Self Seeking Will Disappear

*

There had been so much trouble. And yet now he walked past the dahling, dahrling, good night dahrling bars and went home cheap comfort; watched the English German match at the local English puib, The Duke of Windsor, sitting on iced water and wondering: where did it all go, how did it happened. He loved being out all night and suddenly he was sleeping an unheard of five hours a night and not getting up till 5am. It was all too crazy these chiming times, when he had shown up drunk as a skunk at AA meetings and could hear the weather men chanting: I'm coming for you, I'm coming for you. You are no longer protected. The divine hand has ruled you out. You are a very funny man and you destroyed yourself. Those will kill you faster than anything, James had said in Chiang Mai, pointing at the cigarettes. It was eight days since he had had one. Sometimes he didn't think about having one for an hour or more. Sometimes he could barely resist the pull. Sometimes, if he wasn't getting enough sex in the morning, he thought about popping down the boy massage parlour down the road, where the handsomest things would get you off for an extra 500 baht - $20 - and press their phone numbers on you as you left. Was anyone monogamous in this giant, transcendent place?

Not that he'd noticed but he wouldn't know. There was no catch, really. Shy, determined, things fractured overnight as he ran his hands across Aek's tight stomach, watched him dress for university in the morning; took the news that he had passed the mama test: "Mama telephone say John good", he said, grinning with some kind of relief. There didn't seem to be any way out; and for once he didn't want a way out. He was happily trapped in the physical world, disinclined to cavort in the heavens, even as the Falun Gong stretched not the truth but the sense of the possible; as clouds now and then echoed through the church at Richard Meale's funeral, the last of the men he had so revered, gone, John Bygate, Ian Farr, Harry Godolphin, these figures he had thought were the beginning and the end of everything; but their passing had opened up a different future; and he was no longer trapped in the ideologies of the past. I really did a number on myself this time, he said to someone and they replied: sounds like it. You can really f... yourself up in Bangkok, you can get truly messed up and nobody cares; the Thais don't care, you're just another crazy falung - foreigner - getting too drunk and making a fool of themselves. The Westerners don't care, they only cling here, to this difference place, by the grace of God and convenience.

I know you not happy, I don't know why, the previous boy had said. The Buddha will help you. I cannot. I am just a boy. A baby. And so he had watched as the handsome boy kicked a soccer ball along the beach, played cheerfully with his fellows, while he made mistake after mistake and recovered from a period of lost time, his body aching with the assault. Now, when he did not smoke or drink or stay up all night, time shadows were cavorting at the edges as he struggled to heal himself. The old woman on the street pulled on her plastic legs as he passed her each morning in the early dawn, on his way to Limpini Park. Catch as catch can was the old cry, now it was more: self seeking will slip away. They come, or they come back, only when they are in serious trouble: he could hear them think at the practice site. And none of that mattered because it was all in the day. The heavens were infinite in numbers and multitudes. We were a flash in a very giant pan. No matter how giant your troubles; these times were but echoes; shadows stalking the summit, and against these infinitely giant things his only troubles, anybody's troubles, were nothing but tiny inconveniences flickering on the surface of some remote planet. Lke life itself, pain was fleeting, only temporary, passing quickly. Once again he listened to the melodic tones of the Thai choir practising behind them: Do, a dear, a female deer, the only English he had heard all day, outside his own head.

The old woman put her legs on and the armless beggar looked up optimistically. Shadows cavorted at the edges. Being Monday morning, even the boy brothel seemed quiet after the handsome little crowd that would gather outside at 6am on the weekend, giving him the determined eye as he walked past on his way to and from the park. Everything was out of mind. Everyone could take care. Henrietta, his daughter, burst into tears when he spoke to her on the phone. Dad, it's time to come home. I'm happy here, he replied. What, with a Thai prostitute? she sneered. I hate Asians. They smell and take your money. That's ridiculous, he snapped, see, you should have come to Bangkok, not Pnom Penh, last time. This city has everything. Well maybe not... Well maybe yes. He saw the coollies on the building sites. He saw the workers streaming out of the crowded factories. He saw the quiet places that were everywhere, the go go bars with no customers, for there were still almost no tourists, even though the red shirts had now been cleared from the streets and without prior knowledge, without the embassy warnings, every thing would have seemed normal. Shoot to kill, the Prime Minister Abhisit had ordered, making himself a murderer despised by much of the country as he clung to power for his own ends; for the power; for power and presitge and money always won; and in winning got to rewrite history; to dismiss the red shirts as terrorists. The burnt out buildings still disfigured Bangkok. And he loved it here, despite or because of the many contradictions; the stories of the people applauding the soldiers and bringing them gifts at the same time as they followed out their orders: shoot to kill; shoot to kill your own citizens.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2938574.htm

A lot of the discussion of what happened on Thursday morning has been speculation about the kind of prime ministership we're likely to see from Julia Gillard.

I think one thing needs to be made clear from the outset. While it's wonderful that Australia now has a woman PM - and being the author of the only published biography of her has made me even happier to join in the celebrations - we can forget any women's-mag sentimentality about it.

Gillard herself rejects anything of the kind. She has said, 'Five or ten years ago people would have had the view, if only there were more women in politics somehow it would be a less adversarial, more caring and sharing environment. I have always thought that was bloody nonsense. … I am proof that a woman can thrive in an adversarial environment.'

In contrast to Kevin Rudd, she really understands the party and government she is leading. This is not just a matter of getting on well with her colleagues, which she mostly does, although that's part of it. Anybody who gets where she is - anybody who makes any headway at all within the ALP, come to that - bears the scars of a pretty tough political education, and hers was tougher than some.

Julia Gillard was a student activist and became a successful industrial lawyer, who became a partner in her firm after only three years. She was obviously bright and focused, she had learned about persuasion and making alliances, and she knew her way around the union movement. She decided she needed practical experience in politics, however, and left Slater and Gordon to become chief of staff to John Brumby, then Victoria's Leader of the Opposition. She successfully held that job for two years.

A high flyer, then - and someone who you would think would be an asset to any political party. Yet it took Julia Gillard five years to be preselected for a federal ALP seat - something that still bemuses many of her former colleagues.

That five years in limbo developed her qualities of persistence and determination. She kept turning up to branch meetings, she didn't give up, though she must have been tempted. And finally she got there, and there she has continued to stay.

Gillard lives, eats and breathes politics. The ALP is part of her political DNA, and she knows it as Rudd never did. She understands negotiation, and consultation, and compromise, and deal making, and all the other things that go with being a successful politician. Rudd dealt with the factional culture of his party by ignoring it, with the results we have now seen. Gillard would never have made that mistake.

At the same time, she is no factional puppet. While understanding the essential tribal nature of her party, she has achieved her successes by making alliances and networks of influence across the whole area, from Left to Right. She is too secure, both in herself and now in her position, to be anyone's creature.

The word often applied to her is 'pragmatic', as if this is a bad quality. But realism in politics is surely desirable. Gillard's focus has always been practical. She's a trained lawyer, she understands precedent, and analysis, and working for results. In her first speech as prime minister she specifically allied herself with the country's blue-collar and salaried workers, and as minister for education and industrial relations - running two huge and many-faceted programs -- her focus has been on using whatever practical tools are available to improve conditions for Australian workers and their families.

When she told Tony Abbott in Parliament on Thursday that it was game on, she meant it. For the first time in years, it looks as if we may see a genuine battle between two opposing views of this country, its possibilities and its future.

Julia Gillard is probably not into the 'vision thing', or not in so many words. But we have never been very kind to our political visionaries. Political survival depends on many qualities, not least flexibility and hard-headedness. Gillard has said that what excites her in politics is a sense of possibility. Perhaps, like John F. Kennedy, she would describe herself as an idealist without illusions.

Jacqueline Kent is the author of The Making of Julia Gillard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10427064.stm

Some 40 people have been injured after two speedboats carrying tourists collided in the Gulf of Thailand.

They overturned a few kilometres out to sea while ferrying people to and from a party on Koh Pha Ngan island beach, throwing many revellers into the water.

At least two other people were said to be missing in the collision, which happened close to Koh Samui island.

The monthly event held on full-moon nights is well-known among party-goers, attracting thousands of tourists.
Koh Pha Ngan map Rough waters

One passenger, Ellie Hocken, 19, from Bristol in the UK, survived the crash after being thrown off deck into the sea.

She is in hospital with a fractured back. Her father, Dr David Hocken told the BBC she was "still terrified even now".

"When the crash happened, she was on the top deck of the boat. The sea was very rough. Suddenly someone screamed 'They're going to hit us'," he said.

"They tried to alert the captain but there was no time. There was a huge smash and everyone was thrown overboard. Ellie blacked out and when she woke up, she was alone in the water.

"She saw a boat and managed to swim to it and climb aboard. There were people being resuscitated and someone with an arm torn off. She was put on a stretcher and taken to hospital. Scans show she has a fractured back."

