Political Speech: Meaning & Intent
It’s been long known that when politicians speak, they use what are essentially coded phrases to convey meaning to their target audience. “States Rights”, for example, from the mouths of Republicans and their right-wing brethren is well known for being a code phrase to connote opposition to civil rights, especially for minorities, or even anti-abortion, depending on the context. It rarely refers to educational curricula, but busing instead. So when a avowedly conservative politician uses the phrase “blood libel” the first thing that comes to my mind is that she thinks all Democrats, and even most or all liberals, are Jews, and therefore not real Americans, who are, of course, Christian, and that by using this phrase she will accomplish two things: the jingoistic and racist elements of the so-called Tea Partiers will see all opposition to her and by extension themselves as alien and “anti-American”, and no one will be able to decry her usage as anything other than a smear against her without generating something like a feedback loop to increase that perception of alienation.

She doesn’t write this stuff herself. She’s got people to do that for her, and they’re not as stupid as we wish we could believe she is. Did she really mean her critics are falsely claiming she has “blood on her hands” or did she mean that her critics are blood-drinking, “protocols of the elders of Zion” Jewish liberals bent on destroying America? This is a hate-filled, angry woman, a failure as a working politician, now enjoying a means of spreading her hate without any effective opposition or recrimination. We must not let her get away with this poisoning of the discourse.

Itinerary
If there's one thing I've now learned, it's that even after a major storm, there's enough snow and ice left over in the U.S. to create enough of a blizzard to shut down airports. US Airways, who have a major hub in Charlotte, NC, started cancelling flights and rebooking passengers early on Monday, facing down a big storm that had already put the lights out at Atlanta. Unfortunately, that's all they did. They ran out of de-icing solution early, so were left handing out cots and foam pallets - in the international terminal only. Even though we were scheduled to fly out from that terminal, there were no announcements at our end, so by the time we knew we were staying over, we were staying on the floor.

This is forgivable, of course, but not day two. They knew there was still ice and freezing rain, but still ran out of de-icer, even while every other airline operating out of Charlotte continued to de-ice and send planes out. US Airways couldn't even be bothered to cancel their flights until the very last minute. So that was another night learning the comfortable end of being homeless. By this time, after so much terminal food, I'd have killed for some fresh vegetables or fruit.

Well, we got on an early flight to Myrtle Beach on day three, so that was o.k., except US Airways then lost our checked luggage. Clearly, this was an operational failure. Passengers checking in that day got their luggage without any trouble. The rest of us were catch-as-catch-can, that is, US Airways didn't prioritise luggage according to re-bookings, just loaded up whatever came to hand.

Our bags did eventually show, but I lost two days of holiday as a result, not to mention the US$25 for my lost checked bag. What's the money for? I don't know.

So there I am at the end of it all, booked on a flight from Myrtle Beach to Sydney via Atlanta and Los Angeles and Guangzhao. My 11:37 flight is delayed due to "mechanical problems", and is now scheduled for 14:30. Except that flight doesn't arrive, another one, the next one, does instead. There's a seat available, so I actually make my connection at Atlanta for the flight to L.A. Based on what happens 26 hours later in Sydney, I'm guessing my checked bag didn't make the flight or the connection or the China Southern flight, even though that one is delayed by 12 hours, due to "weather in Russia". This is a lie, of course, because China Southern puts up all 500 or so of us in a hotel. Nobody puts anybody into a hotel for weather. A business class traveller I meet makes some calls and confirms the "weather" is fine, but not China Southern.

And guess where my bags are? I don't know either.

What a trip. One of the cats is missing, too. I'm still hopeful he'll turn up, but I guess I'll be calling the shelters and vets before long and wandering the neighborhood all night trying to find him.

Update: Cat's back. Something wrong with his eye, but he turned up after an hour or so of calling him and just in time for dinner. Unnecessary negativity.

Update 2: Cat's eye looks o.k. today, so no vet trip. And my luggage turned up. It seems that instead of handing it off to China Southern, Delta elected to carry my bag to Sydney themselves. It probably got here before I did, given the cancelled flight to China, but two different outfits handle baggage for Delta and China Southern, requiring someone (me) to get them talking to one another before either could work out what to do. As Casey Stengel put it: Can't anyone here play this game?

Robot Attack
I could have waited for an iPhone. Luckily, I don't much care about the apps, especially games. Although I do like the tricorder.

Snow Day
If I remember, This is what cost Mayor Lindsay his job. I’ve seen enough on Facebook and elsewhere to know this was a truly epic storm, so I’d cut the guy some slack, but this isn’t going to help.

SCG Blues
This being summer in the antipodes, cricket is the game to watch, so I’ve put some time in this year to learn a bit about it, the Ashes being an especially iconic test match. That England gets to keep for the first time in 14 years. They deserve it. They outplayed the Australian eleven pretty much throughout, on offense and defence. God knows it’s got to be pretty nearly impossible to make a comeback from a first innings score under 100, or even 200, especially when your opponent seems capable of doubling that rate or better, and we managed to be caught out pretty easily for just such results more than once.

