Abuse
Mark Foley has plenty to be ashamed of, apparently, including his lawyer, who is now offering his client’s own history of childhood abuse and sexual orientation as something like an excuse. Frankly, the latter is largely irrelevant, except in which pages would have been subjected to harassment, and the latter is only relevant insofar as it underscores why such abuse is so serious. It seems, however, that Rep. Foley wasn’t so much a perpetrator of abuse as just a creep, although that doesn’t make his actions any less improper or potentially harassing. And there’s the real issue to be addressed.

Guidelines for addressing sexual harassment are well-established in the States at this point. Most large businesses (and many small ones) have set forth policies and procedures for handling complaints, and they’re based on laws and regulations and court case precedents and EEOC-issued policy papers. For any Federal government body to fail in its duty is indicative of a serious failure of oversight. It was bad enough that we had the embarrassing admissions of the Lewinsky affair, but there’s considerable room in that incident for it to have been a matter of censure rather than a full-blown case of workplace harassment. No such leeway is evident here, particularly in the actions of the Speaker of the House.

If it’s true that he knew of Foley’s actions in 2005 and did nothing, then he would be at fault, just as liable to redress as Foley himself. Although Congresspersons are essentially independent contractors, that they identify with a party and work therein according to party directives and discipline under the supervision of the Speaker makes them functionally employees, and their employers have a responsibility hierarchically to ensure they act according to ethical standards.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert will have violated those ethics by failing to take the matter with due seriousness to the same degree and in the same kind as Foley’s actions have done. He should step down immediately pending the outcome of a properly conducted DOJ investigation.

Colossus
Independent bookstores struggle, and it’s no surprise. But for all the convenience of and discounts from the on-line retailers, sometimes a bookstore is the only way to get what you want, especially if what you want is the experience of searching for an unspecified something to read, or, as the soon-to-close Coliseum Books did for me, when you need something that only an overstuffed store will allow to stay on its shelf. That’s how I ended up with a complete set of the Martin Beck mysteries years after I’d first encountered >The Laughing Policeman. It was also my bookstore, while the rest of my NYC family had Scribners or Brentano’s or (before it was a chain) Barnes & Noble. My first job in the city was just a couple of blocks away, so I spent many more lunch hours there than was good for my take-home pay. I’m sorry their shutting up, and I’m sure there will be others who are, too.

Despicable
The new torture laws passed by the Senate will surely go down in history as one of the most heinous acts of legislation ever perpetrated by the United States. The 12 Democrats who voted in favor of the new law are bedwetters and don’t deserve their seats.

Carper – Delaware
Liberman (of course) – Connecticut
Lautenberg – New Jersey
Landrieu – Louisiana
Johnson – South Dakota
Menendez - New Jersey
Nelson – Florida
Nelson – Nebraska
Pryor – Arkansas
Rockefeller – West Virginia
Salazar – Colorado
Stabenow – Michigan

I’d vote for a Republican before I’d vote for any of these fools, but only Lieberman, Carper, Menendez, the Nelsons, and Stabenow are up for re-election in the mid-terms. Now that Lieberman’s running as an Independent, Connecticut has the chance to vote Democratic anyway, but it’d be a shame to lose the other four seats, when we need to gain six to re-take the Senate. Nevertheless, if you’re in favor of torture, you’re no friend to America.

Webtools
Every now and then something comes up on the internet that makes me think: Wow. Map My Run may not be flying car-cool, but it is a terrific tool. I’ve just had a go at mapping a couple of areas here in Sydney, one being the Parramatta Park Runners Club route, and I’m so impressed that I may spend altogether too much time planning out training runs. (If any of my job prospects come through – and they’d better do it soon – this could be a great resource for working out distances for lunch hour programs.) But the coolest feature of all is the Play feature, using Google Earth (which, if you haven’t downloaded it yet, you should), which tilts the map about a third or so and navigates along your plotted course, beginning to end, displaying the satellite images along the way. Genius.

Thirty Years Gone
Back at the Bicentennial I left behind that supposedly experientially iconic condition: High School. “Supposedly,” because it’s really only in certain boys’ lit and Hollywood output that it marks some magical coming-of-age transition, whereas real life isn’t often like that at all. Sure, some – and no small number – have high school as the end of schooling and thus their entry into adult life, but it’s reasonable to say that their passage will be more often fraught than not and of no less duration than for those going on to university and then moving into family and jobs and all such responsibility therein entailed. What’s still remarkable to me, however, is that anyone would bother me with an invitation to attend a reunion. The fact that I live now in Australia has nothing to do with my surprise, but that I had only a few friends, none of whom appear on the reunion committee list, and, if generally regarded at all, was probably generally regarded as a social waste of time, much as I saw my classmates, for that matter. Sure, they’re all “different” now, as am I, as the Counsellor pointed out in our email correspondence on the matter, but I’d contend that we’re also still likely to be very much the same people, carrying some of the same attitudes and behaviors we were forming then. High school was a trial, mostly, a torturous endurance test with just enough educational benefit to keep me from losing interest altogether. Once I left, I pretty much never saw or heard from any of the other 400+ classmates again, and have only ever occasionally wondered as to the fate of any of them. I’m certainly even less interested now. I have nothing in particular against the school I attended, the students, or even any of the teachers, or at least not much in that last category –some of them were at least trying to keep me and everyone else interested and were themselves fairly passionate about what they were teaching. Yes, there were some I’d rather not have had to contend with, but that’s true of people in my adult life since, so maybe it was good training. If nothing else, none of them left any scars as such, and the others left some worthwhile datum or another. And although I was graduated from one high school, my secondary education started at another institution, a boarding school I was asked to leave after one year, and they’re the ones with whom I credit the skills that carried me through a post-graduate tertiary degree. The study habits inculcated in me there, whether in rote-learning exercises or for more analytical applications, were trialled through more intensive testing than I’d spend the next three years having to contend with, and both the habits and the test-taking skills have proven their worth ever since. And while I never later met or even much thought of any of those classmates either, it’s less of a surprise, since they were drawn from a much broader geographic area than my graduating high school class, and if any of them successfully made it through the four years and the intended tertiary program thereafter, would have likely been spread even further yet (although not as far as this end of the earth). Few of them would have, and many would not be looking back there now, but whether the one school or the other, they can keep it.

Ministerial Mysteries
Does John Howard want to create a Ministry for Water? Maybe not yet; after all, while years of drought may mean we have a problem getting enough fresh water, there isn’t any problem with global warming, so the problem is sure to fix itself eventually.

But why be so cagey? Why is this such a bad idea? Water is a big issue here, and we’re likely to have to do something about it sooner rather than later. A ministry to see to the development of conservation and management on a federal level sounds like the kind of planning that would be worthwhile. Or should we wait until it’s time for a War on Water?

(Meanwhile, there had been some news reports that Bush was planning an announcement of a major turnaround on global warming policy, with speculation it was being done to disrupt a potential Gore candidacy in 2008. So what happened, did somebody convince him it would disrupt oil sales?)

Season Well
Maybe it’s one of those cases where I just don’t remember from year to year, but this seems to be the earliest bush fire season start since I got to this country, and it’s certainly been one hot, dry Spring. Yesterday, out on the awning cleaning the front windows, there was a distinct scent of fire in the air, and not that barbeque cooking smell or the pleasant odor of a woodfire in winter. With a fresh El Niño forming in the Pacific, this could be a very difficult summer. And still everybody mocks Al Gore.

What’s that Smell?
Let’s see: Bush makes a speech at the UN. Chavez follows with a speech where he calls Bush the devil and says the podium smells like sulphur. Customs detains Venezuela’s foreign minister at JFK on his way out of town but doesn’t have an explanation. Cause and effect? You decide.

Our Duty
Of course a deal was made, look at the participants. On one side, President Torqumada , and on the other Senators Warner, Graham, and – of course – McCain. “We did our duty,” says Warner, but their duty consists of backing down to Bush. It’s McCain, in the end, who most infuriates me. Here’s a man who knows what being a POW is about and what can happen if your captors are not bound by quaint treaties, like the Geneva Conventions. And yet he’s happy – again – to sign off on allowing secret overseas prisons and the use of abusive interrogation techniques – torture, in fact. McCain signed off because the legislation, as he previously waffled over, turns the responsibility onto the CIA, keeping the military out of it. That doesn’t really cut it, John. Do you think anyone on the other side cares if their people are being tortured by spies versus soldiers, or that having a soldier in their care they would act differently than if they captured a CIA agent? I think we already know the answer to that. To say that secret detention and torture are less reprehensible when conducted by or under the aegis of the CIA makes the agency separate from the rest of the government, leaves them out from under the cover and the legal requirements of the Constitution, and puts every American at risk, as if things weren’t bad enough already. Either the CIA is part of the federal government or it isn’t. McCain is serving a very narrow class of American by caving in on Bush’s legislation and dog-whistling to the Bush constituency. It’s craven, immoderate, self-serving politics, and it’s no surprise at all.