The boats collided late on Saturday, throwing passengers into rough waters just off the island, The Nation newspaper website said.

At least one other Briton and four Australians were said to be among the injured, as well as other foreign tourists.

Every month, it is estimated up to 25,000 revellers descend on Koh Pha Ngan for the all-night beach rave.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/4/13/1239653219171/Thailand-clashes--Bangkok-004.jpg

One More Cup Of Coffee

*

The call came and he did not return it; that one he had dared to love so much and forgave so much; for no other reason perhaps than that he too once roamed the streets and put up with the mauling of men two or three times of his age; I can do, I can do, he would say bravely; this time by a boy who didn't smoke, drink or take drugs and who, instead of being entirely nocturnal, as the other boys he had known had been, but just as no Thai ever comes alone; nor did this one. It's a classic Thailand thing; being dragged home to meet the family by rent boys and working girls; and many a western male has found themselves shaking hands with mother and father. Oh by the way I'm screwing your son/daughter for money. It never seems to come up, so to speak; they are embraced whole heartedly; as if they are relieved you don't have two heads and they can share in your money. The Buddha shines upon them in so many original ways.

This time it was a tiny house on the edge of a river 115 kilometres from the heart of Bangkok, where what seemed like half the village but was in reality only the extended family, brothers, sisters, cousins, mother, father, came to stare at the falang. They all relaxed when he took a bite to eat and declared everything "arroy", delicious. They had all been expressing concern at their boy working in the bar; he is too young, they said, although he was 22, or said he was 22, and obviously, here where he had grown up, a cute little kid no doubt running running along the river bank, so dearly loved, so dearly loved, and he looked up at the little sea of moon faces watching him and laughed at one of the shy kids; and soon enough everybody decided they liked each other and all was well and he was being invited back for a big family celebration the following month when another son was leaving the monastery after having had his head shaved and been at the wat for his internship, or whatever it is called.

The last of the sunset glimmered across the river and his companions, another very camp bar boy who was declared a brother but did not seem to have any relationship to this family, a softly spoken cousin drafted to take care of their beloved son; and a lady boy who remained quietly cheerful in the packed taxi as they made their escape from Bangkok late in the afternoon. Come back early next time, we will show you everything, the mother, a wiry, almost grandmotherly figure, Aek was clearly one of the youngest sons, watched him closely with those big eyes that showed she remembered everything about her beloved son. He tried, as they departed in the city taxi none of them could have afforded without him, to say: dee mak mak your son is very good, study hard, you should be proud; but God only knows what she thought he was saying: your son is very handsome and I love to f... him and you should be proud to have produced such a charming offspring, prey for foreigners, bait for money. Too young to work in the bar, they said, when talk came up of drafting another of the families handsome boys into the service. Only 15.

There were times when he still puzzled over what had happened, why he had done such a total job on himself; why it was taking so long to recover; why love had disintegrated every notion of common sense and the Baw wave, when he woke up with two Baws in his hotel room, were shaking apart any notion he might have had of being sane, sensible, a grown person; on the roam, as one might be, but careful, your heart, mysterious and dark, as Dylan had put it, one more cup of coffee, before the road, one more cup of coffee, before I go, to the valley below; it had been, for whatever reason, their theme song; as if every relationship had to have a theme song; and this one, which had been cemented so beautifully with four shots of vodka before breakfast on the following morning; collapsed, aching, the best and the worst, the most ridiculous things, ignominy, joy, savage recollection; now it was all being washed away in a different life, in a different place, in an upmarket condo he could not afford which marked forever the difference between the past and the future, which told him that even if he died tomorrow; he had given it a damn good shot. One happy year in Bangkok, that's all I ask, he told himself. I haven't had that happy a life and this is the last shot; and so as they travelled the river later in the night, watching the fire flies blinking in the trees along the river's edge rather than the bar flies blinking in the dark along the edge of the bar, that was where the difference lay. They sent him up: all day, morning to night, anything I do he just says: good, good. Anything that happens, he just says: good, good. And so they all laughed; as the taxi took them back to Bangkok, back into the heart of things. Back to where he was eternally happy to be.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/27/2938009.htm?section=justin

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is breaking free from one of her predecessor's main policy stances by announcing she is not interested in a "big Australia".

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was in favour of population growth, with his government predicting it to hit around 36 million by 2050, largely through immigration.

But Ms Gillard has indicated she will be putting the brakes on immigration in order to develop a more sustainable nation.

"Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population," she told Fairfax.

"I don't support the idea of a big Australia with arbitrary targets of, say, a 40 million-strong Australia or a 36 million-strong Australia. We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia.

"I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain."

But Ms Gillard says that does not mean putting a stop to immigration all together.

"I don't want business to be held back because they couldn't find the right workers," she said.

"That's why skilled migration is so important. But also I don't want areas of Australia with 25 per cent youth unemployment because there are no jobs," she said.

Mr Rudd installed Tony Burke as the Minister for Population, but in one of her first moves as Prime Minister, Ms Gillard has changed his job description to Minister for Sustainable Population.

Mr Burke will continue to develop a national population strategy which is due to be released next year.

Ms Gillard says the change sends a clear message about the new direction the Government is taking.

Families Minister Jenny Macklin told Channel Ten that Australia's population growth has to reflect the country's economic needs.

"When we have areas in Australia with 25 per cent youth unemployment we should be getting in there doing everything possible to get those young people skilled up and into the jobs that are available," she said.

"Making sure that where we have serious congestion in our cities that we do something about it."

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has told ABC1's Insiders that Ms Gillard cannot be believed.

"When the Coalition said a few months ago that the population had to be sustainable we were pilloried up hill and down dale by Julia Gillard," he said.

"I think what we're also going to see from Julia Gillard is an attempt on all the controversial issues where the Opposition is making the running, to adopt a kind of 'me too' strategy."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gxeAVUun6rjQdqvd9GwawhwCxwOQ

BANGKOK — Thailand is set to lift emergency rule, imposed during mass opposition protests in the capital, in many provinces next month, but extend the strict laws in Bangkok, officials said Thursday.

The emergency decree, in place across about a third of the country, is due to expire on July 7. The cabinet will decide whether to extend it based on the advice of security officials.

"I believe that the state of emergency is likely to be lifted in many areas," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters.

The government unit set up to oversee security during the unrest has decided to ask the cabinet to keep the emergency laws in the capital but revoke them in some other provinces, said spokesman Colonel Sunsern Kaewkumnerd.

The opposition has called for the law to be revoked for a parliamentary by-election in Bangkok on July 25.

"For Bangkok the state of emergency will remain despite the by-election," Sunsern said.

Two months of mass anti-government protests by the "Red Shirt" movement, pushing for immediate elections, sparked outbreaks of violence that left 90 people dead, mostly civilians, and nearly 1,900 injured.

"There are still some elements involved in the movement and we don't want that (new violence) to happen," Abhisit said.

Abhisit invoked emergency rule in Bangkok on April 7, banning public gatherings of more than five people and giving broad powers to the police and military.

Enraged protesters went on a rampage of arson after a deadly army crackdown ended their rally on May 19. The unrest also spread outside the capital, particularly in the Reds' stronghold in the impoverished northeast.

A Red Shirt leader who faces charges of terrorism is being fielded by the opposition Puea Thai Party to stand in the Bangkok by-election.

A Thai court agreed Thursday to temporarily free Korkaew Pikulthong from detention early next week so he could file his candidacy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Bangkok_sunset_burning_sky.jpg

Here At The End Of Days

*

That languidly handsome boy who's haircut he had paid for only a fortnight before accosted him in the street; and promptly, holding his hand insistently, followed them to the go go bar where they were going to watch a show; Bangkok Boys, the biggest, as they claim, go go boy bar in Thailand. Baw, the second Baw, whispered in his ear: I can get ice, nahm keng, big packet, 2,000 baht, I bring my girlfriend, we can smoke, we can all sleep together, I f... my new girlfriend, you can watch, us all four, we can sleep together. And in another life; only a short time ago, he would have been defenseless against the promise of heightened joy and things he never thought possible. But the new boy was having none of it; shaking his head as if the mere thought of an orgy on ice was too ridiculous, crazy and insane for words and why would any sane person want to do such a thing. The go go boys paraded their wares; there was only one amongst the dozens he might have picked; with the tatoos curling across and down his back and across his stomach, almost touching his pubic hair.