It’s not like we weren’t trying, of course. The Ashes is a big deal here. But in Melbourne, for the Boxing Day test, whereas England bowled 42 overs in the first innings, Australia expended 159. This meant we spent a lot of time chasing balls before managing to take a wicket, whether caught out, leg-by-wicket, or bowled out, whereas we hit quite regularly to just where the English thought we would, our batsmen caught out.

And I’d rather not mention the second innings performance.

There’s some suggestion that this was inevitable, given the recent spate of retirements of such as Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, leaving Australian cricket bereft of talent, and it’s interesting to note that whereas two on the English side are more regularly 20/20 players than in test cricket, all but two of the Aussie eleven are 20/20 stalwarts. Strategy and skill-sets would be quite different, I’d think, but I guess either the selectors didn’t think so or their available pool is indeed diminished. So I blame Rupert Murdoch and television. And no wonder. Games that take four days to play are pretty hard on the attention-span, especially when they start at 10 a.m. and run past 6 p.m. (Who invented such a thing? Or did cricket evolve to this? Must read more CLR James.)

Xmas

Every year, each bus depot decorates a bus and solicites the community for votes. This is the entry for the Leichhardt depot and an excellent representation of the lengths they'll go to.

BP & Bush: Never Forget Their Sweet Talk
Brilliant.

O, My
I don’t have anything against Oprah. I think her book club probably did a lot of good, for example. Her show, last I saw of it, and which wasn’t very often anyway, did seem to have devolved from the kind of tabloid-ish self-help and “awareness” topics she became famous for into celebrity-sharing and scream-fest giveaways, but if that’s what she wants and what keeps her brand going, that’s up to her. Her trip to Australia, is just perplexing, and not just the reaction to it.

Tourism’s a great thing and a big part of the economy here, and we spent millions of dollars to bring her down. I don’t imagine recouping that very soon as an immediate consequence of Oprah’s visit. The 8,000 people in Melbourne’s Federation Square today, for example, are likely for the most part locals and unlikely in consequence to spend any money, whether for public transport or lunch, than they would have already, but the disruption they’ll have caused to traffic will surely have a flow-on effect to productivity and revenue elsewhere. Maybe not much, but just wait until the big O gets to Sydney and the rebranded Oprah House. At least there’ll be an offset in parking fees and fines and ticket sales. But her 300 imported audience members aren’t likely to bring about much of a difference. Even after they get home and tell everyone how wonderful Australia is, with the U.S. economy in the tank, how many Qantas flights will that translate to?

Good luck to her and the various Federal and State Tourism Ministers, hotel associations, etc. But 8,000 people standing around for a fifteen minute look at Oprah waving to them? Weird.

Drips & Drabs
It's hard to believe that I'd agree with even half of anything John Howard has to say, even over "Wikileaks", but I do. Half, anyway. Frankly, I don't regard the leaks as any more of an offense than I do Julian Assange's action in publishing them. What I do see is the media ganging up on someone stepping on the turf they'd been gaming for decades and politicians crying foul over being caught out in lies and obfuscation. In both cases I think we all know we knew it all along. No surprises here, except insofar as we now see how far even ostensibly liberal governments will go along with the kinds of prosecutorial abuses we thought were only a Bush II purview. Whether or not the Swedish courts have a case against Assange, the fact that the U.S. is already in discussions with them over extradition show how valuable Guantanamo is to Obama, and Australia's Julia Gillard's self-serving assessments of Assange's "irresponsibility", insofar as it allows her to declare illegality without coming straight out with it, give us Labor as Howard-lite, even while Howard distances himself from such an assessment.

I welcome Wikileaks. Post that crap. But let's see what else we can get: from Britain, France, Germany, China . . . . it shows up every creep in the public service, free society or not, for exactly what we know them to be: self-serving, greedy, rapacious bastards causing more trouble than they're worth.

Funny I should post such an assessment after bagging the Tea-Baggers, I suppose, but I'm no less put out by Obama caving at every turn than I am by Palin mischaracterising all of U.S. history than I am by Labor's failures here or the Liberal's fight against the working class than I am by . . . . we need something better than democracies that have abandoned democracy. Transparency and a strong, fearless, but righteous media are valuable, even in the form of socio-inadroit (or even sociopathological) individuals like Julian Assange.

Publish and be damned, but publish. We need to know for sure what's all too easily hidden or told as lies.

The Rich You Will Have with You Always
And always complaining about their taxes, too, or at least their Republican lackeys will whinge.