Inexpert Opinion
Judge Richard Posner of the 11th Circuit, is a well-respected jurist and well-received public commentator on matters of law, and has now weighed in on the limits of power under the Constitution in the so-called War on Terror™ in his book, >Not a Suicide Pact. But the latest review of his position suggests he’d have been better sticking to matters of administrative law or the economic analysis of law, his area of expertise, and given the outline of his arguments, I’d have to agree. Somehow I always expect senior jurists to come down in favor of a robust support for civil liberties, despite Scalia et al., but I guess that’s unrealistic. Is it Nixon’s fate that so weighs on the judge that he can’t see the validity of limits on Executive power? I wouldn’t have pegged him for a bedwetter, but if he’s that scared, maybe he should retire so he can stay home.

Another Velvet Morning
The Velvet Underground are often touted as both the best and the worst thing to ever happen to rock ‘n’ roll. (It’s also frequently said that everyone who ever heard the Velvets immediately went on to start a band of their own, part of “best thing,” maybe.) They’re not included in this list, although some far better examples of “worst things” are. I have to agree with number 25: tribute albums, in particular, with the possible exception of I’m Your Fan, the Leonard Cohen tribute, that has the best version of “Hallelujah” you’ll ever hear (in your face, Rufus Wainwright). O.k., M., yes, the >Jeff Buckley version is very good. The rock poet entry will be somewhat controversial at home, too.

Apologies & Retractions
So the pope makes a speech in which he makes some fairly insulting comments about Islam in the course of quoting some medieval bigot and has to apologize for causing offense. It takes him awhile to do it, too, initially relying on spokesmen and then having to come out himself and say he’s sorry. It wasn’t much of an apology, and it didn’t do a lot to calm anyone down, but the Muslims burning him in effigy and issuing fatwas and the like are a minority and should really consider whether they care so very much about what the leader of somebody else’s religion has to say about theirs. Whether or not the pope was really trying to make a point about an open dialogue between Roman Catholic Christianity and Islam – and it sounds like a stretch to me – or was name-calling or whatever, God or Allah or whatever deity you worship doesn’t need nuns murdered or street marches or anything else to defend it. However, Cardinal Pell doesn’t have to make things worse for his boss by essentially retracting the apology. There is a modern history of mass violence among Muslims that isn’t paralleled in the global Christian community and that ought to be addressed. Islam, doesn’t have the structures in place to achieve a Reformation or to broadly adjust matters of doctrine, but that doesn’t make it less necessary to do so. The fact that this religion is such an integral part of the identities of its adherents culturally, the single defining element of the lives of millions upon millions who are otherwise entirely distinct from one another, and that Islam has essentially mired itself into a nearly unreformable static condition, in no small part by making Arabic the language of God, also seems to make Muslims rather sensitive to the interpretations of others, and those others might want to take that into account in making public pronouncements. We would all, indeed, do better with an open dialogue between the factions, but that doesn’t preclude being polite.

Visa Vie
Why opposition leader, Kim Beazley, has proposed a visa issuance signing statement should be incomprehensible, but really only highlights that under his leadership, many of the differences between the ALP and the Liberals have been eroded, unfortunately by making the ALP more rightwing than left-. While it is entirely reasonable to require entrants to this (or any other) country to agree to abide by its laws, it’s a different matter to have them explicitly sign up to abide by its “values.” How do you define these? What is “mateship” or “a fair go”? What other values are to be included? Values aren’t the same as ethics, morals, or laws. They’re more aspirational. If the ALP can legislate the conditions of “a fair go,” then fair enough, I suppose, but I still think it’s silly, at best, and another failed attempt by Mr. Beazley to co-opt the dog-whistle politics of the PM to benefit his own party, one that’s supposedly more committed than Mr. Howard’s is to precisely such values as he wants immigrants to sign up for, even if such signing statements serve an opposite principle. (Besides, there are clear indications we don’t value our values as much as we used to, anyway.)

Peter Pays Paul?
If the FA-18 radar upgrade doesn’t work, then spending AU$200 million on it certainly should be stopped, but I wonder if the money won’t just go for the controversial Joint Strike Fighter program, a defense-budget blow-out itself, and what will become of the Hornets if they can't go into a "hot zone" as is?

I was talking to M.’s elderly cousin, Don, on the phone last week, and he mentioned watching some of the programming that’s been on about the events of September 2001, and his voice was full of anger. He didn’t rant about Muslims or “them” or anything like that, but he was working his way to it, building up a head of steam, and I had to cut him off. We hadn’t watched any of it, didn’t go to United 93, won’t go to the Oliver Stone movie, and didn’t watch last night’s Part 1 of the Disney neo-con exploitation of that day’s death and destruction. It’s still too close. It may always be so.

Everyone is asking now, do you feel safer? Is the world different? For me, the answer to both questions is, no. But that’s too simple. I don’t feel I’m in any more danger, not to death or injury in a terrorist attack, than I ever was. The world is just as dangerous as it was in 2000 or in pretty nearly all the years I’ve been alive, and the U.S. going to war in Iraq hasn’t made any difference there, unless it’s been to have inflamed who started out aggrieved over injustices, perceived and real, inflicted by a system the U.S. has long since come to represent, a system of exploitation and dehumanisation on behalf of profit.

It doesn’t matter how true any of it may be, but it does matter how much people believe it. Hearts and minds – right? Well, that’s part of it, anyway.

The main thing, right now, is that today, five years on, the biggest change is the world is in us, Americans, Australians, British, etc.: the West. There are a lot more of us a lot more aware than before of the rest of the world, and that ought to be a good thing. It’s unfortunate, then, that so many of us have simply bought into the hateful rhetoric and cowardly principles being sold to promote more death and destructions. Clash of civilizations? Give me a break. Threat to the free world, the freedom-loving world, that democratic way of life? Please. The only threat we face to the progress of freedom in the world is the ease with which a few of our own leaders are willing to subvert the principles by which we live for just another day’s political leverage, just another percentage point of profit.

Today, my greatest fears aren’t from terrorism, but of more Diebold voting machines, more cronyism and more Swift-boat politics. My greatest fears come true when governments act to undo the good work of previous administrations or when they lie, promote lies, or just cover up the truth and hope they’ll get away with it.

It hurt a lot when the towers came down, and I’ll never forget what I saw, what I could smell in the air for days afterward. But it didn’t make me hate anyone and it didn’t make me want to foster hate in others and it didn’t make me afraid. And the only thing that’s really made me angry is everything done since to exploit that day.

Crikey
What else can you say upon hearing that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, is dead? I guess he was always going to go out this way, killed by a wild creature he got too close to, although stabbed through the heart sounds more like street crime than something that would happen swimming with stingrays. (Growing up on the south shore of Long Island, we always heard about stingrays and were told to be careful about where we stepped to avoid getting a painful slash on our foot or leg, but clearly these are stingrays of a different order.) He did a lot of good work in conservation and for the protection of endangered species and may have been a somewhat cringe-inducing face of Australia to the rest of the world, but endearing just the same, for his enthusiasm and sincerity.

The Long, Hot Summer
There’ve been indications that this past winter may have been colder than last year’s, and, meanwhile, back in the northern hemisphere, the same period had extended periods of excessive heat. So when I hear warnings of a fresh El Niño and a subsequent extension of the current drought, which has been persisting for a few years now, already, and which has led to Sydney tapping deep reserves and other regions’ water systems, I have to start thinking about what I can do to decrease my own utilisation. This is a puzzler. We live in an apartment block, and our water rates won’t decrease just because I use grey water on the plants (not to mention that even during the height of summer, with two of us, there’ll be more than enough to keep the few plants well irrigated for the duration). It’s more of a moral imperative, than practical application. I’d like to have a rainwater tank, perhaps especially because we live in the city, so all our runoff heads pretty much straight into the harbour, rather than being caught in the catchments or otherwise feeding into and replenishing the ground water. Of course, it doesn’t do much good even in the Western Suburbs, where there’s at least as much storm water management wastefulness as not, but here there’s more room for single family dwellings and thus a greater possibility for recycling. Mostly I don’t like the idea because last summer was hot enough, and while I may have acclimated (negatively) to winter, I haven’t yet to summer. The idea of spending my summer commuting to Parramatta has no appeal, given the higher temperatures, and even if they’re only a degree or two or five. Those centigrade degrees can cover a lot more ground than Fahrenheit.

