indian man was assaulted, sparking the protest, and three Lebanese men were attacked later as an act of retaliation.

Protesters are also demanding that police release a man they say was arrested for intervening in the initial attack.

One protester told the ABC that the incident is only the latest of many.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/5479906/Gordon-Brown-staves-off-rebels-with-emotional-speech-to-Labour-MPs.html

The Prime Minister was cheered as he entered the room before showing what was said to be a rare degree of emotion in a meeting which was designed to allow a show of strength from those loyal to him.

Labour peer Lord Foulkes told journalists as he left the meeting that there had been "great support for Gordon".

"Charles Clarke spoke and no one even put their hands together," he added, referring to the former Home Secretary, who has been a vocal critic of Mr Brown.

Ben Bradshaw, the new Culture Secretary, said Mr Brown had given the "speech of a lifetime".

Quentin Davies, the Defence minister, said the contributions had been "overwhelmingly positive".

Mr Brown told the meeting: "I have my strengths and I have my weaknesses. I know there are some things I do well, some things not so well.

"I've learned that you need to keep learning all the time."

He told his MPs he wanted to use all the "talents" in the party and act in a "more collective way" and promised to hold more meetings with backbenches, to be more "open and consultative."

But he insisted: "You solve the problem not by walking away but by facing it and doing something about it."

Mr Brown called on the party to learn the "lessons from the past", where it had succumbed to divisions.

"I'm not making a plea for unity. I am making an argument for unity," he said.

Mr Brown said there was "no huge ideological difference" within Labour and added that there was "not a resignation letter I have seen that mentions differences over policy".

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25607619-661,00.html

A SEETHING Tracy Grimshaw last night vowed she would never interview foul-mouthed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay again.

The host of A Current Affair was dignified but could not hide the pain as she responded to the barrage of insults she copped from Ramsay at the weekend.

"I'm not going to pretend that his comments didn't hurt. I was absolutely miserable when I found out," Grimshaw said on air last night.

"He says it was a joke - well not to me or to anyone who truly cares about me," she said.

"Truly, I wonder how many people would laugh if they were effectively described as 'an old ugly pig'. How is that funny, exactly?"

Ramsay couldn't help himself yesterday, having another crack at Grimshaw.

He told the crowd at the Good Food & Wine Show that he and Grimshaw had been long-time lovers.

"We were secret lovers for 20 years," he said before dismissing it as a joke. "No, I didn't go there . . . I didn't stoop that low, for God's sake."

An emotional Grimshaw took aim at Ramsay for commenting on her private life at his cooking shows after stipulating that he couldn't be interviewed about his private life on A Current Affair.

"Obviously Gordon thinks that any woman who doesn't find him attractive must be gay. For the record, I don't and I'm not," she said.

Ramsay opened yesterday's cooking demonstration with a declaration of love for the television host.

"I think she's gorgeous, sexy, vibrant, stunning, natural, talented, articulate, beautiful and just stunning," he said to hoots of laughter from the crowd.

The now infamous pig woman flashed up on the big screen again.

Grimshaw admitted she had spent most of Sunday debating whether to respond but had finally decided to air her feelings because "we all know bullies thrive when no one takes them on".