Meanwhile, Warren Buffett, who has probably done more in his life to make other people rich in addition to his own accumulation of wealth, speaks honestly and directly, saying he’s willing to pay more and we shouldn’t listen to anyone like him who says otherwise. And with the national deficit out of control as a result of the Bush tax cuts and two quagmire wars, we get Mitch McConnell telling us the “argument is over” on the tax cuts, but continuing on unemployment extension.

The whole country went completely nuts when Obama got elected. Eight years of Bush, with the Republicans pushing through every mad scheme when we all knew it was madness, repudiated in 2008 with the inevitable Democratic election, and they can only think selfishly of insisting on the legitimacy of their legacy of debt and destruction.

Conservatism used to refer to the principles of slowing change, not reversing it, let alone the kinds of changes that were enacted: the nearly untrammelled power of the executive branch, the gap between rich and everyone else growing nearly exponentially, unwinnable wars, a national debt that staggers the imagination . . . where’s the conservation in any of that? But not only are these things to be conserved, they should be at the expense of Federal power.

The rhetoric of Bush legacy partisans in government, the media and our neighborhoods is talk of “States rights” and includes an increase in commemorations of secession and the Confederacy? Any connection to health care reform? Bailouts? Maybe federation has passed it’s use-by date.

The Outer Space Years
Oh, yeah, I remember the Outer Space Men, I think we had all of them, maybe except the squid guy, but I had no inkling that their genesis had anything to do with Major Matt Mason, although we pretty much had all of that stuff, at one point or another, too. There were some excellent toys in those days, probably made from highly toxic substances.

Gig Guide
To The New Pornographers last night, at Manning Bar, on the Sydney University campus. A small group of us saw them last year at the Annadale, a tradition music venue in what once was the pub-rock circuit, a tradition decimated by the introduction of pokies, and they were terrific. They were no less excellent this time around. A little more stage banter, amongst themselves and with the crowd, perhaps due to the presence of Neko Case, who was too busy with her last record to tour with the band. It was a lively show, with a substantial and appreciative crowd, at a venue I'd go to again, if another band of interest ever turns up. It would likely be a good introduction to local bands of note, as with the support act, Little Scout, from Brisbane, a solid act that I'd guess will do well in the next few years; quirky, but solid, they held the stage well.

A late night, all up, and a school night, too, but as tired as I was this morning, it was worth it.

State Transit Owes Me $50
The 2nd annual Run4Fun (which needs a less silly name) went off at 8:30 this morning at the Olympic Park, and I barely made the start, so there was a substantial pack ahead of me when the gun went off. 55:27 at the finish, by my watch, and I reckon that ought to be the chip time, more or less. It was much more crowded than last year, so a lot of charity money would have been raised, but that section down by the Hockey stadium gets very crowded. It opens up again after that, but you're never not in traffic, much like every other large road race in town. It was good fun and an easy, quick ride back to Central on the train, but getting out there was logistically more difficult than it should have been.

I was at the bus stop in plenty of time for as many as four buses that could have gotten me to the train and a ride to Homebush, but nothing, no bus. From my stop, you can see over a kilometre down Parramatta Road, so with all that nothing coming down the street, I walked down to the Broadway shops, where I could hope for the Lilyfield line, the Glebe Point buses, or service out of Newtown. What turned up? The bus I should have caught to begin with, half an hour late. Half an hour? Sure, it's Sunday, but if you're running a bus service, how do you account for those 30 minutes? Traffic? C'mon. I sat next to a young woman, also going to the race, and we got to the train platform with about 45 minutes to get to the venue and no train for another 10. It'd take all the remaining time to get to Lidcombe, let alone to the start, so we opted to split a cab. Hence the $50. But it was a cheerful enough ride, if not offering much of a chance to get a little extra sleep, and in the end a good run. And a free newspaper, too, although why, when they give you a subscription, is perplexing.

Update: It's a cheap watch, but it's pretty accurate.

Milestones
Sparky Anderson, 76, led the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series in 1984, the year I left Michigan, where they'd been my adopted team. To be honest, I thought he was 76 then.

That Tigers' line-up was terrific, and they had a great year, one that looked, for over a month, like they couldn't lose. Anderson was, that October, the first manager to have led teams to win the Series across the American/National Leagues divide, and he practically invented the modern managing style of pulling pitchers off the mound and using relief as a key defensive strategy. He was also the only manager who honored the players' strike of 1995, taking unpaid leave rather than take on any replacement players, quite an admirable stance. A grand old man of baseball.

Milestones
Sparky Anderson, 76, led the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series in 1984, the year I left Michigan, where they'd been my adopted team. To be honest, I thought he was 76 then.

That Tigers' line-up was terrific, and they had a great year, one that looked, for over a month, like they couldn't lose. Anderson was, that October, the first manager to have led teams to win the Series across the American/National Leagues divide, and he practically invented the modern managing style of pulling pitchers off the mound and using relief as a key defensive strategy. He was also the only manager who honored the players' strike of 1995, taking unpaid leave rather than take on any replacement players, quite an admirable stance. A grand old man of baseball.