No Job
I mean, the one I was after, which didn’t pan out – four interviews and three hours of psychometric testing, and I didn’t get the job because I wasn’t “passionate” about consulting (whatever that’s supposed to mean). I’m left thinking it was a personality problem with the boss, whom I didn’t meet until the final interview, and that I ought to send them a bill for the time spent with them. Since I’d get $60 per hour in consulting fees, approximately, and I could charge travel, it’d be worth about $450. Since I spent preparation time, too, let’s just round that up to a mortgage payment and call it even. I mean, if Qantas can charge its applicants for testing fees, why can’t I charge prospective employers for the time they force me to spend with them to no purpose. Bah. Passion. I’ll show you passion: I’m passionate about getting paid.

Here Comes the Sun
Once upon a time the sun came up and it was morning and the sun went down and it was night. Then, supposedly to get more daylight working hours in a day for the farmers, we changed how time works, so that now, every Spring we move our clocks ahead an hour and every Fall we move them back. Except in Indiana, where they rely on more primitive reckonings of time, I guess, and in the Australian states, where one state’s Daylight Savings Time is another one’s not-just-yet. Unless Victoria Premier Steve Bracks can convince the rest of eastern Australia to adopt a uniform change-over. I’d prefer we just stick with one and let the earth rotate as it pleases without reference to whether or not farmers can manage to work out what time it is. It’s pretty easy, really: in summer the days are longer; in winter the nights are. Sun’s up, plants grow; go thou and do likewise. Or something. Look at England: they used to shut the pubs so the Germans wouldn’t have all those lights on to guide their bombers. Now everybody gets to stay out really late and don’t have to drink eight pints of lager as soon as the barman calls, “Time, gentlemen.” Although that does mean there’re lots of bombed people bombing around between the pubs and home in the dark.

It was Mom & Dad’s 50th, back in NC, and I had a nice bouquet lined up to arrive as a commemorative from M. and I in our absence, necessitated by 12,000 miles between us and them, when the first email arrived and announced a devastating death in the family, Dad’s cousin Eileen. I called as soon as the sun was aligned properly for all of us to be up, but missed them. Then I went in to check email, as I do each morning, only to discover that on the same day, Dad’s brother had also died.

Eileen was definitional to me of my father’s generation. Dad himself, you’d say, would be, but he’s too close to see with that kind of perspective. Eileen, on the other hand, was an imposing, iconic figure, even while she was also immensely fun: witty, urbane, dismissive and sharply deflating of pomposity, I developed an association with her of cocktails and elegance and style. Her presence was always an occasion and made any occasion an event. Younger Brother, T., credits the food she served at her holiday parties with an early interest in cooking and why he became a chef. The Counsellor was always close to Eileen’s daughter, R., and that would be in no small part due to the fact that her character was so deeply reflective of her mother’s. Most of all, I recognize that Dad’s lost a person who was for him a foil, much as he was for her, the two of them brightening the other whenever they were together.

Hardest of all for Dad, of course, is losing his little brother, Roy. I suppose my memories of Roy are always going to be colored by those early encounters. I’ve never forgotten how he’d play with us, engaging us on a level that most adults wouldn’t have been bothered stooping to, but always interested, always a figure of humor and kindness. He was an entertainer, someone to be relied upon for music, even if his greatest accomplishment in that regard was the ukulele. In later years we didn’t see as much of him or our cousins, even though they lived not very far, but separate families grow their own ways and often grow apart, regardless of proximity. It was a source of frustration for Dad and for us all that Roy so limited contact between them, but none of us ever doubted they loved each other.

Strange they should go on the same day, and hard to bear. It alters the family landscape more than I can express, although it’s changed so much in the last five years or so I’d hardly managed even to take in those alterations. When Mom’s brother, John, died, that was a blow, but one we’d been prepared for, as he’d kept us involved with his terminal illness throughout the course of treatment. When Roy’s middle daughter, Jane, died, we only learned of it afterwards, and to be honest I still haven’t fully learned to exclude her from my familial reckonings. I suppose it’ll be much the same now with Eileen and Roy, so much a part of so much of my life that I cannot do anything but to have them with me always.

Signs
Since moving to Australia, I’ve heard a lot about the wonderful economic results of the Howard years, mostly, of course, from the PM himself and his front-benchers. As is usually the case, this government inherited an economy that was on the upswing and benefited and was able to claim the results as its own. But the real estate market and various other indictors – bananas and fuel prices, if you were listening to Peter Costello and Mr. Howard these past few weeks – show we’re headed for a downturn. How bad it will ultimately be is impossible to know, and the Reserve Bank is doing what it can with inflation by raising interest rates. (All well and good for the economy, but for actual people, it’s a killer: mortgages jump, credit cards jump; only people who managed to have investments outside property are going to see anything out of this, oh, and the banks, of course.) But we still get the jobless rate and so forth trumpeted as signs of how well the Prime Minister and his Treasurer are managing the economy.

Like the President, there’s no real power inherent to the PM, or, for that matter in government overall to manage the economy. Governments manage the spending of tax money, and their spending can impart some measure of health into the economy, whether or not it’s at any given time more or less artificial, such as was the case in the wartime economy of the Vietnam era or now that we’re in the perpetual War on Terror years. Business, as a monolithic entity in and of itself, is irrational, reactive to perceived trends and world events as managed by government, but that’s because capitalism, as administered by individual businesses, is competitive, and everyone takes their advantage where they can and bunkers where and when they feel they must.

But if you believe the economy is doing so well, then why is it that both the companies I’ve worked for since my arrival have undertaken massive layoffs? That can’t just be chance. Sure, I’m glad I’m relatively safe this time: fixed-term appointment due to expire before the next school year begins, job search already underway and two good prospects in hand; that doesn’t mean I got lucky. No, the economy is tanking and companies that are heavily reliant on the spending power of ordinary people are immediately affected and will take immediate cost reductions in response. Ordinary people can’t afford private schools when they can barely afford their mortgages, let alone a tank of petrol, and they can’t afford pricey security systems. Bread-and-butter land is being hit in the pocketbook, and that’s bringing down profits elsewhere. It’s only just begun. We’ve been living in a false economy for some years now, and its hollow nature and the hollow claims of the Howard government are being tolled like a funeral bell.

Maxima Culpa
So, Gunter Grass was an SS Nazi. And this comes out just after I bought a remaindered copy of Crabwalk, his most recently celebrated novel, so I am faced with finally getting around to reading this celebrated, Nobel Prize-winning, anti-Nazi author’s work just when his reputation blows up. I suppose if I’d read The Tin Drum or something back when I first encountered it (or even had seen the movie), I’d have something to work with in coming to terms with what it all means, but instead have to contend with Mr. Grass’s past’s effect at the same time as I come to assess his work. Looking at his time in the service of the monsters of Europe, he doesn’t present a history entirely different from that of another former SS soldier, one more recently elevated to a position of even higher moral authority than a literature prize: Pope Benedict XVI. Well, except for the fact that Grass actually volunteered and believed in the war up until the Nuremburg trials showed him the reality. And both men kept their past pretty well covered up, though one by silence, the other by, well, not lies exactly, but not the full truth. Is Grass discredited then? Or can we say, in making this revelation, he finally has come to admit his sins and repent them even while he has long been attempting to atone for them?

Travel Plans
As things progress with this whole consulting opportunity, I have to think about whether this job really is right for me. I’m about to undergo psychometric testing, a common pre-offer assessment here in Australia, and, assuming I pass (and I have pretty much always tested well, except for that time back in the 80’s when I was evaluating an on-line psychometric test and it told me I needed professional help), an offer would indeed be forthcoming. They know I can’t travel right now, but the Sydney office is the resource for the Asia-Pac region, and they’ve got a big project going on in the Philippines, so it wouldn’t be long before I was getting on a plane.

There are people for whom that’s a daunting prospect, but I’m not one of them, except for the inconveniences presented these days. No liquids. No books or magazines (in England, anyway, and that won’t last). No mp3 or CD or tape players. No nail clippers (but who clips their nails on a flight?), etc. Take off your shoes, and all that. Such nonsense. I just don’t want the hassle.

More importantly, however, I’m not 25 years old and single. I have responsibilities at home, and this job would send me out of town for weeks at a time. Sure, it’s just an independent adult person and a couple of cats and an enormous apartment, but saying “it’s just” glosses over a lot of detail that needs due consideration.

That’s balanced, to the degree that compensation is balancing, by the money, which promises to be plenty, although they are inevitably going to low-ball me. Even so, I can expect a substantial increase over what I can expect to earn staying put, and can hope for performance bonuses now and then, an added incentive I wouldn’t see elsewhere. And we really need a reliably substantial income.