I like girl show, Baw said, and he replied: I know, I know. And they laughed; because they had shared such an insane time together; not so long ago, in the Plaza Hotel, when every night saw them out at the clubs and kareoke bars until dawn and bottles of Black Label, along with many thousands of baht, disappeared like water. He noticed another European, they were so rare in Bangkok at the moment, watching him: the boy with his hand possessively on his leg and the other, astonishingly handsome boy, whispering in his ear as they laughed together at all the things they had done. He relayed the story of how the other Baw had bought him a go go girl; and he knew, of course, that the money he handed over would have been fritted away, at least to some fair degree, on whiskey and girls. It didn't matter. It was the rightthing to do. Time stood out of mind but he could see, circling far above, the wings of the dispossessed circling as the night storms gathered. It might be the rainy season, but it only rained briefly at night; here in the far reaches.

One of the only other Europeans in the bar, a man who could easily pass for an overweight Philip Seymour Hoffman, sat in the far corner of the bar, pushing out his enormous belly as the go go boys played to him, and the performers, when they came on, flashed their erect cocks in his face. But he never seemed to be with anyone; just watching, watching, and he wondered: what's the story man, just pick one, or two. They will take good care of you; even if you are an overweight pig who needs to do something about himself. There were too many occasions when the past was etched on his face. Moi moi moi many days, they had said, losing respect; and now, they say, every time he stumbled: moi. But he was not drunk. I can see it in your face, they would say, you drink too much. Before, before, he would say, not now. And the boy helped him, smiling with approval as every day passed without a cigarette, without so much as a beer, certainly not smoking ice in wild alcohol soaked orgies which left him exhausted for days. Now he was learning Thai, he noticed the words which had already been marked: moody, strange, difficult, troublesome, disturbing, untrustworthy, insincere; as if all those crazy days which passed in a blur had disturbed them all; left them all wondering why, why, why do it to yourself?

So they came home and went to sleep happily enough in each others arms and the pressure of everything seemed to consolidate in a short package of requirements; the need to be loved, the need for company, the pressure to conform, the loneliness of strangers, the desire to be different, unaccustomed as we are... He went to a gay meeting and just as one might expect, there was the kindness of strangers and t he compassion of people who had seen and done everything; and support for the new. If you want what we have, said one, and for a girl like me I knew I wanted this Italian stud's cock and so I kept coming back. And they all laughed. You never heard anything like that at the straight meetings. An old priest told an outrageous story of arriving at a hotel in Venice and the boy asking him what he wanted? A shower, he said. And so the boy took both his and his own clothes off and gave him a shower. And then got dressed again. They all laughed. And he spoke movingly of his crisis with the Catholic church, of his double life, going home to his Buddhist lover, while during the day preaching compassion and understanding.

I know I helped a few gay people die more peacefully in the hospice, and for that I am proud, he said. I told them Jesus loved them, even if they were gay, although I don't know if that is true it helped them. In the end I didn't want anything to do with a church that said to the dying, you are going to hell if you are gay, I didn't want to be a part of any of that, and I wrote a letter to the monsignor, and I quit. And now I don't live a double life, I live a single life. And I've been happier ever since. He made his way through the morning crowds, back from Limpini Park where he had been since the early hours, following the strict meditation practices of the Falun Gong and hearing in the clouds, in the ancient rhymes, in the traditions passed down in isolated monasteries for centuries, for literally millennia, revealed now publicly for the first time, here at the end of days, with the giant centipedes crawling across the rich green of the grass, the water spraying, the children playing, the old people doing their Tai Chi. There wasn't anything like this anywhere else on earth; as the tinkling melodies of the people practising their chorus came from behind and the teachers patiently showed him every move. And he made his way back to the swishy boy in the cafe; and back to the young man in his bed; and how long you stay; when you go home, what you do here? All questions he had no answer to except: I don't want to go home. They looked at him puzzled. But that was the truth. I don't want to go home. Wherever home might be. Home now is a condo in Bangkok, and for him, that was as good as it got.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/25/2937066.htm

The idea had long burned in the minds of some but the final operation was so tightly controlled that its denouement utterly shocked most members of the Labor Party.

Just before the first shot rang out at 7:00pm on ABC News and ABC Online one of the party's elder statesmen Defence Minister John Faulkner was in the middle of a pre-recorded interview for The 7:30 Report.

KERRY O'BRIEN: As we've been sitting here recording this interview, I'm told that ABC News is about to go to air, from Canberra, with a story that there are leadership rumblings, as they put it, in Canberra right now as we speak, that factional leaders are in discussion and counting numbers, as I understand it, with regard to a possible leadership challenge. Are you aware of any potential moves on the leadership of Kevin Rudd tonight, not the moves tonight, but the moves?

JOHN FAULKNER: Well, Kerry, I don't know what's on ABC News. All I know is I've been sitting here talking to you and so it might be on the ABC News, well it's also news to me.

It was news to everyone. In the minutes after 7:00pm, in the offices and restaurants and cafes around the Parliamentary Triangle, the mobile phones of Labor MPs and Senators lit up. In the early stages ministers and MPs rolled out the usual denials, because they honestly believed it was another beat up.

The Member for Reid, Laurie Ferguson said, "I don't know who they are, the ABC knows more than Caucus."

The prime minister was at a function in Parliament House celebrating the 20th year in Parliament for Senator Nick Sherry. Just after 7:00pm many people who were there report that everyone's mobile rang. The prime minister left.

A few tiny flaws in the execution of the assassination plot exposed the final hours of the operation to the arc-lights of the media. Because of the ABC stories, shortly after 7:00pm the halls around the prime minister's office were swarming with journalists and cameras and Julia Gillard's every public movement was being recorded.

There is a novel in this but what follows is one small shard of the plot.

For weeks there had been speculation that the prime minister might be replaced with his deputy. But as long as Julia Gillard remained loyal then without a challenger there could be no challenge.

So there was no genuine threat to Mr Rudd in any real sense until Wednesday. That morning two right-wing powerbrokers, Mark Arbib from NSW and David Feeney from Victoria, went to see Ms Gillard. They were sent away to count.

They returned at noon to say they could deliver a majority of the Right in every state. Ms Gillard was in the game and the challenge was on. But they fretted that the entire plot could come unstuck if word leaked that it was on. So they intended to make their final moves late, to stay under the electronic media radar.

But there are few perfect operations. There are always fingerprints.

Exactly 12 months ago the tip that Godwin Grech might be something more than just a hapless Treasury official came from a scrap dropped during a casual conversation at Aussies Cafe on the ground floor of Parliament House.

The scent of the Gillard challenge came during a chance afternoon encounter with a Labor powerbroker at the same table.

In the midst of an otherwise harmless chat he dropped his voice, scanned the tables for familiar faces and said with an unusual urgency. "Could we win with Julia?"

Pressed to explain, the conversation ended abruptly, "I gotta go thanks for the coffee."

Something was up. Calls to the likely suspects went unanswered until one picked up at 5.30pm.

"What's happening?" I said?

"What do you know?" he replied.

"I know something's going on. What do you know?"

"Wait until after 8:00pm and I'll give you an exclusive."

"But the news goes to air at seven."

"Wait," he said and hung up.

It was an infuriating conversation because it confirmed a serious push against the prime minister by serious players. But there was every chance it could evaporate because everything depended on how Ms Gillard had responded to their advances.

Comparing notes, it emerged that the ABC's Chief Political Correspondent Mark Simkin was also on to the story.

By 6.50pm we had enough to broadcast that there were moves afoot but that it wasn't clear at all whether they were being supported by Ms Gillard. We made it clear in the stories that we were uncertain of her position and deliberately erred on the side of caution.

But it was still an enormous risk. If she had rebuffed the advances then the conspirators would melt back into the shadows and the next day everyone would, again, furiously deny there was anything going on. And, unlike some other operations, there are serious consequences for being seriously wrong in the ABC.

We knew that the first sign that we were wide of the mark would come by way of be an outraged phone call from the prime minister's office to the ABC's bureau chief, Greg Jennett.

That call never came.

Greg and the ABC's tireless chief of staff Simon Johnson began furiously organising resources and dispatching them to the halls and restaurant districts.

In ABC Radio Louise Yaxley was powering through calls and stories and marshalling her team.

ABC TV's Hayden Cooper was trawling the corridors down near the prime minister's office and Lateline's Dana Robertson was tracking down backbenchers.

In Radio Current Affairs Sabra Lane and Samantha Hawley were working the phones and Chief Political Correspondent Lyndal Curtis returned to work from her sick bed.

The new producer for ABC News 24, Michelle Ainsworth, left her children with her husband and returned to work and ABC News Breakfast's Melissa Clarke (who gets to work at 4.30am) was on the phone asking if she should come in.

The rest really is history.

I write all this for two reasons. First, it is a great yarn. Second because the ABC doesn't plaster "exclusive" on every lame rumour and, frankly, does a really poor job banging its own drum.

And I know that in the wash up of this, the story will have 1,000 fathers, as some of the self-basting outlets drown themselves in their own acclaim. That's fine too but I write because I'm bored by reading bile covered tripe in same outlets claiming the ABC doesn't break stories.