10,000 Steps
Seven Bridges Walk today, a nice excursion of 25 kilometers that takes you west and north and back around for a circuit of the Harbour and its suburbs. Depending on where you start, which was, for me, Iron Cove.
Followed by Gladesville (over)

(and under, which presents something of a monumental aspect the "over" image misses),

Tarban Creek

and Figtree, which, as far as bridges are concerned, is as far as I got last year before (a) getting a little lost and (b) soaked in a thunderstorm that also included a temperature drop that left me as cold as I've ever been in this country.

I did manage, last year, to bear with the course, until the next downpour, which coincided with my arrival at Waverton Station, at which point I bailed in favor of a train.

This year, however, the threatened storms never came, so that, by the time I got to the vicinity of North Sydney, it was actually getting a bit more warm and sunny than I was fully prepared for. Nevertheless, the Harbour Bridge is a magnificent ediface, and it was gratifying to arrive within view of it, even if I was starting, at this point, to seize up.

Once across, I was in the CBD, but lost the route. Not that it mattered much, as I work close enough to Darling Harbour to know the approach to the Pyrmont Bridge well. I probably saved my self a kilometre or so as a result.

Then home again, home again, across the ANZAC Bridge, leaving only another 2 or 3 kilometres from my starting point to home and recuperative measures, such as a shower and a cold beverage.

So all up, 25-30k done in 6 hours, and best of all, parts of the city normally left unvisited. I took note of some good running areas that will help when training for the SMH half starts up in January, over paths I didn't even know were there, but will take advantage of proximity to the Harbour.

Next year I'll take the divergences into the bushwalks and really make a go of it.

Autumn into Winter
Leaving aside the issue of "World" in baseball's World Series, and, for the moment, the teams now scheduled to commence that tournement on 27 October, since when did baseball last into November? Accordingly to the remarkably speedy update on Wikipedia, this is the third time, and the second in a row, although no citiation is provided.

I caught the last few innings of the Giant's game, sorry, from the news reports, to have missed the whole thing, but there were some local enthusiasts there, too, to appreciate the tactics employed as the Giants clung to a one-run lead, and the Phillies threatened credibly. With the Rangers, however, having beaten the Yankees for the AL flag, I'm somewhat reluctant to watch much more, as it'll surely entail shots of George W. in the stands, but I can hope San Francisco stomps all over his smirks.

St. Mary MacKillop, Oi! Oi! Oi!
A relatively modern nun’s gotten the nod to become Australia’s first saint, which got rather extraordinary media coverage in a supposedly secular country, but I’ve never found it so to begin with. (Look at our public holidays: Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Monday, Christmas, Boxing Day – half are religious. Hardly surprising, I suppose when about 26% of the population identifies as Catholic, 19% as Anglican, and 19% as other Christian.) But if anyone’s going to get elevated in the 21st century RC Church, MacKillop seems a good choice, if not so much on the basis of the requisite miracles, than in her order’s role acting against child sex abuse by clergy, resulting in MacKillop being excommunicated for two years, until the bishop who’d issued the order, rescinded it on his deathbed. Already there are calls for her to be nominated as the patron saint for victims of abuse. There’s a good else deal about her life that makes her fairly interesting as a person, and certainly respectable as a nun. I don’t much hold with saints – a little too much like semi-demigods, I suppose. I mean, if you’re going to believe in God, there doesn’t seem any need for intercession off-siders. But congratulations to the order, I suppose.

Nobel Tipping
Ngugi wa Thiong'o is looking good for the Literature Prize this year, the first African since Wole Soyinka, but with Haruki Murakami and Cormac McCarthy as competitors, it's still hard to call. I guess the Nobel Committee's recent statements regarding American literature may leave McCarthy out. Ngugi would be the political choice, which seems in line with recent picks, and Murakami doesn't have as extensive a body of work. I'll go with the Kenyan. "Wizard of the Crow" was a good read.

About Art
Sydney's Art & About is, I think, one of the better public arts events around. Sculpture by the Sea being the other one. I particularly enjoy the Hyde Park photographic exhibition.


(Can't say I much like the staturary dress-up, all a bit more foppish than seems necessary, but I understand the impulse and enjoy the humor anyway.)

Still, I had the chance to wander through town and take a couple of photographs of the city. The light here is amazing, something NYC is known for differently, and this building shows it off.

Age Appropriate
I don't remember the last time I saw Todd Rundgren in concert. It was probably something like 30 years ago and most likely it was a Utopia show. All that tech and exuberance was not on show last night at The Basement, where he ran through his latest incarnation: Bluesman. "Todd Rundgren's Johnson" is a tribute to Robert Johnson, although it's more Chicago than Delta Blues. While there's plenty of expertise on display, there was little heart in it. That could be the size of the venue, in part, although I did get the impression that Todd's feeling a little put out that he's never lived up to his reputation. I mean, I loved the guy back in the '70s, buying all his records and going to pretty nearly every show that came through town, but a Wizard he may be, but not a True Star. He had a very appreciative audience and ran through some of his back catalog (although I thought "Open My Eyes" was a bit muddy) for us, so it was a decent show, and I'm glad I went.