Which is another factor: reliability. How reliable is consulting work? Granted, this is an international practice of long-standing and high reputation, but these kinds of outfits aren’t above the old last-in, first-out staffing methodology, and any diminution of the practice or failure of it to grow according to “strategic” plans would see me on the street sooner rather than later. That’s not true where I am now, although anywhere else I may go is going to see me less safe rather than more, regardless of the nature of the business. Meanwhile, I’ve always been an “in-house” employee, never a “hired gun.” I don’t know what the demands really are or how they’d affect me beyond the obvious issues of travel vs. home. I’ve never even looked at being a consultant, never been head-hunted by one of the big consulting practices, never had to make a choice that wasn’t obvious.

Maybe I won’t pass the psych profile. I’m a little more eccentric than not. Look, I still write poetry. I keep a ‘blog. I’ve got cats instead of children. But I probably will pass, and then I’ll have to choose.

That’s One Thing I Don’t Want to Catch
Say, whatever did happen to the anthrax investigations?

Norse Mythology Needs an Upgrade
There will be twelve planets to learn about in schools, following a bonanza decision for textbook publishers by the International Astronomical Union. I only read about “Xena” a week or two ago, but I didn’t recall anything about Charon and Ceres. (And Ceres, o.k., she was a Roman deity, but wasn’t Charon just some other variety of supernatural being? There’s still Janus, Vesta, Juno, Minerva, and Vulcan, after all – although, yes, o.k., we’ve got to leave the Vulcan’s for later, don’t we? Given that we’ve already broken the pattern by going with Uranus, the Greek sky god, couldn’t we break out some other Hellenic names?)

77:07
That's the offical result, adjusted for the gun delay, and a little less than a minute more than what I did last year. I'm going with my watch on this one, because that means I was faster. But their time is the one to use for the video clip tomorrow.

Leave Your Shoes Home
The increased level of passenger inspection requirements and restrictions to carry-on luggage are George Bush’s fault. Yes, that’s right, and the Republican Congress. If, instead of blasting their way into Iraq, they had spent some of the billions and billions of dollars (no small part of which, by the way, has actually been stolen or is otherwise unaccountable) on actual homeland security – you know, that whole new cabinet post responsibility post-September 11 – we might not have to take our shoes off or leave our shaving cream and portable CD players at home (or at the mercy of the luggage handlers, and you can imagine what’s happening to hundreds of laptops right now, as they’re thrown across a room and otherwise banged around a lot more than those vaguely padded briefcases are designed to manage). We could have proper and effective baggage screening, both for carry-on and checked, but instead, we’re making the world safe for oil companies and putting the burden of preventing terrorism on the many millions who actually aren’t terrorists instead of on the law enforcement personnel and processes that really work. The London plot wasn’t uncovered because somebody discovered an airline passenger with some suspicious Gatorade™, but because of surveillance work by the police. George doesn’t want the travel business to have to install new equipment at the airports, so you’ll have to do the work for him.

80:40
Official clock time. My watch put me in at under 5:30 per K, just, which is about what I expected, and about a minute faster than last year. We’ll see what the official discount is on the start (just 2:55 on Group A last year) and adjust accordingly. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the video on Wednesday.

Grabby
The practice of colonial and imperialist dispossession of indigenous people never ended, at least not in Australia, where the Prime Minister is moving the nation away from every progressive action towards Land Rights and Native Title and furthering the nation’s distance from any possibility of reconciliation. The present land grab instance is legislation designed to covertly include acts of dispossession within a cloak of more positive actions and is being pushed through the House and Senate with an absolute minimum of debate. The government relies on the public being uninformed or distracted by phantom terror squads paddling across from Indonesia or retrograde labor laws or interest rate increases, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Join the Get Up! Phone campaign, and let’s have a real debate and positive legislation for a change. It doesn’t always have to go Howard’s way.

Bound for [Anywhere but] Botany Bay
Isn’t this how Australian settlement started: criminals held in prison barges and eventually shipped to the antipodes? What “fatal shore” do we plan to send these illegal immigrants and fishermen to? England?

I’m still not prepared even now when images from that September morning run on t.v. (or, as happened over the weekend, when M. and I went to see Jindabyne, as a preview for United 93, and the Vanity Fair article isn’t nearly as inspirational as that moment when I saw the fighters overhead as I made my way uptown, perhaps because now I know that they were pretty nearly as confused by the events unfolding as I was. The books and movies and songs have been increasing lately, and I’d like to find some way of engaging with it myself, but haven’t reached that point of Wordsworthian “recollection in tranquillity” to allow it, if that isn’t too old fashioned or even possible. Art may indeed have power to transform and even to help heal trauma, so maybe I’m holding on too tightly to that day and the what it changed in me. Maybe delving into these materials is the right thing to do. Certainly the on-line article is an opportunity, with every posted snippet of communication posted as an audio link, but not one I can bring myself to take advantage of. When we saw those two minutes of dramatization, neither of us could entirely contain ourselves, even though, having seen the lobby posters, we were, in part, prepared for the fact that there would be a preview. I guess, like in that Gothamist report, where someone in the audience calls out hopefully in the opening moments of the coming attractions, we might have still hoped for it to be a different trailer, but that was just wishful thinking. Needless to say, I suppose, is that we won’t go see United 93 or the Oliver Stone movie.

16 Miles
When I took this job I never gave a thought to future job searches. If I had, being sited (approx.) 25 kilometres from the city center might have occasioned second thoughts. Well, not really, since when I took this job I was getting pretty desperate. (Not that I regret it or there’s been anything wrong with the job or the employer, just that I needed a job very badly.) Now that I’ve re-initiated contact with my “network” – i.e., the recruiting agencies who hadn’t gotten me a job last time I was looking – I find myself having to schedule trips into Sydney far more frequently than is reasonable for getting my work done here. It’s about a forty- to fifty-minute trip, so that plus the time spent chatting means I spend a quarter or more of any day out of the office. If I was actually in Sydney, it’d just be a matter of popping out at lunch, more or less, but unless lunch starts at 11:00 and runs ‘til 2:00, that’s not really working for me here in Parramatta – and I don’t even get the traditional martinis such a lunch period would normally entail. It would be handy to find someone here to interview with, but that’s not going to happen unless I want to get a job clerking at the local supermarket. Even though Parramatta is often spoken of as one of the “other” city centers (along with Chatswood, for example), there aren’t a lot of major businesses located here. Now Chatswood, to continue to use that example, does have some large IT companies located in the vicinity, and others big enough for my purposes, but Parramatta is another city center, I think, mainly because of two other factors: population and retail. There are a lot of ethnic minorities in the area and a lot of giant shopping complexes, making it a kind of outlying hub. A bit closer in to the city than halfway to the mountains, it serves as a kind of frontier post, although one to be supplanted by Penrith and Blacktown, probably sooner rather than later, or even Richmond, none of which are places I’ve spent much time in, but where my impression is of much more traditionally suburban conditions, by and large.

I haven’t talked openly about my job search to my employer yet. I don’t think they’d fire me or anything, and there’s a hiring freeze on, so they can’t replace me until next year anyway, but I don’t want to be in the position of not having a new job while being known to be spending my time looking. It puts me in a dishonest position, because I’m taking advantage of the company’s very liberal, family-friendly policy of pastoral care to its employees. I’ll have to own up before too long, but I’d like some more solid sense that there is a new job ready before I do.

Plastic Fantastic
I’ve got a couple of hundred LP’s and EP’s and a fair few “select” 45’s, but this database of vinyl auction results isn’t likely to do me much good, if a cursory survey of artists comprising the bulk of my collection is any indication. With (only) 250,000 listings, it probably isn’t terribly comprehensive, especially given that it encompasses every recording classification: Classical, pop, jazz, etc. Still, someday I might find out there’s something in my collection that would put the cats through college.

Don’t Be a Moon-Calf
This professor’s essay on being an English major rings true, although I’m too old to have experienced Dead Poets Society while still deciding on my educational path. I guess the part that resounds most dolorously is that of why undergraduate literature majors fail to complete a Ph.D., as it represents, superficially, my own experience. I didn’t fall to politics, but to a dissatisfaction with the purpose of a post-graduate degree.

(Mom, no, listen, it wasn’t wasted; I still credit what I learned at grad school – or, anyway, how I learned – with much of my success in the world beyond the academy, just as I can credit earlier stages in my education with my success within it.)

And I don’t have to practice what I love so much in secret or as singing along to Barry Manilow.