The ABC radio news breaks stories almost every hour. AM is the jewel in the crown of a Radio Current Affairs operation that is unique in this country. The ABC Online site is second to none. ABC Local Radio gives a voice to every community on this continent. And ABC TV News and Current Affairs is the most trusted brand in television broadcasting.

I'm proud of my colleagues and the job they do in the large and small parts of the ABC. And, in the end, the proof of the pudding is in the quality of the ingredients.

As one minister told Mark Simkin, "I didn't know about it. But the fact that the ABC was running it meant it had credibility".

Chris Uhlmann is the 7.30 Report's Political Editor.

Considerable Patience

*

Still he puzzled over how it had happened, these moments of idiocy, and yet in his heart he knew the answers all too well, and did not want to commit them to paper or to memory, or to public view, those fragile moments when he and the dog were the only people awake on the planet; well in Sydney, or so it seemed, as he walked the Redfern streets and Wilson Street in particular, passing, passing, by the sleeping cars and the nodding junkies and time out of mind, when he stopped going to the clubs and stopped sleeping with people - any people - and when a man not meant to be alone tossed restlessly for two hours before giving the idea of sleep away as a bad toss; as no way he could function. Now God had sent him a boy who slept eight or twelve hours a night, they love their sleep Thai men, and the boy looked at him askance when he realised he had been out since 5am and only come home to wake him up for college; still he was sleeping more than was his due, more than he ever had; and everyting was delicious, everything.

He still had his coffee in the same place with the same swishy boy - coffee - kahboom - yes - he replies - looking as if he should be waltzing around in the Fresh Beach Boys go go bar rather than working in a cafe - and the delight with which they greeted everything - fun - face - don't be serious - was something that had moved very fast - he couldn't be free of the slather - haunted by moments, mistakes, he'd rather forget - well everything was in the day and today was glorious - he could hear the radio in Thai over the Limpini Park sound system announcing the change of leadership in Australia - mixing as it did with the not quite melancholic, cosmic perhaps was a better word, ping of the Falun Gong and the sounds of the choir practicing behind them - as people stepped out to help him every inch of the way. The Buddha will help you, Baw had said, and perhaps he was right. Stay south, stay south, he had advised, Bangkok is no good for you. Street rat. Hustler. Handsome boy. Moments of intimacy that pass between men. You are a very funny man, they kept telling him, and he grinned, because it was true in a ridiculous sense; and he saw them waiting patiently outside the fold.

There was much to be gained and much to be lost by the present course of action. It was as if he had decided if he wasn't going to live long he was going to live well; or if he was going to live well he better start generating some cash; and that exercise in itself might not be such a bad thing, forcing him back to work. It was too early to give up. Too early to say die. Too early to surrender to an old age pension and a frigid life in a terrible suburb, lonely to the core, or a tiny town with nothing but practicing alcoholics, or a place where he was not himself, did not belong; could not make it through the night; where everything seethed and curdled and he could not have been lonelier, more out of step, if he spent years planning to achieve the worst state of mind possible. So he marched onwards, each morning he went down the park, dodging the people as they set up their food stalls for the day, seething in the most charming way, exhausted, happy, panting. Good, good, the boy would say; and everything was fine, nothing could be better; and the combination of the park and the meetings were working, much to his surprise; and suddenly, just like that, the desperate days were over.

Don't make me laugh. Don't make me do it. Don't tell me what's possible and what's not. In all the dark forces there had been no escape; and yet, in that ancient tradition, walkabout, everything had been revealed. He had wizened up fast. I love you I want to stay with you every day forever meant I like you, I like your apartment, I like your money, I like the fact that you pay me without action and that you think I'm handsome. He heard him, though the boy thought he did not know enough Thai to understand, telling the mamasam that no, he was not coming to work that night, and no, he was not going to work tomorrow night either, and no, that was that, he would call him when he was ready; and like a typical Thai, simply refused to do something he did not want to do. The baht all disappeared just like that; it always would, he might not drink, he might not smoke yabba in the morning, but in the ancient communal ways of the village, of this place, all the money went straight to friends and family; and he didn't care. It allowed moments of pride; it allowed moments of forgiveness. He heard the boy to stop worrying, the foreigner's name was John and he had been with him many times; and he was a good man who was not going to harm him and who treated him well. So stop worrying mum.

Such a conversation would never happen in Australia. Much of what he saw every day, from the street stalls to the casual embraces to the handsome men doing exercises in the park who instantly returned his glance with a big big grin; because they knew he was perving at them and the sunshine was free. You are very handsome, he felt like shouting, but the Thai sentence for you are very handsome was almost identical to You are a very bad man, just as the sentence I have two children arranged in what would seem like an orderly sensible Western manner meant F... You and could lget him punched in the face. He showed up at the meetings and said nothing. He waltzed through the corridors and shouted out in praise. He dodged street workers and smiled at everybody. He tipped the security guards well so there would be no arguments about who came and who went. But they always took the boys identity cards anyway. They went shopping together at Tesco's, like any newly married couple, although they had only known each other a few days; and each sentence was a punch in the dark, and each new wave of pleasure a mounting bridge from a terrible past; and he smiled and waved as if royalty, and snuck along back streets as if invisible; and shouldered the blame; because everything was different now. He had been saved from a fate worse than death, the living death; and knew, the exercises would help him make the jump, into a different form, a different life, a different body, in those twinkling times between lives.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/24/2935900.htm

Julia Gillard has been sworn in as Australia's 27th Prime Minister after ousting Kevin Rudd in an unopposed Labor leadership spill this morning.

The ceremony at Yarralumla set the seal on a tumultous 24 hours which culminated with Ms Gillard becoming the nation's first female Prime Minister.

Earlier Ms Gillard had told a packed Parliament House press conference that she was "truly honoured" to be given the chance to lead the country.

"I asked my colleagues to make a leadership change because I believed that a good Government was losing its way," she said. "My values and beliefs have driven me to step forward to take this position as Prime Minister. I will lead a strong and responsible Government that will take control of our future."

Ms Gillard announced that the Government will scrap its mining tax advertising campaign and called on the industry to do the same in a bid to bring the bitter fight between the two to an end.

And she promised to call an election in the "coming months" to give the Australian people the chance to deliver their verdict on her ascension.

"Can I say, Australians one and all, it's with the greatest, humility, resolve and enthusiasm that I sought the endorsement of my colleagues to be the Labor leader and to be the prime minister for this country," she said.

"I have accepted that endorsement.

"There will be some days I delight you, some days I disappoint you. On every day I will be working my absolute hardest for you," she added.

Ms Gillard acknowledged that she was responsible for the Government's mistakes but praised her predecessor for leading the country in difficult times.

Indicating that there could be a role for Mr Rudd on the front bench, she said she would be speaking to him about his future in Government.

Newly elected Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan said the Government would move forward with Ms Gillard.

Ms Gillard's press conference came minutes after an appearance by an emotional Mr Rudd, who fought back tears as he bowed out as Prime Minister.

"I will be dedicating my every effort to assure the re-election of this Labor Government," he said. "They are a good team led by a good Prime Minister."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/rudds-tears-as-loss-to-gillard-sinks-in/story-e6frgczf-1225883699195

AN emotional Kevin Rudd declared today that he had "given it my all" and indicated he is interested in retaining a key position in the Gillard government.

Julia Gillard would be a “good PM”, Mr Rudd said, as he committed to working in “any manner in which I can be of assistance” and recontesting his Queensland seat of Griffith.

"I will be dedicating my every effort to ensure the re-election of this Australian Labor government. It is a good government with a good program,” he said.

“As for serving this government in the future, I will of course serve it in any manner in which I can be of assistance,” Mr Rudd said.

He deliberately and carefully repeated this phrase “any manner in which I can be of assistance,” in a clear indication he is interested in a key position.

Mr Rudd, flanked by wife Therese Rein and children Nicholas, Marcus and Jessica, took the unusual step of addressing a media conference before his successor Ms Gillard was scheduled to do so.

In an extraordinary and rare display of emotion, the outgoing Prime Minister fought back tears as he gave a thorough rundown of what he believed to be his key achievements.

"I have given it my absolute best; I have given it my all," he said.

"I am proud of the achievements that we have delivered to make this country fairer."

In a speech punctuated by long pauses, he listed keeping Australia out of the global financial crisis, getting rid of Work Choices, health reform, infrastructure delivery such as the national broadband network and education reform as his successes.

Son Sam at a shooting gallery outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Circa 2010.

Exultant Days

*

There wasn't anywhere else he wanted to be; and although he fretted about the cost the truth was he had spent the equivalent of a months rent in an upmarket apartment in a matter of days, during those lost days, lost time, when anyone who saw him later expressed concern and would say: oh my God, I didn't realise, I didn't know that about you. You seem so normal, so happy, most of the time. So he sat in the cafe down the road having his one morning coffee, now his only chemical extravagance, where Thai pop blared out its catchy melodies and the swishy boy with diamonds in his ears served him with a pleasure that made all the customers laugh; and walk away beaming, while the handsome boys making the coffee also looked entirely adapted, entirely a part of their own world, and he, as always, was the only falang. The only foreigner.