But I'll never go back to The Basement, even if Jesus Christ and His All-Star Prophets Revue Featuring Joseph Smith on Bagpipes turned up. It's a dinner club, but if you don't book one of the very few tables, you're standing up all night. Since the doors open at 7:30, you'll stand for three to four hours before the opening act comes on stage and then three or four more to see the finish of the headliner. (And the opening act, an unnamed duo on guitar and keyboards, were horrible last night.)

Fits and Starts
Or Fitnesses. Or something.

Today I started my new job. I had a week off inbetween, which was nice (and unusual for me), during which I recovered from the Blackmore's Running Festival Half Marathon (see previous entry) and lazed around getting nothing accomplished other than, by Saturday, finally having achieved sleeping in past my usual waking hour of 6 a.m. Sunday felt like it came too soon.

Today, however, my appointed hour in the CBD was not until 9 a.m., so I slept in by about forty minutes, went for a 5k run, had some breakfast, and still made it into the office by 8:30.

First days are all about orientation, and there was little enough of that, as the project proper hasn't really kicked off. That will change. I'm scheduled to head up to North Sydney a few times over the next weeks for training on the new system, and there are meetings and presentations to attend as well.

This is my first job since coming to Australia where I'm working close to home. Not only that, but by reason of being pretty much in the center of town, all the amenities I've been lacking heretofore are lacking no longer. Record stores, clothing shops, pharmacies, doctors, dentists, the post office, decent places to have lunch . . . it's all here. This could well turn out to be the best job yet.

Half Baked
I went to bed nice an early, but living in the precincts of Sydney University doesn't guarantee a good night's sleep, so about midnight there was a fair bit of very loud foot traffic returning from some exciting excursion or another, and it was all downhill from there. I was set to get up at 4:30 for my 6:20 start, but actually spent most of the hours wakeful with a bad stomach. When I did get out of bed, I realized there was no coffee and not much for breakfast, either. These things happen.

I filled my pockets with Gu and some money and headed out to flag a cab to Central Station (the buses don't start until 6 a.m.). And forgot my keys. Luckily, I keep a door key stashed, so I'd only have to climb the garden gate on my return. My impending lack of flexibility was dismaying but not daunting.

The race was good. I was finished with it by about 13k. After that I had to periodically walk a bit to relieve my cramping legs. Still, if not a personal best, all things considered, 2:07 (by my watch) is a result I can live with.

And it's not even lunch time yet. Perhaps a nice club sandwich and a quarter of a dozen schooners.

Update: 2:10 clock time, which pretty well tallies with my watch, as it took at least three minutes to get to the mats, but 2:00:06 chip time. I feel much better about my performance. A decent night's sleep would have made all the difference. And more consistent training.

Minority Majority
Two out of three Independents newly elected to the House have opted to formally back Labor, so along with the sole Green elected, the ALP now have a minority government. It's a relief not to have Mr Rabbit as PM. It's frustrating to know that the Coalition will spend the next three years behaving with exceptional childishness, when they and their supporters (and the national media, perhaps especially) take the full set of pages from the USA's Republican and Tea Partier playbook to set themselves up as aggreived and disenfranchised. Already calls for a new election, branding of the government as "illegitimate", and smears and sneers thrown at the Independents are setting the Australian political conversation into a shouting match. Hip-hip-hooray for the Lucky Country, still "lucky."

I Wantz Roomba

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
And a dog, I guess.

Job Changes
After my current employer budgeted and awarded increases of 2%, after skipping a year, I reckoned that I was falling far behind the rate of inflation, which, while low, is not insubstantial, so I switched on my job alerts to see what was out there. Lo, and behold, almost immediately I got an interview and very quickly thereafter an offer.

The thing is, I'm not really disgruntled. My employer has been very generous with me, overall. These guys took me seriously when no one else would. They've let me take ownership of the role. I've got friends I hope to keep - and that's a little unusual in itself. We're running top-notch software in a market that, as in my last job search, takes that as an important consideration.

So why change? Well, the money's hard to beat. Yes, I'll probably have to face low annual budgets in the future, as I would anywhere, but these guys have an incentive scheme and stock purchase plans that would mean potentially earning a third again of my total remuneration. O.k., a stock purchase plan means they're publicly traded, which adds market pressure to career longevity, but the stock'd still be mine, and that's a plus at my age.