Work-Life
Once upon a time I thought I’d be a writer and support myself working in publishing. What a cliché. The publisher I worked for taught me to use PC’s, back when PC’s were only just entering the business market and were just past the stage where floppy disks were seven inches in diameter. This translated into a much different career, one I’ve enjoyed a lot over the years, even though I’ve ever been as technically skilled as many people assume I am. I’ve always known just enough to get by, but always learned just a little more as the jobs or job requirements have changed over the years. But one thing I’ve sort of been (perhaps unduly) proud of is that I’ve never worked on a failed project. Now I’ve worked on two. Do I feel a little like a Jonah? Yeah, but I shouldn’t.

The job before this one, the project failed on a number of counts: we ran through a five-year budget in less than two years; we weren’t allowed to have the kind of client contact necessary to understand their specific needs or to persuade them that the project would succeed let alone be of any benefit to them; the company got taken over and the new upper management team were sceptical of the benefits and aghast at the waste. The entire project team got canned, and we flooded the market, leaving me and others of us unemployed for some months thereafter, a personal financial debacle we’ve yet to fully recover from.

Now it’s happened again. At least this time I stand to keep my job for a while yet, because the project was actually successful, and we’ve been paying employees on the new database for two years now. Only because some of the payroll staff are dissatisfied with having to do business differently than they used to – well, and because there are some real functional problems with the software that aren’t going to be resolved anytime soon – we’ve decided to revert to the previous software. I’m not particularly technical, even now, after over fifteen years working on this stuff, but the old product – even with the upgrade it’s undergone and the development being undertaken by the vendor – is so old-fashioned that I’m appalled at the decision. I don’t get to do anything more than that about it, though, just sort of gape in awe at the decision and then get on with the work of helping put things back the way they were. Nevertheless, the project can now only be said to have been a failure, so that’s two.

And hence the job-search. The old database is, essentially, non-commercial. As such, working on it puts me into a bad position. I can only continue to present a valid hiring profile to any prospective employer if my c.v. reflects a background in commercially viable product implementation and development. In-house stuff can’t ever do that, even if I’m using MS-Access, because the business world has moved beyond that kind of data handling solution. Even Microsoft is moving away from supporting the use of Access as anything more than a way for home PC users to catalog their CD collections. And IBM? Well, they haven’t been much of a player in the software market from a very long time ago now, and that’s were we’re heading, so it’s even further off the mainstream.

I’ll do what I can to help, because I’m a good boy, a committed employee in a organization that fosters positive relationships with its staff, but the first good prospect that comes along is going to get a hard sell from me. Meanwhile, I’ll work on my disgruntlement.

Culture Clash
Here’s a question: is it better to travel the world – well, the Asia/Pacific region – and make some serious dough, work on a variety of projects (still within my overall skill set) or continue in my present job for another year or two, working at a place where I feel like I’m part of an organisation dedicated to doing good in the world and where I won’t ever have to do more than ride the trains back and forth between the office and home, won’t learn anything new particularly, but where I’ll always have the kind of work-life balance everyone else only ever talks about supporting? I suppose it isn’t just a question of one or the other; there may be another option later, although it still would fall on the opposite side of the sweet ride I’ve got going now. Next week, in addition to pursuing the job that’s come looking, I’ll interview with another outfit, this time for an in-house leadership role, but one where I’d also branch into other business functions as well as taking up more responsibility. But is that what I want? Ambition’s a funny thing, a drive I can’t say I’ve ever much experienced, preferring safer choices over the last twenty years or so. It’s more been the case that loyalty, that company-man entrenchment, has been my mode: everybody treats everybody right. It doesn’t hold up, if it ever did, really, but I’d still preference a permanent position over being a hired gun. At this time of my life, and with the advantages long-term employment provides in Australia – long service leave, for example – and the disadvantages of short- to mid-term – again, long-service is a good example, which is a stay-10-years-or-give-it-up perq. in many cases (5, where I am, at least in that I’d get paid out for it) – doesn’t sticking it out make sense? Plus, I’m in an “industry superannuation” fund program, which traditionally returns higher rates with lower fees towards my retirement, and that’s not nearly so far off as it seems.

The choice may not, in the end, present itself. These things don’t always pan out, as I learned during my 5-month unemployment stint before landing this job, and sometime fall through even after that all-important second interview. But we’ll see.

Personality Crisis
Is this a trend: Qantas’s Jetstar subsidiary wants applicants to pay for the security and personality profiles required to get a job, a cost of AU$89. How about a little something for the HR guy, too? Do you think if palming a fifty across in a handshake will get you a job as an in-flight waiter? I suppose the security clearance is a bit more thorough than just a police check, which is nothing to speak of, but personality tests are, by many accounts, pretty common in Australia, although I’ve yet to have to go through one. Behavioral interviewing is more common, in my experience, and usually conducted by a panel, once you get past the agency recruiter, anyway, and makes sense, more so than the usual 13-question method; where do you see yourself in 5 years isn’t nearly as helpful as eliciting responses to problem-solving scenarios. But paying for it? Do you get the money back if you take up an offer, like when you have a repairman charge for an estimate?

Surprise, No Surprise
Paul Simon’s latest, Surprise was something I think I heard about first from Jason Kottke and had been simmering away as something I had to hear for a while now, mainly for what seemed, after Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, a natural collaboration with Brian Eno. But while Eno provides well-integrated “soundscapes,” the songs are (just) Paul Simon pop songs, with little of the world music expansiveness of those other albums. Yes, the lyrics are, as always, high-literary, if not outright poetic, and that line about the Golden Retriever poster in “Father and Daughter” made me smile outright, as I’m sure it was intended to, and the music is very good, but that doesn’t make it the same kind of breakthrough Graceland was, but more of a return to form with Eno-ambiance. What I really should have done was listen more carefully in the first place over at paulsimon.com, or, if an Eno project was really my goal, explore more of The Long Now. But I don’t really regret the purchase; Paul Simon’s in good form, and I’ll enjoy listening to this again.

Dirty Deeds
Once upon a time, the Liberal party leader made a stink about backroom deals over who would lead the Labor party, Bob Hawke or Paul Keating, and when. Hawke took the leadership first and was Prime Minister, and when the time came, he handed the reins over to Keating, who was (by many accounts) a better PM. Having been caught out on having made the same deal 12 years ago with his Treasurer, Howard now says there never was a deal, which makes sense, since he broke it. Howard denies it, of course, but that’s just semantics. Power-sharing deals are made all the time at all levels of government. I know someone who was promised a turn at being mayor of his local council (although, like Liberals at the higher level, apparently, such deals aren’t worth the slimy handshake their founded on, since as soon as the guy he was to replace decided to run for State office, the deal got broken; what’s Howard’s excuse? He was the best candidate to beat Menzies record?) There was a deal, but there was no hard promise, nothing that had to be lived up to. Why Costello has remained loyal can only be guessed, although I’d go with the idea that Howard would have to retire eventually and Pete could be pretty well assured that the rest of the mediocrities on the front bench wouldn’t present much of a challenge to him even then. The Treasurer inevitably has a leg up on the rest in a succession because he’s the one responsible for taxes. Health Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Attorney General Philip Ruddock don’t hold anything like a position with the profile of the Treasurer, and by keeping the front bench alignment the way he has, Howard has effectively assured Costello of the starring role whenever he’s ready to give it up. The only ways that won’t happen, even now, is if the federal party decides the present “scandal” is enough of an embarrassment as to deny primogeniture or if Howard chooses to disinherit Costello.

Cat Flu
Are viruses getting stronger, or am I getting weaker? Late last week I came home with a bit of a sore throat, and it escalated into full on like-swallowing-a-scouring-pad-past-a-golf-ball and then proceeded through a head full of cotton wool and I’m still only just back to work. Watching the news over the weekend, an announcement came through to warn me of a tough ‘flu season. Right. Tough enough already, and it wasn’t even ‘flu. I suppose it’s too late to get the shot now, but I may have to think about it next year.

Dr. Strangelove Rising
There are reports that Iran isn’t so far from developing long-range missiles, even intercontinental, and given North Korea’s potential for selling its offensive WMD technology to anyone who’ll pay, I admit to some trepidation over their tests today, although mainly because threatening George Bush with nukes is as bad a plan as going swimming with an opened artery. The White House has been looking for a good excuse to use America’s nuclear weapons, part and parcel with its calls for the development of an entirely new range, the replacement of the existing equipment, and their use in conventional warfare situations, so it’s just as well the tests were a bust. Nevertheless, in an age we’d thought to have seen the end of the nightmare scenarios, this isn’t helping matters. The calls will be stronger, they’ll be listened to more seriously, and the threat of a bomb being dropped somewhere is now closer than ever. Unfortunately, I think it’ll be us before it’ll be “them” that does the dropping. (Maybe I’m just getting old.)