He met up with James from the Epoch Times in Sydney, who had met an American Thai woman and was now living in Bangkok with their two year old son, and it was strange to be suddenly talking to a native English speaker, as if everything was normal and as if they were just two strange tourists sharing a pineapple shake at the Bug and Bee near Salen Dang; but in fact the only thing strange about this place was how much they loved life; how clairvoyant they were as part of their daily practice, the emphasis on fun, on the day, on life in the moment, exultant moments that shimmered through his glacial heart and shattered everything, changed everything for the better. You have a cool heart, the Thais would say, making a gesture that indicated his head was somewhere out beyond Mars. But they didn't seem to say that anymore.

The advantage of picking one out of the crowd, just as he would always pick one tuk tuk driver or one boy out of the crowd in Tangiers or Calcutta or New Delhi or wherever he was, was that they fought off all the others; and paying one a fair days pay was a damn sight easier than fighting off dozens of touts wherever you went. He would watch the backpackers fighting with the ceaseless crowds of beggars and hustlers and shake his head; the solution was just so easy, and ultimately so cheap. And so it was, he thought, with the boys of Bangkok. There were many bad boys who could take him for wild rides around the country and through the night clubs, through extreme binging on everything known to man and thorugh wild sexual escapades the like of which he had never even dreamed.

But then God sent him the healing heart; a boy who put 50 bahts worth of credit on his phone with the same sense of guilty extravagance that the previous one had ordered up bottles of Black Label and spreads of the most expensive dishes on offer in whatever club they happened to be in. A boy who was not entirely nocturnal, as the others had been. They had looked so out of place if ever caught in daylight, and even if awake before night fall lay indolently around the hotel room watching TV and getting in a few early drinks before the evening well and truly set in; plotting the extravagant adventures of the night. This one slept eight hours a night and was keen to get off to his university classes in the morning. And so when he read the love letter which must have taken quite some time to write, and when he commented Aek mimed himself looking up the dictionary at every word, and so when he read it he thought: why not?

There are many bad boys in Bangkok, swishy boys and yabba disoriented crazies, and so, because he did not like to sleep alone and because he liked this one, he thought: it's the same principle. Pick one. He'll fight off all the rest. He'll take care and make sure no one else moves on to his patch, and fight off all the others with the ferocity of a tiger protecting its cubs if he had to. Sometimes you had to surrender to fate. Sometimes he was determined to make things work. Sometimes every day, every moment, seemed extraordinary; and he would be pleased or embarrassed by the nasty displays of temper; and everything would be crowded in and he would chat cheerfully, he had learnt so much; icebreaker, heart breaker, surrender to obsession, make do make do, and common sequence, common fall, time immemorial and time out of mind, consequence, collapse, crowds coming and going. They were going shopping that afternoon to buy things for the apartment, just like a newly married couple. He laughed in his heart.

THE BIGGER STORY:

BARACK Obama says his top military commander in Afghanistan "showed poor judgment" in a magazine interview highly critical of the White House.

But the US President said he would wait until he speaks to General Stanley McChrystal in person before making a decision whether to fire the man he put in charge of US and NATO operations in Afghanistan.

“I also want to make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions,” Mr Obama said in comments in Washington after a cabinet meeting.

General McChrystal has already issued a public apology for an interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine that detailed friction between himself and the White House in the lead-up to President Obama's decision in December to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.

In the interview, the general said he felt “betrayed” by Mr Obama's ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, for sending a diplomatic cable to Washington that warned about the unreliability of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

But General McChrystal also made derogatory remarks that showed his contempt for Vice President Joe Biden and top White House envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke. An aide to the general dismissed national security adviser James Jines as a “clown”.

Mr Obama was told about General McChrystal's interview overnight and reacted angrily, according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

The President's immediate response was to summon General McChrystal to personally attend a White House planned meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan tomorrow to explain himself, rather than appearing via a teleconference from Kabul.

Mr Gibbs said that all options were on the table when it came to General McChrystal's future.

“I gave him the article last night and he was angry,” he said of Mr Obama's reaction.

The White House spokesman said the President was most concerned about how the comments distracted from the main purpose of the “extremely important” military operation in Afghanistan.

The scathing article brought to the surface lingering tensions between General McChrystal and the White House, just as the US deploys 30,000 more troops to the bloody war now in its ninth year.

Mr Gibbs refused to rule out that the commander-in-chief would sack the general.

“General McChrystal has fought bravely on behalf of this country for a long time. Nobody could or should take that away from him, and nobody will,” Mr Gibbs said.

“But there has clearly been an enormous mistake in judgment to which he's going to have to answer to.”

While General McChrystal has apologised for his remarks and one of his media officers, a civilian, has already resigned over the episode, the fallout is unlikely to stop there.

“The magnitude and graveness of this mistake are profound,” said Mr Gibbs.

General McChrystal's comments were widely perceived as insubordination and a bizarre lapse for a four-star general with a long military record who has given other interviews to journalists in the past and showed more discretion.

But sacking the top commander now could present Mr Obama with potentially more difficulties than keeping him.

The President would be forced to find an alternative with the experience to lead US and allied troops at a crucial phase of the military operation in Afghanistan, as troops try to win control of Kandahar, the past spiritual home of the Taliban.

Mr Obama is caught in a political bind after saying he will keep a promise to start a military withdrawal from Afghanistan by mid-next year.

In recent weeks, the progress of a military surge has slowed considerably in Kandahar and General McChrystal is among those readily admitting the operation will take longer than planned.

General McChrystal had already received a dressing down from Mr Obama last year over his remarks at a London conference in which he appeared to reject Mr Biden's argument in favour of fewer troops in Afghanistan.

In one passage in the Rolling Stone interview that caused dismay at the White House and the Pentagon, an unnamed McChrystal adviser says the general came away unimpressed after meeting with Mr Obama in the Oval Office a year ago.

“It was a 10-minute photo op,” the general's adviser says. “Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was... he didn't seem very engaged.”

Lawmakers in Congress condemned the general's remarks, though some key Democrats stopped short of calling for General McChrystal's removal, saying too much was at stake in Afghanistan.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, said the article pointed to personality differences and “do not reflect differences in policy on prosecuting the war.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai endorsed the embattled commander and voiced hope the general would not be sacked, while NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen also backed General McChrystal.

“The Rolling Stone article is rather unfortunate, but it is just an article,” Mr Rasmussen's spokesman said.

“We are in the middle of a very real conflict, and the Secretary General has full confidence in General McChrystal as the NATO commander, and in his strategy.”

Additional reporting: AFP/AP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/23/2934590.htm

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says there is nothing unusual about his chief of staff sounding out Labor MPs over a "whole range of things", amid continuing speculation over his leadership.

It is believed Mr Rudd's chief of staff Alistair Jordan has been speaking to a number of MPs in an effort to gauge the mood of the electorate and get their opinion on how the Government is faring.

The move comes after a series of bad poll results which have seen the ALP's primary vote tracking as low as 33 per cent.

Mr Rudd says Mr Jordan's actions are just "situation normal".

"There's nothing particularly knew in what 'AJ' would be doing," he said.

"Alistair's job, I think since I became Leader of the Opposition, is to be in constant contact with members of the party and with ministers.

"I don't think anything's really changed much in the last four years."

When asked by reporters to detail what feedback had been received Mr Rudd replied: "Frankly I don't know much of the content of his most recent conversations. They usually cover a whole range of things."

Senior ministers have today rallied behind Mr Rudd and are voicing their full support for his leadership.

The Opposition has seized on the revelation to attack the Government, but its MPs are facing their own questions over what exactly Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told his own party room about their chances of electoral victory yesterday.

Some Labor MPs are remaining tightlipped over whether they were contacted by Mr Jordan, but all are maintaining Mr Rudd has their full support.

Conjunction

*

Looking across the conjunction of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, everything seemed possible in this part of the world. He was no longer lonely; and his instant notoriety only added to the confusion. Jerking haphazardly down the boulevarde. Dropping by the Happy Pizza. Face grim with pain, eroded with laughter, painted with cigarettes; he was up and down all night getting off the fags while irritable tension coursed through his body and the boy slept, as beautiful in his mind as ever. Pay them well treat them well. It was a successful formula in almost every sense; except the impact on his wallet. He woke up determined to be a millionaire; so he could maintain a lifestyle beyond his means, so he wouldn't have to go and live in Calcutta, as he kept threatening to do.