Sure, I've got a team of analysts working for me, but so what? Being a manager has never been part of my aspirations. I like the work, and with the software we're running, I'm never going to have the depth of knowledge that I might get with a different product at a company that doesn't have the breadth not to let me learn it.

Although I've got a great place to go for a run, even a long run, as much as 16K without traffic, the new job is in the CBD, so I could get up at my usual hour, go running, and still have time for breakfast before heading to the office. Almost. Maybe just a coffee. And if lunchtime runs aren't any less an option, if a bit trickier. Up the stairs and across the Harbour Bridge, for example, or cross-town to the Domain and Botanical Gardens.

Anyway, I think I've talked myself into it. I've worked in publishing, twice, consulting (sort of), financial services, legal, whatever Chubb was, education, and ITC. Add insurance to the list.

Hung Parliament
Too bad it's not hanged, to make a bad joke.

Julia's campaign was awful, but worse was Labor's decision under Rudd not to pursue a carbon tax and the failure to implement the Resources Super-Profit tax, and worse than that was a leadership spill just ahead of election season. Not that I have any objection to Julia Gillard per se or to her being PM; I rather expected it to happen more naturally. Nevertheless, bad decisions and a punishing result in the polling booths leaves us with 3 years of childish bickering and name-calling, and nothing else. No great leaps forward or backward can be expected out of Canberra. What I can anticipate is that the backlash will continue in the States. Look for Labor to fall in NSW, for sure; whether to the Liberals or the Greens is unknown, but that's how I'm calling it.

One lesson from all this is that the campaign was a media triumph. That is, the media won. They spun this campaign disgracefully. Gillard was never presented except in the context of charged adjectives. She was "strident", for example, not forceful. Abbott was only ever presented with a bit of humor, never with any seriousness taken of his reactionarism, his inarticulateness, his transparent lies. Television decided this contest more than the voters did.

Sensed
When the Talking Heads toured their "Speaking in Tongues" album, Jonathan Demme was there to make a concert film of it, Stop Making Sense. What's of note, here, to me, is that after all this time, I've finally seen the concert.

At the time, I was one of the Talking Heads' biggest fans. They'd found a groove that resonated with me; my appreciation for more complex pop music was finally finding some bands that could provide the content, and David Byrne & co. were seeing audiences that other New Wave acts could only aspire to. The Forest Hills concert I went to was the pinnacle of their career and an ecstatic high point for me as well.

But I didn't really see the show. Yes, Burning Spear burned up the stage as the opening act for an inordinate amount of time, but I wasn't even tired of them before they were finally ushered off. Yes, the opening was enthralling, and every song thereafter well known and deeply felt - but now we get into the concert-attendance problem. At some point, I abandoned my seat, heading up into the aisles to dance along and groove with the music, deeper and richer than records allow and also far more communal.

So I didn't see the floor lamp or the big suit or how the modules were progressively rolled out song to song until the whole band was there, didn't see the performances Byrne put out for the different songs, or the other band members grooving themselves, or at least not in such a way as actually registered.

Watching Demme's movie I finally got to see the show. And I still love the music.

It's not the print I'd have chosen, but insofar as the artist selected a commemorative shot for 5,000 people to have for free, it's more than all right.

I was a little disappointed that there wasn't an exhibition to go along with the distribution, but that's o.k., too, although I'm quite certain that some of the other poses Spencer Tunick ran us through would have been remarkable images, especially the final pose, splayed out across the interior of the Opera House; quite Bocshian, I reckon.

When you look back over Tunick's career, with a dozen models and a step ladder in Times Square, for example, having to get the shots in before being arrested, what he's doing lately is almost mind-boggling. Look how dense this image is. And anyone who's been there can tell you, that's actually quite a lot of space to fill.

Oh, and that's me, at the top of the steps, over to the right, kind of in the middle.

Oops
I knew the Blackmores Half Marathon was an early start, but somehow I thought it was in October, ten weeks from now, not five weeks. I'll have to adjust my training schedule for the last three weeks, but I should get some long runs in the meanwhile. 76% as it stands now; I can bring it up to 89% before the race, barring accident or injury.

Klaatu Barada Nikto
Patricia Neal, R.I.P. Robert Wise's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was an eerie and excellent 1950's science fiction movie, in an era when a lot of science fiction in cinemas was pretty bad. As an adaptation of Harry Bates' short story, "Farewell to the Master", it isn't anything like faithful, but as a nuclear scare movie, very effective. Patricia Neal was the best actor in it and I like everything I ever saw her in thereafter.

Industrial Inaction
I support the right of workers to act collectively in their interests and to strike, even if it inconveniences me. But “free fare days” don’t affect me either way: I have a quarterly ticket. Yesterday, as part of the City-to-Surf, buses and trains were free for anyone with a bib number, but I carried my ticket anyway, just in case, and because I already paid my fare, thanks, so why not use it? I guess if I bought a weekly ticket, it’d be possible to take advantage of these things, but, oh, well. Good luck, rail staff. I wish I could see a 5% raise again someday.

