Harold Potter
The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, is like Harry Potter meets Narnia but for grownups. It's pretty obvious, all up, but doesn't pander nearly as much as J.K. Rowlings' books do, naturally enough, since she wrote deliberately for children and only accidentally caught an adult wave of interest, and dispenses with any religiosity such as imbues C.S. Lewis' books, in favor of the principle that if magic is real it must follow its own rules, like physics, an analogy made early on to express the unfathomability of either system ultimately: "turtles all the way down". But it's well done, for all that the ending, particularly the final two chapters, essentially cop out on what might have been a good metaphorical entertainment about real life relationships. You don't miss the point, but you do get excused from feeling it, which is too bad. A little too much set-up, a hell of a climax, and then a big let down. Maybe it's not so far off real life at that.

Cheaters Never Prosper
The Melbourne Storm have been found cooking the books and therefore stripped of two premierships and all their points for 2010, including those they haven’t even won yet, effectively relegating them to the bottom of the ladder for the season. All this, and more, because over the last five years, they’ve exceeded the salary cap by $2 million, buying the best players and a remarkable winning streak. Salary caps are sometimes controversial, but if you’re capped at $4.4 million and spend another $2 million on top, you’re really gaming it and deserve what you get. The players suffer for management’s behavior, and the fans, but I suppose something had to be done.

Round Six
Bummer Bunnies, but it wasn't the ref's calls that did you in, it was all the dropped balls. Two penalty field goals didn't help, and neither did Isaac Luke's missed conversions, but it was mistakes that did us in. Still, not quite 1/4 through, so plenty of time to catch up and make something remarkable of the season. I guess this shows why Roy Asotasi is captain.

So, two more things. First off, track work almost sent me home before I'd even gotten started. I'd let two trains go by before anyone thought to make an annoucement that busses were on in place of trains, and let me tell you the bus out of Strathfield is a nightmare, wherever you're going from there, let alone the bus then to the stadium (which was only surpassed by the bus returning to Lidcombe station, crawling through traffic all the way).

As frustrating as bad traffic and poorly organised bus dispatching may be, nothing tops Rabbitohs fans after a loss. Listening to them kvetch you'd think we'd be in the premiership every year except for the perfidy of the referees. I've sometimes said it would be interesting to go to another team's home ground to compare the crowd behavior during the game, and as this was technically an away game for us, I had my chance. Everybody boos, everybody complains how the other side isn't being held at ten metres or is passing the ball forwards, everybody cheers penalties awarded and mocks injuries it seems. But how they respond to a loss remains unclear to me, travelling as I was in a bus full of Souths fans. I guess the Parramatta supporters all drove in.

Piling on
Like the Counselor, I've refrained from much commentary online, somewhat in deference to my devoutly Catholic parents, and recognizing the complexities of the situation, but just how much stupid am I expected to take from Rome?

The "world attacks" and small words for body of the church to do penance - as if it was all the rest of the members and not its leadership, at every level, that's at fault - the weaseling, the odious comparisons to the Holocaust . . . how is it possible to accept that there are any among the clergy untainted?

I was raised in the Church, went to Catholic schools, including a prep-seminary (for a year; I was a wash-out wannabe, thank Christ), and never had even the least creepy experience, although God knows some of the priests and nuns I encountered had issues, usually of anger. The vast majority were loving, kind, caring persons, and many deeply intellectual. They were mostly educators and devoted to the task, and of those who were merely among the practitioners of mysticism, even those sincerely meant to apply themselves to using their rites to establish a community that would support and nurture among them all and sundry their better natures for the benefit the community thus fostered.

But I always liked John the Baptist best, and there's no way he, of the Jesus who overturned the money-changers tables in the temple, would accept this cabal. For centuries the Church has used its power relationship to abuse the weak and vulnerable, and it has to stop. Calls for penance are meaningless if the amount to rhetoric or the traditional, anecdotal "ten Hail Marys". And so far that's all we've got. It's time to throw it over. Christianity is not to blame, but those who claim its oversight are. Sack the Pope.

Change we can believe in.

Jammed
A big accident closed down a major stretch of freeway yesterday afternoon and evening. Hours of traffic, jammed to a standstill. The Roads & Transport Authority screwed around for an interminable time, what must have felt like eternity, as anyone who's ever been in Los Angeles traffic could attest to, as I have, and swear feels like the least motion forward, forever thwarted, is purest torture. So what are we treated to on the news? The State Opposition party calling for the State government minister's head, no, the whole State government, thank you, all of 'em. This morning we have the RTA head sacked, and fair enough, I reckon, but is this the state of government in this country? Just what is the ministerial responsibility, State or Federal, for their portfolios? At what point are they advised? At what point is their intervention (a) called for or (b) effective? I do not expect any politician, front-bench, let alone back-, to have the day-to-day operational oversight of the bureaucracies that form the civil service or otherwise. Ultimately, from a policy point of view, they must be responsible. For example, if the Minister for Defense were to direct that armed forces payroll should only process certain categories of entitlements in some particular way and this resulted in failing to pay legitimate claims, then that Minister is certainly responsible. If the Defense Department itself reorganized its pay schema and failed in its requirements to pay entitlements, the Minister's responsibility ends with sacking the idiot in charge and ordering rectification. But that's not how it plays here.

It's all very silly, so I thank my stars not to have teabaggers and Republicans frothing at the mouth at every turn, but it can't be long now.

Short Notice
Almost missed the Bunnies third-in-a-row win, beating the hapless Newcastle Knights by a substantial margin, but luckily stopped in for a beer at the pub across the road, where there are reliably two or three of us Souths supporters, unusual for venues so close to Sydney University, where Union is the prevailing code, if not Aussie Rules. Still, it was a good match, even though both sides showed a lack of form in carrying the ball - so many knock-ons it was hard to keep track of who's scrum it'd be. And if I called the Knights hapless, it wasn't for lack of trying. They broke tackles and ran well; just couldn't seem to get it across the line for a try when it counted. This puts us mid-way up the ladder. If we can make it four, we'll be going well, about 1/5th through the season.

Round 4
Of course South Sydney beat the Bulldogs tonight: the Bunnies have to win on Easter.