Much of the humour was lost in translation. But they could tell, they woke up with boners a mile long, they could tell. They never did anything they didn't want to; which could be very annoying. Languid, they plied their trade. The boy, this time Aek, went off to university for the morning and he was suddenly alone again; and busy, there was so much to do; money to be made, precious diamonds to be bought, things to be done. His brain was coming awake again. He wasn't smoking with the street boys in the early hours anymore, and he wasn't drinking around the clock. I go back to program, he had loudly declared, and so it had proved to be. He retraced stories; and he understood things now he had never understood. You are baby. Well yes, he had been, unwise in the ways of this world, utterly inexperienced in their different ways.

His loyalty was never repaid; but he did the right thing anyway; allowed the saving of face; face being all important in this part of the world, and he measured their success by the passing hours, and he hadn't thought of a cigarette for a good 20 minutes. He was too old to do these things. His birthday had passed and he bought what he wanted; but times were fleeing tragically before him and he had to work hard to see the end tune; to have one happy year in Bangkok, to make way for the shallow days and the Fresh Beach boys. He looked down the soi to Classic Boys and remembered the lad in Chiang Mai, making a circling gesture at the side of his head, to indicate the madness of it all; and he remembered.

Here was a boy who ordered a strawberry milkshake with the same guilty extravagance that the previous one had ordered a bottle of Black Label whiskey; and here was another one who wouldn't drink so much as a can of beer and insisted on making his university classes in the morning. Not everything was a wild dance. Not everything was this toxic embarrassment. Not everything led to ridiculous sexual congresses, waking up sandwiched between sex workers of any gender, and not everything led him down the path to dissolution. He had gone back to the meetings and gone back to the meditation; all in a rapid sweep combined with an upmarket apartment he could not afford but dearly loved; and allowed him to pull everything back together, to mark his time as dearly loved; not just the grave sites of young men in Gallipoli, but every day, every moment, the light bouncing off the windows of Bangkok skyscrapers the astonishing architecture, everything a vista, everything glorious.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/world/asia/22thai.html

BANGKOK — The Thai government has moved into the next phase of a campaign against the dissident movement known as the red shirts, freezing the assets of scores of people it says helped finance recent protests, and planning to summon them for questioning.

Two months of antigovernment demonstrations ended May 19, when the army dispersed a red-shirt encampment in the commercial center of Bangkok.

Altogether, at least 88 people died and at least 1,800 people were wounded over the course of the protests.

Since then the government has pursued a dual-track approach to its opponents, with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva emphasizing a program of national reconciliation while hundreds of members of the opposition have been arrested and held without trial.

The prime minister’s reconciliation road map has now added to the atmosphere of acrimony, becoming a new focus for attack from government opponents.

On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who is in charge of security for the government, said a state of emergency declared during the protests would remain because of a continuing threat of disturbances.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/22/2933414.htm?section=world

Defence Minister John Faulkner has urged Australians to keep supporting the war in Afghanistan after the deaths of five soldiers in just two weeks.

Yesterday three commandos were killed when their helicopter crashed on its way to a mission south of the Australian base at Tarin Kowt.

Last week two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb, and the total Australian death toll for the nine-year conflict now stands at 16.

Senator Faulkner has acknowledged that the recent deaths could erode public support for the war but he says Australia's involvement is vital in the fight against terrorism.

"Of course I am concerned about the level of public support for what we are doing in Afghanistan but I continue to stress ... how important our role in Afghanistan is," he told Radio National.

"It is absolutely critical for the safety and security of Australians and Australia to help prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a training ground and operation base for international terrorists."

Settling In Settling Down

*

The boy, Aek, on his way to work, spotted him in the gay soi, put his hands together and gave a big grin of recognition in that charming way that only the Thai men can do and one crooked finger later it was all arranged. The mamasan was paid and they were on their way. If the apartment was expensive then its close proximity to Patpong and the night club area, with all the go go bars a bare ten minutes away, was proving an additional cost. The waiters in the cafe where he had been sitting beamed at him; as if they finally understood. Before they had looked at him askance, serving him whisky knowing he was already drunk, moi, moi, moi mak mak, sensing that something was deeply awry, but now he was sober, just drinking coke without the whisky, just taking a final turn through the sois on his way home from the meeting, just telling stories. As sincere as a Thai sex worker, he had said the other day, but in their way, when you spent so much time with them, paid them well, treated them well, there were flashes of astonishing intimacy, and laughter, there on the couch and here in the aging heart; and while it might be a ghastly thought; he hadn't liked his own body for at least a decade now and age was doing nothing to help the drooping form, he hadn't had so much sex in years. And finally, finally, he was beginning to relax.

Today was his birthday, 58, and now there was no use pretending he wasn't closer to 60 than 50 and he wasn't going to live forever. There were cruel times; that was for sure; but suddenly the load had lightened, or been lightened for him perhaps, and the friends he was beginning to make and the old friends from Australia he was meeting up with again in Bangkok, it was all part of the fabric, where he was now, in the heart of things. And if strangers were wary, if some of the biggest arseholes on the earth went to meetings, it didn't stop him. There was a horse leaping. There was boundless optimism. There was a skyline he watched with fascination at every passing shade of the day, when everything that was wrong suddenly turned right. He was awake at five to five desite the charms of the night, oh my God too much information, and he walked briskly down Si Lom Road to Limpini Park, looking for the Falun Dafa practice site. It was as good a way as any to start the day; to transform the mash that his head had become. Despite elaborate instructions from several sources, including the internet, he had trouble finding the site. There wasn't any way out, but this was a way out. The negative frames of thought just kept folding in upon themselves, as if nothing would solve itself and yet everything had already been resolved; as if all problems had been resolved and he just didn't recognise it.

Like the medical condition where the wound will stay inflamed although there is no infection; as if the body hadn't realised that everyting was fixed and there was no cause for alarm, so his thought patterns turned screwy at a moments notice and obsessional conduct gave way to good cheer and good manners. So the waiters grinned at him because they suddenly understood him; because he was going with someone just like them, obviously Thai, obviously a man. While the flouncy boys from the massage parlour, who's blandishments he had ignored over many nights, continued their chatter, still pressed their advertising on him: four hand boy massage 900 baht; and he listened as one of them spoke intensely to one of the waiters, drifting in and out of English, perhaps intentionally so he could understand. I stay with one man, falang, foreigner, for one year, only one man, and now I am here, he said, gesturing at the skimpy shorts that were the parlour's uniform, gesturing as if nothing could be more humiliating, demeaning, beneath his talents and beneath his worth, how low can you go. And Aek just beamed because he knew he would be happy, and make him happy, and at least for some everything was alright with the world.

Things would change, were changing dramatically. He had been asked to be the speaker at the meeting, even though they knew he hated speaking and would do almost anything to avoid it. Perhaps on purpose. I don't know why, he said. I was a journalist for a quarter of a century. I'm not entirely inarticulate. Perhaps because in silence there is safety; no one can sneer if you say nothing, no one can be free if they remain in chains; visions, vistas, landscapes, movement through the station. There are hardly any tourists in Bangkok, and their absence is a singular joy. Even Nana, one of the tourist centres, is quiet, and where once it was almost impossible to get through the street stalls and the crushing crowds that thronged the sidewalk, now you could walk with ease. Tehre were many advantages. There was time and space out of mind. There were simple days and crushed leaves; and his mind quietened with the meditation exercises he watched a giant centrepede crawl across the grass. An announcement, only in Thai, came across Limpini Park's sound system. Behind him, a group practised their singing; and the melodic notes mixed with everything else that was the park. He couldn't be free; but he could be unshackled. He could grin full bore and run his hands across some boy's stomach: you are very handsome. That much English they did know. So if there was no connection to a former life; there had to be new ways of making money.

I know that soi, Chris said. I used to do tricks for the rich Thai boys, he said. There was a stage a few years ago when they all wanted foreigners. That seems to have changed now; but for a while I did well.

It's an endlessly fascinating place, that's all he could say.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2932154.htm

TONY EASTLEY: The Federal Government fears have been confirmed - its primary vote remains at a record low. Today's Newspoll has Labor's primary vote stuck on 35 per cent, that's five points behind the Coalition.

But based on the distribution of preferences from the 2007 election, Labor retains an election-winning lead of 52 to 48 per cent. Support for Kevin Rudd has dipped again, and now some of that support has gone to the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott.

Alexandra Kirk is speaking here with Newspoll's Martin O'Shannessy.

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: Well we certainly see nothing gained for the Government or in particular the Opposition in voting position. But I think another tough couple of weeks for Prime Minister Rudd and really Tony Abbott discovering the value of a low-profile target position has lead to the only major change in the poll, which is an improvement in Tony Abbott's better prime minister position.

Now he is only nine points behind the Prime Minister, at 46 for the Prime Minister and 37 for Tony Abbott. Three weeks ago that was a 16-point lead, 49 to 33. So, otherwise the polls really haven't moved.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: How much is due to the way people view Kevin Rudd versus their view of the Government?