Postscript
I collect book reviews until such time as I need a new stash of unread books to work through, at which point I hit the Strand Book Store online and get my weight in literature shipped down for about the same price a new hardcover runs in this country. Or Book Depository in the U.K. One of those books I've read in the last two years was Postwar, Tony Judt's account of Europe from 1945 onward. It was terrific, by far the most edifying work of history I've read since A Distant Mirror. And now he's dead, just 62. Well, he's got a body of work out there, including an appraisal of the world at present, so I guess I know what's on my list for my next shopping excursion.

Race Day Minus 2
City-to-Surf on Sunday, 14k's of road-running madness. Thousands and thousands of people will be running out of the city to Bondi Beach, and I don't know how they do it, but within the first two kilometres, even though I'm in the second start, there will be dozens, at least, ahead of me walking. Where do they come from? They can't be tired already, can they?

Anyway, I'm down to 76% of full marathon training, having run 188k out of the scheduled 246. Given that the race on Sunday is 33% of a full marathon, that's not so bad. But on the principle that I'm really training for a half-marathon, I'm only 10% over where I'd hoped to be at this stage. But it'll be fun, and I'm as ready as I'm gonna be.

Results Update: 76:32 by my clock, and I might get a few seconds on the chip, since I hit the button early. A better result than I expected.

Worm Turns
I watched the leadership debate last night, although I wasn't expecting anything of any interest to come out of it, and Tony Abbott and the Liberals aren't getting my vote anyway. It seemed worth watching nevertheless, if only to gauge the respective performances. No kidding, these are acts, stage shows, scripted to the greatest extent possible, even with the moderator throwing in follow-up questions and pressing for answers more directly to the point than provided.

Julia Gillard was assured and calm throughout, never off-message. She was good natured, even when zinging Abbott, pressing home on sore points from the last election, points Abbott could only disingenuously respond to. His repetition of "respect for the decisions of the electorate" mean only that if he gets back into power, that has to mean the electorate wants John Howard back. That ship has sailed, Tone.

Abbott generally performed poorly. This was schoolboy vs. schoolmarm. He stumbled, mis-spoke, and looked shifty. His attempts to re-smear Gillard and Labor with their errors and failures - and there have been a few - painting them as an ineffective government, fell flat. I admit they would have done so with me anyway, but I think I can be assured in my assessment, based on the other reason I watched the show: the worm.

As the debate proceeded, audience members, selected for their purported "swing" status, rated the statements and query replies each leader provided. The real-time line graph running along the bottom of the screen was split between men and women, with a third line showing the overall rating. There are a couple of points worth making here. First, the worm is distracting. It's difficult to focus on what's being said if you're watching to see how it's coming across. I expect it's no less so distracting to try to key in a rating while you're listening, and seeing the line ticking up and down second by second it's pretty clear that the audience members had to be pretty frantically hitting those keys.

Another aspect is how consistently the audience was split. Women favoured Gillard substantially above men's ratings, even when men were positively inclined. Women also pretty consistently rated Abbott low, but where he failed to resonate with men, the women were more in line with the ratings men returned, so that the average overall tracked very closely.

Finally, by running the worm in three lines, the broadcasters have made the gender divide the central issue of the campaign. They've been pushing this line from day one of Abbott's leadership, as his standing with women has been a consistent theme of his political life, but that's been more a joke than a serious analysis of the state of play. Not anymore. Gillard's the new Thatcher, or the new Hillary, anyway, and that's where the campaign will stay. Once Labor are returned to power - and they will be - we'll have Australia's first elected Prime Minister. I don't doubt that Labor and Gillard see this as a message to hold on to. The Liberals, on the other hand, may wish they had someone other than Julie Bishop to put forward.

The Next Three Years (approx.)
So having taken the leadership and the Lodge in a spill, Julia's now set to take the country to the polls: 21 August will see us decide if we want the Mad Monk or Ms. Gillard to lead. I like her chances, although it does seem the media's pretty well intent on bringing down Labor, if for no other reason than that they think they can. God knows their take on Abbott is disparaging when it isn't simply incredulous. My own take on this is that the Fairfaxes and Murdochs and Packers and Stokes think they were instrumental in the downfall of Howard, the longest serving PM since Menzies, so doing in Labor as a one-term government, largely if not entirely unprecedented, would see the MSM as king-makers for years to come. It's a fanstasy, not unlike Osama bin Laden's belief that having seen the exit of the USSR from Afghanistan he could do the same easily to the "sole remaining superpower". Even if Labor is ousted, newspapers and television news are going to struggle for audience share and profitability, not to mention credibility, something they sorely lack here as it is.

Anyway, I'll preference Labor, I suppose, if only because to preference the Greens is futile and might see Tony Abbott too often at Kirribilli House for my taste, not to mention the hash he'd make of this country if he had half a chance. I'm just sorry he's got half a chance in August.