See? That’s Why I Don’t Gamble
It could have been a draw, I suppose, in which case I guess the rules would have sent Italy into the Quarterfinals anyway, but the end of Australia in the World Cup, however much it might be attributable to gout, isn’t really unexpected, whether I was hopeful yesterday or not. Look, it came down to a last minute penalty shot, so it wasn’t the debacle that was being predicted by some, and after more than 30 years, just getting out of the first round has got to be worth something. And in four more years, who knows?

Take a Deep Breath and Suck It Up
The spectre of asbestos haunts much of the world, something I heard about with some frequency back in the States, given A.’s involvement over the years with the prosecution of those who knowingly directed employees in mishandling the stuff or who were otherwise caught up in the years-long clean-up that sometimes seems it will never end. (And it may not, since leaving it alone seems to be the best policy, whenever it’s an option.) That James Hardie after long years of litigation finally achieved a settlement was a great positive development here, and the promised fund would surely go a long way to help those suffering from abestiosis, now and in the future. Except they want the fund to be treated as a “charity,” so that funding it could be written off their taxes. When I first heard the news, on the face of it I thought, well, why shouldn’t it be a charity? But that was just a “headline” understanding, premised on the charitable status being applied on behalf of the victims, which didn’t make sense once I thought about it. I’m with Peter Costello and the rest of the government: Hardie’s has a duty to its victims that shouldn’t be paid by the public at large through some backdoor tax shenanigans. The fund isn’t a charity; it’s compensation. The ATO may yet come up with a ruling that allows the company to more easily manage the accounting trick, but it’s Hardie’s cost, not mine, not the government’s, not the victims’.

Quarter Finals
It’s still a long shot, but I like our chances for making it into the quarter finals. Italy’s got a statistically better win-loss-tie record, having beat the Czechs and Ghana (both of whom beat the U.S. although only Ghana advanced to the second round), and tied the U.S. The ‘Roos beat Japan and lost to Brazil, only advancing because they managed to tie Croatia. So can a 1-1-1 team beat a 2-0-1 team? Why not? Italy’s actually got some key players out, and while they’ve probably got a pretty good bench, I wouldn’t wonder if ours isn’t staffed with players just as good as the ones we’re putting on the field. It’ll come down to which team is more motivated: the Socceroos, with so much negative history and public expectations and such a terrible nickname weighted against them, or the Italians, freighted with so much European ennui (or its Italian equivalent, anyway). So far, the quarters are going to the favorites – no surprise – with only Spain vs. France presenting much prospect for a tight game. Under the circumstances, picking Australia to advance over Italy is counter-intuitive, but one underdog’s got to make the cut, and Ghana doesn’t stand a chance against Brazil, and Switzerland and Ukraine are both underdogs, which doesn’t count. So in the part of my brain that I recognize as the same part that lets me buy lottery tickets for their value as wallpaper scraps or sit in on a penny-ante poker game and walk away $50 lighter (it only happened once; that was enough), I’ve weighed the chances and come out Green-and-Gold.

Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

How to Combat Terrorism
Investigate, arrest, prosecute, convict.

Nobody had to be “indefinitely detained” or tortured or abused or invaded or bombed or shot or rendered to any foreign power for extraordinary purposes at all in any way. The proper police powers were employed and the verdict properly returned.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
What, that had to be the title (although, now that it’s come to this, I’d rather get away from post titles completely), because we went to see The Break-Up. It’s about the best romantic movie I think I’ve ever seen, even though it’s not a comedy and especially because it’s not a “relationship” movie. Yes, it has its Odd Couple middle, and it doesn’t exactly break new ground in probing the nature of romance and relationships, but it does present these things with more honesty than you usually get outside of those very serious movies where somebody dies or is killed or something unusual happens to make everyone stop and think. This time they have to come to think about their lives, separately and together, just because that’s the point they’ve reached in their lives, separately and together. So except for the stripper-party, it’s even more realistic than the ultra-serious stuff. Oh, and except for how the two characters meet. That just wouldn’t ever happen. Jennifer Aniston is better in this than anything else I’ve seen her in, and Vince Vaughn is always good. I understand, however, that this movie was in some way his idea, so now I also think he’s a genius.

Reverse Cycle & Refrigeration
It’s been a while since I indulged in a culture-shock temper tantrum, but our current climatological experience prompts me to reflect on the biggest difference between life in Sydney versus back in NYC. While I was blessed on the Upper East Side with a working fireplace, in winter, in any apartment, I could rely on heat and hot water for about 99% of the season. Sometimes the boiler would go out, but that didn’t happen often and didn’t last long. Of course, in summer, without an air conditioner, apartment life could be sweltering, but even at that only for a few weeks out of the season.

Alas, poor Sydney, so far from the tropics but so much closer to the other end of the temperate zone, so much more so in either respect than it cares to admit. Sure, there isn’t any snow and the roads only ice out the Blue Mountains way, but when our reverse-cycle unit gave up the ghost, our unit became a defacto icebox, despite highs approaching 20 degrees (68 Fahrenheit) during the day. Partly this is because, like most Sydneysiders, we chose our unit’s aspect carefully, facing south by southeast, which keeps the flat pretty cool for more of the summer than a different orientation would provide. In winter, however, it means even less sun than the minimum we get the rest of the year. And because it seems the prevailing winds come in from the same direction, we even manage to cop a bit of wind-chill, even indoors, a situation not helped by the numerous, tall, wide windows along the face of the building.

We’re bloody freezing. My hands and feet have not been this cold in years. Going outdoors is a relief, if just to walk along the sunny side of the street. The situation isn’t helped by the air conditioning repairmen sent out by the building management company, as they appear to only work once a week, starting with a preliminary diagnosis, followed by a more substantial review, followed by wondering if they can get the part or if they might have to install an entirely new system, followed by God only knows what, because the people who come out to do this “work” then report their findings to the faceless office staff and don’t turn up again until the next stage, which we can only hope will be actually fixing the thing. Or putting in a new one – just do something! Shut up about it and fix it. It’s cold! It’s getting colder all the time. At this rate, it’ll be spring again before the system’s up and running.

Sure, it doesn’t help that the unit is more than 10 years’ old and that even the manufacturer has no record of the model number, or that in order to put in a new unit, the walls will have to be patched because nobody uses this configuration of in-wall unit anymore, adding to the repair cost and to the time necessary to complete the job.

At least we’ll have fresh new air conditioning for summer.

Tuesday Friday Cat Blogging

Even the cats can’t believe their eyes: Socceroos beat Japan!.

Consular Rights
I don't believe a word of what John Howard has to say about David Hicks. Neither do I believe that the three Guantanamo suicides were "acts of war." How the PM can sit in his office or sleep at night in the Lodge is beyond understanding. The Bush record is rife now with war crimes and Howard makes himself an accessory by doing nothing for David Hicks. He should be repatriated immediately. The Howard government would like us to believe that a trial would be underway or even completed by now, if only those pesky U.S. federal judges would stop letting him file all these appeals, but those appeals are his right under law. And now that Britain's courts have said he must be allowed to apply for UK citizenship, Bush and Howard are denying him access to British consular officials to let that happen, exacerbating their crimes. How long do we have to put up with the utter abrogation of the rule of law, the essential characteristic of our societies?

Who's a Bully?
I have no objections to Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA's) per se, and don't object to John Howard's "WorkChoices" legislation insofar as it might have been used to help make working life and keeping a job and even getting a job easier and more fair (except it wasn't), so when I first heard that opposition leader Kim Beazley had vowed to eliminate AWA's, I thought it had to be a misunderstanding, that he'd really vowed to get rid of the PM's odious legislation. Today's characterization of Beazley's promise, that he was bullied into it by the unions, is, however, childish, even stupid. While AWA's might give some employees opportunities, under the new legislation they are leverage exclusively for employers, a club to be weilded freely, and that's how Howard wants it. So under the circumstances, I'm with Bomber today. The only choice for workers presently is none, and it should have been much different. If radical surgery is all that's left, then let's get the operation underway. Working men and women fought long and hard to get the rights and responsibilities enshrined in the Awards system; we shouldn't let the present government strip it all away so easily.

Update: Tim Dunlop provides some useful information on the distinction I missed between AWA's and individual contracts, clearing up Labor's policy move and why it's the right one.

Reducing the Insurgency
It would be wrong to revel in anyone’s death, but I’m not sad, either, that al-Zarqawi is dead. Now, what can we do to make Ann Coulter shut up?

While we’re at it, for US$5.00, you, too, can submit a “memorial” to initiate the impeachment of George W. Bush. A memorial is a submission direct from the citizenry and bypassing the House. It’s fully legal, even if it was only last used in 1828, and in regard to a Federal judge. Still, on October 12, if enough of us send in our memorials, somebody might actually have to take notice.