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: Now that's pretty hard to untangle cause what we see is both a fall in optimism for the Government and a fall off of support for Kevin Rudd at the same time. But the big change in Labor primary vote came about four Newspolls ago when we also saw Kevin Rudd's personal rating fall rapidly as well.

I think this is probably part of the Government's problem, that there's been such a presidential lead from the front sort of style from Mr Rudd, which of course has tied the Government's ratings very closely to his personal ratings.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So you would put it down to Kevin Rudd's affect on people?

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: Well I think if you look at what's happened recently; the analysis being that Tony Abbott hasn't been highly active and has improved his position. That suggests that the issues about where the Government's going are definitely about Mr Rudd rather than about Mr Abbott.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Now that Kevin Rudd has decided to a talk to the Greens about an emissions trading scheme if he managed to do some sort of deal, do you think that would markedly change things?

MARTIN O'SHANNESSY: I think some people from the Government's side have actually enunciated that, that they need a simple credible message about carbon trading, about the ETS and they need to achieve something in that area.

Their stepping away from the ETS was certainly the trigger for the fall in voter support for this Government, so you'd imagine that if they were to repair their position it would start there.

http://www.intrepidtravel.com/australia/ozcgoogleozwin?s_kwcid=TC|18721|trip%2520australia|www.brisbanetimes.com.au|C||4360245611&gclid=COmXnqGLsKICFcpS6wodUVxzEA

PENRITH has spoken with a crystalline, unmissable clarity. Before the poll, the Premier, Kristina Keneally, warned of a possible 30 per cent swing against the government. Some commentators said she was exaggerating - trying to ensure a smaller swing would seem somehow not too bad. But in some booths the swing against Labor was more than 30 per cent, and overall it was such that one in four voters switched allegiances - a record in NSW by-elections, according to the analyst Antony Green. True, byelections often magnify swings against the incumbent party. But half this swing would still be a disaster. Byelection or not, for Labor this result is an utter rout.

Keneally's tactic has been to stay well away during the campaign so as not to be visibly associated with the disaster. It will not work. She is a fresh face, probably the best Labor has to offer. But she carries all Labor's baggage; it is too much to bear for someone expected to turn the party's fortunes around.

Penrith for Labor in 2010 is what Bass was for Gough Whitlam in 1975, and Bass Hill for Barrie Unsworth in 1986. It is a straw in the wind - but one wind blown so far and so fast by the wind of public opinion that it has reached cyclone force.

Ground Zero

*

We couldn't be there; not just to see. It all fell backwards. There were other signs. He was sure there was a solution. He followed the story back to its origins; the meeting he walked out of, the bar where he met his friend, surrounded by girls, as always, Soi Cowboy where they went, and the same street where he met the first Baw and where everything collapsed in upon itself. He should have known that a relationship which began the following morning with four shots of vodka before breakfast would end in disaster; but he wasn't thinking straight; and two months later his head was mash and he sat in meetings listening to Americans drone on about God, as if they had any effing idea, the most boring, the most mundane people on the planet, and he realised: nothing can cure you, have fun in the day, listen to these eff wits and let it pass; because we are here now, in the heart of one of the most fascinating cities on earth; in an apartment he couldnt afford, in a life that was encircled by crazy days. Aready he was tipping the security guard handsomely. Some of the boys did not have ID cards; and the endless succession would have raised eyebrows in almost any other country. Here they just smiled and thanked you as they pocketed their 100 baht tip.

And he would find himself playing snooker in the early hours with handsome Chinese boys from Chiang Mai, or be offered all sorts of things he could not understand; because these things would pass. No customer I only get 150 baht, the boy complained. He's 18? He asked the mamasam as they left. Yes, yes, he was assured. I don't want trouble. Well they were funny. They didn't like walking much. They didn't like going out of their area much. They crash landed in a thousand ways and yet here was the edge, the knife that would display. You can live a perfect life here. Well not if you keep wasting so much money on sex workers. Twenty thousand dollars he put aside for the purpose; and already he was half way through. It couldn't work forever. He would have to go and live in Calcutta. Away, away with you; let us work through the passages; let us see the shimmering light as it broke across the Bangkok skyscrapers; let us see the morning lioght and time immemorial and a dancing suite, let's see what we can make. Show me, show me, he said, and they laughed, laughed, nothing was serious; boom, boom, 500 baht, 500 baht, he said, pointing at the girls lurking along the side of the road near the Kareoke bar. This was where they felt comfortable. He wasn't going to blame anyone.

Already they were merging together, their pretty faces, so he rang falun dafa and decided it was time for some spiritual practice. He saw Chris and thought: I wish I was like you; clear eyed, older but handsome, clearly in tune; the gathering storm, a glistening train wreck, all gone. He had lived on the streets of Bangkok as a passportless alcoholic foreigner for years; and would point at an old lady on the street surrounded by garbage and wave cheerfully. She look after me when I was there, he explained, bring me food every day. And every day passed. He was just so struck by the geometry, by the ancient breeds, by the searing skyscrapers and the beauty of the architecture; by the cheap cheerfulness and by the urgency of staying off the piss; of not smoking ice and yabba with the street boys, of not going crazy in that wanton way when he would open his eyes and want to get smashed; when people would say, oh my God, I didn't realise that about you; until they saw him in the midst of lost time; and then everything came back into focus. No one was going to help. You'll just have to learn to live with yourself; as Peter used to say.

He was always going to do this. There was always going to be some point when everyting came unstuck. When the magic curled around his bones like a serpent out of Stargate, and everything that was available would come to him; and the glacier that had becvome his heart would crack and break just like that and he would find himself hopelessly, briefly in love with some impossible thing; and there was always more sex to cure those many ills. If ills they were. When he listened to the Americans drone on about God in a way that would deeply embarrass most Australians, he knew the crooked path was the straight path for him and the flocks of boys and pigeons and dancing queens; drag shows and "won't you stay, just a little bit longer"; hey big spender, spend a little time with me; all the basics, the prancing boys beaming out at the audience because they had never had so much fun; and shadows that stalked every walk; and the irrepressibly cute and the way we went; it was ok, he should have said yes, be open to everything, no power; power all gone, he would say; and they were young, they couldn't envisage any such thing; a mere glance was enough and they were off; even for him,for everybody.

And so the resolution lay in curdled time and plains that were invalid, existing only in the imagination; but in a place so altered it bore no relationship to any world, reversed or not; and now he watched them, and had come to know the Asian men so well; they were shadows; sometimes they didn't do very much; and at other times everything bore fruit. I am the youngest son; maybe that is why I am the way I am, the Cambodian boy said; admitting, like few of them ever did, to some gay inclinations. But they all asked the same question: you like lady? They couldn't conceive of not. Sometimes, sometimes, he would reply, and now had become aggressive enough with his dealings to make sure he got what he wanted. There was no other way. Don't let him see you like this; someone advised; and his heart snapped into a thousand pieces and he showed up at meetings in various states; and then time took its slide and every view, every vista, every angle, was exhilarating; as if there was no other place on earth but Bangkok where one could be truly happy; where the boys with their moto ci's whisked you from one part of the city to the other for the price of a coffee back home; where pleasure was ill defined; going for the dive; and where every piece of exhiliaration made for a better person. It was his birthday tomorrow. Time to begin anew; again.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-sport/socceroos-need-goalfest-to-avoid-exit-20100620-yoa6.html

Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek has made it clear Australia need a Balkanic eruption against Serbia to have any chance of avoiding the World Cup exit door.

Needing a win over the Serbs and favours from elsewhere to enter the round of 16, Verbeek believes Germany will beat Ghana in their final match on Wednesday (THURS AEST).

And that means Australia will need lots of goals to beat the Balkan nation in the match being played simultaneously in Nelspruit to rectify a skewed goal difference that could see them exit the tournament even with a victory.
Advertisement: Story continues below

The Socceroos' gutsy 1-1 draw with 10 men against Ghana on Saturday leaves their World Cup on a mathematical knife-edge.

If Australia beat Serbia and Ghana beat Germany, the Socceroos qualify for the second stage.

An Australian victory and a Germany win won't be enough unless the Germans and/or Australia slam in plenty of goals to balance the goal difference equation in the Socceroos' favour.

So Verbeek has foreshadowed loading up on goalscoring options to help conjure the right result.

"We have to go for it, we have to win this game, there is no discussion," Verbeek said of the Serbia match.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1288055/Michael-Jacksons-children-to-school-time.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

After years of living as one of the most closely protected families in the world, Michael Jackson’s three children are to attend school for the first time.

In an emotional interview to mark the first anniversary of the singer’s death, their grandmother and guardian Katherine Jackson has told The Mail on Sunday that she is determined to give Prince, Paris and Blanket a more conventional upbringing.

Until now, they have been taught at home, in keeping with Michael ’s policy of keeping them largely hidden from the outside world.