Whining from the Sniveller
Because he’s bemoaning how he comes off over the “snivelling grub” exchange in an SMH editorial, Health Minister, Tony Abbott, gets right-of-reply, where he indulges in some public blubbering. Poor Tony, he just can’t get a break, can he? Of course, the fact that he spends most of his editorial time pointing fingers at Kim Beazley, whom he mentions 4 times before he even names Julia Gillard, the Shadow Health Minister, tells a lot more truth than any of his statistics or historical references to England’s Parliamentary behavior, the focus of the first half of his pathetic excuses: Tony Abbott acted against Kelvin Thompson derisively because as a front-bencher it’s his responsibility to play the guard dog whenever any substantive issue comes up that might impugn his beloved party or its allies. Can’t seriously question former Nationals leader John Anderson’s honesty? Tell me another, Tony, now that the AWB cat is out of the bag. This isn’t about ‘strong language’; that’s the best part of a lively Parliament. It’s about keeping government honest, something on which I question you.

On On Beauty
I’m about two-thirds through Zadie Smith’s latest, now winner of the Orange Prize, and it’s a very good book, although not, perhaps, to the same degree as her debut, White Teeth, mainly, I think, with still a good ways yet to go, from two significant factors, the main one being what I’ve found to be a lack of focus on characters, of whom there are simply too many. (The other factor is, as Ms. Smith has admitted, that the book is an homage to E. M. Forster, and reads like a up-to-dated version of Howards End, a fault I won’t fault too far, that being the only Forster I’ve read and having enjoyed it well enough at that.) The problem of encompassing the full multicultural debate, let alone whether transplanted to New England or not, is perhaps greater than any novel can manage with enough depth, so while the characters in this book present a range broad enough to accommodate the issues, the story doesn’t delve as deeply as it might into any of them. The Black/White divide, the African diaspora, the British versus American multicultural models, urban and suburban, even male-female dichotomies – whether interracial, transgenerational, or transgressive – are covered, but it’s like the difference between a wine tasting menu as opposed to selecting a particular variety with a good meal: subtle distinctions are lost to all but the connessieur. It’s still good and worth reading, and now a prize-winner. If I ever get around to >I Am Charlotte Simons, it might make an interesting counterpoint on elite university culture, too.

(Radioactive) Fuel to the Fire
As Australia starts towards its debate on the implementation of nuclear power plants, back in NYC the debate has moved on towards decommissioning Indian Point, and this raises a number of issues that must also be taken into consideration in Canberra.

While the government’s focus so far is on whether the plants are, first, economical, and second, where they can be situated, and must also consider, even if there’s been little discussion so far, where the waste can be stored, whether the plants themselves or their waste constitute a terrorist target, let alone an environmental problem, there’s also the issue of what to do with the things when they’ve outlived their usefulness.

Indian Point may produce nearly all of Westchester County’s electricity, while only 10% of the state’s requirements overall, but other, more conventional plants could produce the same or more, albeit while failing to reduce CO2 emissions. This does not, however, take into account less conventional energy production, the technologies for which not only already exist, mainly in passive forms, but which are continually being developed, especially outside the US (or Australia), such as Rebecca Blood highlighted is happening in China.

On the issue of waste, of particular note regarding Indian Point, the reactors, scheduled for closure in 2013/2015, have already produced more waste than they can store, even while the operators are looking to obtain a 20-year licensing extension. This is the kind of issue too often glossed over with pie-in-the-sky promises of a national nuclear waste dump off in a salt dome out west (or, in Australia – where? – under Uluru?), while realistically requiring much closer scrutiny.

Democracy in Action
So much for parliamentary standards. It’s pretty childish for Julia Gillard to throw Tony Abbott’s words back in his face, but for the Speaker of the House to act from his partisan preferences and bar her is despicable. David Hawker should be censured himself and forced to step down. John Howard doesn’t even need to whistle to get this guard dog to bark.

Shut Up
When is speech not free? When it’s critical of your employer, especially if you’re working for the government. Now, anyway. The dispute under examination doesn’t sound like free speech, to be fair; it sounds like a contentious dispute between an employee and his supervisors that got him a black mark on his permanent record. The “legitimate staffing needs” of the L.A. D.A. probably address what used to be called “personality conflicts,” and Mr. Ceballos is probably lucky he got to keep his job at all. Nevertheless, concerns over the chilling effect this decision may have on whistleblowers and others, even outside government service, in speaking against bad decisions or practices seems warranted. While the specifics of Mr. Ceballos’ behavior in objecting to a search warrant’s legitimacy are not provided, that he did so should be commended. A truly democratic system of government requires its operations to be transparent, above-board at all times, and, to argue for the dissent, no employee working in the government, or elsewhere for that matter, surrenders his rights or duties as a citizen in protecting the public interest in this respect. Mr. Ceballos’ objections must be protected speech or we hand our [elected] leaders more power than they are entitled to, and we know about power. But then look at which Justices were in the majority.

Broadway’s Magical Thinking
I just finished Joan Didion’s memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking (which was terrific, by the way, really, really good), but it never really struck me that it would make a good Broadway Play, even with Vanessa Redgrave. I suppose I’m wrong about this, given the calibre of the writers involved and the actress to deliver it, so I won’t offer any prognostication. The book, however, I’ll go ahead and recommend now.

Justice
While they’re in prison, maybe a couple of exercise bikes could be hooked up to the grid so they can pedal up some wattage.

Intervention
Sending the troops into East Timor to assist the government in restoring peace is a worthy action. The history of independence there has been fraught and deserves assistance. The action of the Timorese government in firing striking soldiers highlights societal problems there that must be resolved and precipitated the present events, but that won’t turn out well in a civil war, so Mr. Howard’s actions are worthy of Australia’s position in the region.

Avoiding the Next Iran-Contra Scandal
One of the principals from the last scandal now has the authority to exempt any company he likes from SEC disclosure regulations. This is Presidential-level authority, delegated for the first time, and to the author of arms-for-hostages and other Cold War era misdeeds. Who goes first? Haliburton?

(Note: the authorization was signed into effect the same day Porter Goss resigned as the head of the CIA. While the two events themselves are unconnected, the timing on Bush's part is an obvious attempt to take advantage of a bigger news event.)

Friday Cat Blogging: Tuesday Edition
We'll get this out of the way.

Theo's not so sure I'm not trying to do him harm,

but Felix has no such qualms.

Ain't they purdy?

What Else Are You Going to Do with It?
Australia has lots of uranium, so much that we're going to start exporting it to China soon, and others, maybe, later, especially now that George Bush has welcomed Pakistan into the nuclear club (but not India, go figure), at least unofficially. However, there is no nuclear energy industry here as yet, although there are those who seek to change that. A national debate over building nuclear generators? Fine, but the answers seem pretty well established already. Although we certainly need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, since we're not signatories to Kyoto, framing the debate on environmental principles is to base it on false pretenses. Our PM, John Howard, has said he believes the decision should be economically based, but that also seems to ring hollow. While other countries have nuclear power plants, none run at full capacity, none provide a substantial measure of overall electric power, none have been constructed or now operate without considerable government subsidy, essentially forcing the population to pay two energy bills: one from their power suppier and one to the government, who just hand it over to the power supplier. In addition, there's the issue of waste, and we're not just talking about spent fuel rods - a source of material that can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium or otherwise used for destructive purposes - but also everything that goes into handling the stuff. Once your protective suit is sufficiently irradiated itself, or that pair of wire cutters, or that hammer, it's radioactive waste, and it will stay that way for decades, centuries perhaps, slowly breaking down. So it needs to be stored, and safely, not just from those who would reuse it illegitimately, but also from interacting with the environment, leeching isotopes into the water table passively, for example.

So it doesn't help move toward clean energy production, because it can't effectively replace the fossil fuels; costs far, far more; and presents a potential for harm to the environment equal to or greater than what it's supposed to replace. What's the debate?

Advancing
Today I affirm my commitment as a citizen to Australia (yes, remaining “bipolar” [who’s Hugh Morgan when he’s at home?] – a dual citizen of the U.S.), but I don’t know that I’ll ever learn the words to Advance Australia Fair, even if just the “official” words, i.e., the first and third verses, as noted on the PM’s website, let alone the bits about “gallant Cook” and “From England, Scotia, Erin’s Isle / Who come our lot to share” (leaves out the “wogs,” doesn’t it? - and, look, that’s a term of endearment here, more than one of opprobrium, so calm down [I mean, don't come the raw prawn]; it’s sort of like how you call people you’re angry with or don’t like “Mate” – with a sarcastic edge – and your mates “bastards”), and especially “Still keep a British soul.” I mean, after all, I am from a country that successfully put itself forward as a republic, unlike others of “Brittania’s sons,” one that rid itself of a monarchy and has long prided itself on its immigrant culture (even when it’s often failed to practice well what it’s preached). And you know, for a song written slightly more than 22 years before Australia become a Commonwealth, it’s probably not entirely appropriate as the national anthem, which may be why everybody sings Waltzing Matilda instead at the footy. That and it’s a better song, generally, even if it is about a sheep rustler who commits suicide instead of being taken to jail. But it’s a terrific country, one I am proud to participate in fully. I’ll get a passport (so I can indulge my Bourne Identity fantasies), and I should get some Golden Wattle to plant out on the balcony, too.

The pages referenced above also provide links to audio files, in case you want to commemorate the event yourselves or are otherwise interested in the song. (“Girt.” Who says “girt” anymore? Being an island is such an accomplishment? I need to talk to Fred Rieben - hey, look, he’s a naturalized American-Australian, too.)

(Funny how our subscription to the New Yorker should run out just as I’m becoming officially entrenched in my new society. Should I feel rejected? Well, we still [now] get the Atlantic.)

643 of 1058
I found my bib number from the Australia Day fun run in Moore Park and, nearly 4 months after the fact, finally picked up my results for the 8km: 43:42, which I’m not entirely dissatisfied with, since it’s still under 5:30 per and I’d let the holidays totally decimate my training regimen. Now that I’m immersed in my plans for the City-to-Surf in August, finding out I placed in the 60th percentile in January provides motivation towards keeping up my kilometerage.

Keep Your Friends Close
We’re not friends with Venezuela any more, but Libya, on the other hand, are buds. Why does the Bush Administration’s policy on Hugo Chavez – and it is exactly that: a policy of personal animosity – remind me so much of those old Cold War “spheres of influence” arguments, such as were previously used to install General Pinochet in Chile, for example? I’m all in favor of granting Colonel Muammar el-Qadaffi better status in the world now that he’s renounced his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and his support for terrorism, but he’s still an evil dictator. Does his turnabout make him so different from Chavez, who now appears to be headed towards creating a dictatorship for himself, or is this just a question of who’s our dictator and who’s a rogue (or otherwise aligned: he may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard)? I seem to remember some other Middle Eastern dictator coming to grief recently after having enjoyed decades as the golden boy of the U.S. The days of real politik never ended, did they? It all just changed hands, from the old imperialists of Europe to the new hegemony of D.C. alone. I’ve criticized Bush for his Cabinet picks before: they’re all the failed Cold Warriors of previous administrations or of academia, so the rhetoric they and they’re supporters (and their ostensible boss, Bush himself) continue to spout over the changed world we now live in falls flat, flatter every day, in fact. We could have engaged Chavez and Qadaffi positively and achieved good relations and a better outcome for all. Instead, we’re playing the old games and making the same mistakes. No wonder George is Mr. 29%.

Invaders
This week I join the invaders of Australia as a naturalised citizen – just in time for National Reconciliation Week, 27 May to 3 June, commemorating the 1967 referendum eliminating constitutional clauses discriminating against indigenous Australians. The June 3 National Sorry Day culmination marks the anniversary of the High Court’s controversial Mabo decision, recognizing Native Title rights and overturning the myth of “Terra Nullis.”

It’s a pretty common practice here to begin events held on public lands with a statement to the effect of “I recognize the traditional caretakers of the land we stand upon today, the (tribe name) people.” This isn’t something I’ve encountered elsewhere, but I rather like it. It isn’t always necessary or the practice to specify which native people were the original inhabitants, due largely to the fact that there were so very many tribes all that time ago, and it can be difficult to be sure which held what region. Nevertheless, it’s a fine practice, and I wonder whether it will be indulged at my swearing-in.

Reconciliation was something that seemed inevitable, prior to 1996 and the elevation of John Howard as Prime Minister. This is a man for whom “sorry” is a seemingly a dirty word. While I understand the legal principles upon which he may base his refusal to offer an apology, they don’t appear to be the principles he actually uses in support, weasling around over issues of who did what to whom when. The PM prefers forgetting the past, a practice he and his frontbenchers employ whenever it suits them.

Citizenship will provide me a few rights I’m looking forward to, as well as responsibilities, all of which I take seriously. As an Australian citizen-to-be, I believe in Reconciliation, the inevitability of a Republic, and a future where government serves all its people equally. This is gonna be fun.

Honesty in Government
Finally, a politician willing to come out and say that the data collected for the government “Smart Card” ID will be sold, without recourse by individuals to change or prevent it. It makes sense, too, because that way, not only does the government get a new revenue stream from handing over our data to mailing list companies and direct marketers, but Coles will be able to track your purchases and turn you in to the government if you exceed the daily calorie intake established by Health Minister Tony Abbott, or Hoyts can let them know if you go see movies like Paradise Now, or ANZ Bank can inform Parliament of foreign exchange transactions. Or more likely, they can use the information to send you some junk mail.

But at least Joe Hockey’s honest about it.

Water Park
If there's one good thing about having a house full of kittens, as M. points out, it's the requirement to regale all around you with kitten stories, like how one fell into the toilet last night and in his subsequent freak-out, sent everything on the shelf above it everywhere, or how the other, not satisfied with also falling into the (other) toilet this morning and putting water all over the bathroom floor, then found himself too interested in the washing machine not to find out if it, too, was full of water, but then treated as a most excellent game of hide-and-seek: can you find me? can you find me? Eventually, yes. All lids are now down, all closet doors are now shut. What were we thinking? Never mind, eventually, when they've settled a bit more, I'll set the camera flash off at them and post Friday Cat Blogging photos.

Gridlock
I signed a petition years ago to close Central Park to traffic. Sure, now they do it. Although the Olmstead design included carriageways for the gentry to drive their four-in-hand rigs through to the benefit of each other’s fashion sense, the advent of the automobile brought a different sense to personal transportation, one not amenable to parks, unless we’re talking about drag racing or LeMans. It’s about time somebody did something about it, even if it’s just a limited restriction for a limited duration. Traffic around the park won’t be pretty while everyone works out their routes, though.

Good News: Down Unders Now Above Ground
The trapped Tasmanian miners are out at last. The news reports kept saying “two days,” “two days,” but in the end it was two weeks. So of course Webb & Russell walked out under their own power; they probably rode back up the elevator alone, too: after two weeks in a pit without a toilet or even a damp rag, I’m betting they stunk bad. These guys were very lucky, and not just because their circumstances at the time of the cave-in spared them: they also get to have a beer with the Foo Fighters.

The System Works
Now that Moussaoui believes he got a fair trial, he’d like another. Or could his motivation have something to do with where he’ll be spending the rest of his life?

Variations on Domestic Violence
It’s a serious subject, and I don’t mean to take anything away from that, but this has been four days of varying degrees of trouble, negative and positive, really. In the first place, Thursday night I’d had it with our neighbor’s incessant doof-doof party music after nine p.m. and (again) rang the cops to make a noise complaint. I feel a little bad about it now, because at about the same time the patrolman showed up, Party Girl had switched off, on her way out. The music had all been getting-in-the-mood tunes and only for the forty-five minutes it took her to complete her preparations. If I’d known, I suppose I might have endured, but that’s not something I could have known without knocking on her door to ask her to shut or turn it down, a step I’ve given up taking. All we ever hear are excuses or denials, so cops was the best obvious step. Unfortunately for her, she took it in bad part and started cursing and giving the cop attitude and, when he refused to stop writing the summons and insisted on getting her name, she started kicking and shoving him out of her door. Bad move: it’s called assaulting an officer, and he called it in. Within a minute or two, we had six or seven cops hauling her off to the station, pretty nearly carrying her off bodily while she freaked out, screaming her head off in the hall, crying, pleading, arguing, and just generally beside herself. All we wanted was a little peace and quiet for once, and if she’d just taken the ticket, she’d have made it to her party. Instead she ended up in the psych ward for an evaluation of her mental status, followed by a few hours at the station house being booked. She didn’t end up held overnight, but she’s headed for court. At least the music stopped.

After all that drama, however, we then proceeded on Saturday to inflict further violence upon our home, by adopting two six-month-old kitten brothers from the Cat Protection Society, in Newtown. One, a pretty charcoal tabby, is a scaredy cat, spending an awful lot of time behind the sofa, while the other, more outgoing, black-and-white formal-dress cat, marches around the apartment purring his head off or chasing everything within and outside immediate reach that looks like it might be a mouse, including house plants and items of furniture. My hands sting from the minor scratches and bites. At least they’re not disco fans.