‘I’d say I’m a little less strict but I’ve tried to follow the way Michael was raising them,’ she says in her first interview since he died of a suspected heart attack on June 25 last year at his Los Angeles home.

‘But they don’t have friends. They don’t go to school. They have private lessons at home. They’ll be going to a private school in September for the first time.’

The 80-year-old great-grandmother laughs at the idea the children could ever have a wholly normal life, but says they have a healthy routine of daily schoolwork, karate and swimming.

She says there is hardly a day without visits from members of her extended family to her home in Los Angeles. ‘Having them around has helped the children immensely. They go places together and have fun. They listen to Michael’s music.’

Katherine has come under media scrutiny again in recent weeks after reported comments by her husband, Joe Jackson, who said she was in part responsible for Michael’s death – a sentiment he has now retracted.

And last week her youngest son, Randy, was rushed to hospital with a heart attack, but he seems to be recovering.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1288055/Michael-Jacksons-children-to-school-time.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0rN3gH2Fc

Well Then

*

Five minutes to midnight. In fact five minutes to one as he sat in the hotel opposite the Foreign Correspondents Club. Many things, many things, many times, many times. He was having difficulty processing the whole experience. Days passed. Depressing, throw in some humour, James says; and the German man sidles up to him at 5am in the nightclub, I can see, you are very funny man, I want to talk to you. Offers him yabba in the toilets. Make way make way. But at five minutes to midnight there was no solution. I want to come with you to the airport, I ask my boss, says the handsomest boy in the cafe. Maybe my boss not happy. I don't care. The boss approves, with big brown puzzled eyes. There was nothing to be puzzled about. Perhaps nowhere else in the world but Pnom Penh could the incantation: "You want take care I tip you $20" produce such magical results. Happy, happy, astonished by the beauty of the flesh, the young man defiantly held his hand in the tuk tuk, in a society where no such thing is approved; where the sight of a foreigner with a handsome man produces that instant assumption. And in such good humour. I give the boy, a different boy, not his boy, one dollar tip, take me to the markets, help me buy a bag. They make the joke: maybe you too will come back with new jeans, new shirt. They all laugh. Even him.

In these days, post the debacle, in the days after he had given a Bangkok street boy a thousand dollars to go away, he felt, well he had no idea. Sad, perhaps, but this was Asia. There was no need to sleep alone. I don't know why I was so vulnerable to the situation, he said; and evolving saga, but he knew, really knew. Sleepless, he would watch them sleeping. Moi, moi, many days, they would say, and he was conscious of the deft hand and the flickering fingers; the easy embrace. I take care of you long time. Yeh, sure. But every now and then; when they would meet every day at four and go to some other hotel, cheap hotel, under three hours five dollars, and these embraces would fill the holes he never expected to meet, and fly from one country to another, as if he had been doing it all his life, which in some ways he had, and these terrible things, these terrible times, he sat in the soi long enough to work out where the Thais, not the foreigners, were going, and followed the Thais. Because they always knew best. Anything foreign made them uncomfortable. He'd been in enough cheap brothels to know.

Well what a sight they set. Tbhe two street boys permanently camped in his room. The hotel staff disapproving. Until wide spread tips brought back the smiles and the salutes. You are falang. We don't care what you do. You pay. You are mature. I like girl, I like lady boy, now I want pappa, and everywhere, he spread the load, and they laughed and laughed, until they ran completely off the rails and there was a grim faced emptiness at the end of the season, when they had run so far off the rails, so far from any normal life, that there could be no going back. He was struggling to come back. Every day now, on his own now, well, occasionally on his own now, he did the laundry and kept to secret places, watched the path, watched everything pass, listened to crap, felt the days pass, felt, "you very handsome", I give him a thousand dollars and send him south to see his family, you meet nice girl, you get normal job, not come Bangkok he advised. Bangkok not good for you. He had seen now. Through all that strange distress and obsession and yes, absolutely hysterical fun, through the long nights and the long days and the wonderful companionship, there in the hours, where you from? Australia. He could hear them talking and the hours pass away. The boys laughed. Boom boom boom, pop, gesturing, and even in his sleep Baw would be humping the bed, dreaming of sex, dreaming of ladies.

Everybody know he is too crazy to have a relationship with; but he didn't know. He only see at the end. He go back to the same soi where the two month saga began; criss crossing Thailand, costing far too much money. What a party that lad had at his expense; but then, what a party he had been taken on. If only, if only, young again. I wouldn't sleep with me, not for sixty dollars a day, he joked, and so the strange kindness, the strange intimacies that pass between men, those intense, fragmented friendships, those crazy things; could this boy really be so gorgeous. Did he really utter those words: You can do anything you like to me. You are happy, I am happy. Well, as everyone knew, there was only one cure to get over a sex worker; buy another. And so of course he did. And for some days he would wake up sandwiched between the Baws; the street boy who had led him on such a merry dance and his languidly, limpidly handsome friend, also called Baw. So when Peter rang, out of the blue, he was standing in the street waiting for the limpidly handsome one to finish his haircut, at his expense, of course, everything was at his expense, and he could only think: if you spent a million years trying to design the most handsome boy on the planet, you could not come up with this. The girlfriend would ring, and be fobbed off. He was with his friend Baw. He was working. That was it.

There was no conclusion. There was only another day. And this day, sure as mud, he would follow the Thais again, watch the show at X Boys, find his way home in the heart of Bangkok, pay again, often for mixed results, often for perfect results, and think: where did that old life go, where he walked the streets at 2am and was always different, always alone, through the long sleepless nights. Now he could sleep. That made all the difference. His arm encircled a paid for body and he didn't care. There wasn't any point in being alone. Not now. He had left Pnom Penh but wished he hadn't; wished they were back in the five dollars for under three hours hotel; wished they were still pretending inthe hotel that nothing was happening; wished for once they could do again. And everything was laughter. Everything a joke. It would be over soon. Let's face it, we're not going to live forever. What are you going to do on your birthday? Ben asked and he smiled. I cannot think of any excess that I haven't already done; oh, perhaps the four hand boy massage for 900 baht, haven't tried that. So be clean and clear; make way; a heroin habit would have been cheaper, that was all he could think of to say, in a topsy turvy world. Soccer played on every screen. Thailand is obsessed with soccer; and he, by now, was obsessed with nothing, having worked through everything. Good night, the lady at the hotel said as he checked out; paying the grand bill with the two boys standing behind him, watching; and as she tried to correct her mistake he said: it feels like that. And she just started laughing; and then the whole counter was laughing; and they were all laughing. All debauchery has an ending.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/penrith-polls-close-libs-tipped-to-win-20100619-ynk2.html

Polls have closed in the electorate of Penrith with a bruising defeat expected for the government.

Counting is currently underway after polling stations closed at 6pm (AEST) as Labor is predicted to get a hammering in the western Sydney seat, with swings of up to 30 per cent to Liberal candidate Stuart Ayres being tipped.

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally herself has flagged such a large shift away from her government.

Labor currently holds the seat by a margin of 9.2 per cent.

Penrith voters are expected to take a bat to the government over the spate of recent political scandals, including former member Karyn Paluzzano, who resigned amid corruption allegations.

Ms Keneally, who helped Labor candidate John Thain hand out how-to-vote flyers at Penrith South public school, said she always knew the Penrith by-election was going to be a tough battle.

She denied not doing enough to help Mr Thain campaign in the electorate - a criticism levelled at the premier by the opposition and Greens.

Ms Keneally was unapologetic for leaving her polling day appearance in Penrith to the afternoon - when it would have the least impact on voters - saying she was attending her son's soccer games on Saturday morning.

"I make no apology for spending Saturday morning doing what I always do - going to my children's soccer games," she told reporters.

Ms Keneally said the Paluzzano scandal would hurt Labor in Penrith.

The former MP has been accused of rorting public funds and then lying to the corruption watchdog about it.

"We do expect that people will respond to that," she said.

Meanwhile, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell toured Penrith polling booths with Liberal candidate Mr Ayres on Saturday morning.

Mr Ayres was doubtful the Liberals would give Labor a drubbing - despite widespread predictions the ALP will suffer a strong swing against it.

http://news.scotsman.com/12007/Red-Shirt-leaders-may-face.6363995.jp

ELEVEN leaders of Thailand's "Red Shirt" anti-government protests could face the death penalty after being charged with terrorism.
They were denied bail by a Bangkok court and taken to prison after being charged with committing, threatening to commit and supporting terrorist acts. While the charges carry a maximum penalty of death, executions are rare in Thailand.

The leaders, including Veera Musikapong and Weng Tojirakarn, had been detained since surrendering on 19 May after weeks of clashes between the Red Shirts and security forces – nearly 90 people were killed and some 1,400 injured.

The Red Shirts were demanding a dissolution of parliament and new elections, claiming the government had come to power illegally.