Run, Walk, Sit
If it's true that sitting will kill you sooner no matter what, maybe this weekend I should go buy one of these ergonomic chairs.

Calamari
The octopus is a witch! Cook it!

(O.k., that's not nice. Instead, let it go.)

Elections
Julia Gillard is Australia's new Prime Minister, taking over from Kevin Rudd in a leadership spill. I think I prefer my elections direct, but Ms. Gillard is a forceful and intelligent person, likely to do quite well. That she was portrayed throughout the '07 campaign as sharpening a knife for Kevin's back was just mean-spirited, but Rudd's popularity drop over the last couple of months has made the transfer of power inevitable, so here we are. We'll have to see where this takes us regarding policy. I don't anticipate a return of the ETS, but the Resources Super Profit Tax - which I rather like - could also take a hit, which would be bad, politically, anyway.

Meanwhile, I reckon the Liberals leader, Tony Abbott, is going to find it tough dealing with a woman willing to stand up to him. Look for meltdowns.

Like the Sound of Enormous Bees Right Up in Your Face
I've tried to watch the world cup. I got home from the game late last night so stayed up for the Socceroos, but I can't stand the constant drone of the vuvuzelas. I know it's part of the experience of a game in South Africa (although I'll bet it's nothing like this bad normally), but surely television broadcasters have the technology to eliminate it? Even live games are digital, so it seems hard to accept that they wouldn't be able to introduce some sort of noise-cancellation filter in place.

League Experimentation
I've been a season ticket holder for the Rabbitohs three years now, and other than those occassions when the game is technically an away game but hosted at Souths' home ground, I haven't visited any other team's pitch. Tonight I'm headed for the north shore for the Manly match-up and will get to see whether the behavior exhibited by the fans at ANZ bears comparison with the Brookvale crowd.

Update: A one-point loss for the Bunnies, but generally more cheery than I get coming back from a home-game loss. That may be a function of the venue, one not a thoroughly serviced by public transport, as anything else. Still, it was fun, and a much different experience than my norm. Attending a game with 20,000 people in a 80,000 capacity stadium is one thing. Being there where the fans fill the available space? Feels more like a game. My ANZ sightlines are good, but I'm fully 20 to 40 metres further back from the sidelines than at a standard oval, so I don't get quite the sense of the size of the players and speed of the game normally. League is fast, and meant to be so, and I got a good feel for that tonight. Not that I'm going to switch teams.

Turn of the Century
I suppose I had to know that there'd be issues with moving into a building as old as this one and as small. With only 4 units, there isn't a lot of money coming in, so ovderall maintenance has largely been restricted to what's been required more than what would be proactive. When the big hail storm of 2001 tore up roofs all over town, a special levy was required for repairs, but there's been little else. That's about to change.

The building's old. Probably 1920's old, with an extension maybe 20 years on (and apparently clad in asbestos, although opinions differ). The damp course is limited, it seems, to the exterior walls, and one thing and another has led to a significant interior wall rising damp problem. There's a lot of expansion-contraction cracking, interior and exterior, some worse than others. There's sewer-vs.-storm drainage issues - more a regulatory problem than anything else - and pointed need for exterior painting.

The engineer's been through this morning and will provide a report and a recommendation on a builder. It's going to cost us plenty. How much remains to be seen, but I'm figuring on $20-40k, i.e., $5-10k apiece. Still, it'll be worth it, as the actual structural problems we don't have at this point will be avoided.

Wear & Tear
One of the things I meant to do following last month's half marathon was to review the performance of the super-terrific shoes I bought back in January.

I'd meant to buy the trainers, but all they had in stock was the racing model. On the advice of the salesman, who claimed to use the racers exclusively, I went with that choice, although they were far more colorful than anything I'd normally buy.

Back in the days when New Balance was new and Nike were experimenting with waffle irons, it became a principle that the laces would be set back up away from the toes, allowing a better fit and less problems with blisters, or so they said. The Newton pinches a bit around the toes, I find, which was surprising, but in the end it didn't offer me any trouble.

The shoe does indeed encourage, even force, you to land on the forefoot. This didn't cause me much difficulty as I largely run that way anyway. But in some circumstances, such as wet roadways, where the rain interacted with the petroleum by-products lingering on the surface made things a bit slick, it sometimes felt less secure than landing more flat-footedly might have. Still, I didn't slide around all that much, so it's probably just my own insecurity interacting with Sydney drivers, who only get more aggressive as driving conditions deteriorate.

The mesh upper kept my feet pretty cool, a positive, as I'd been experiencing problems with blisters. This was more a condition of running on hot pavement in high summer than the shoes, however. Once things started to cool off a bit, it became increasingly less of an issue.

What I was especially interested in seeing was the wear. From January through May, and putting in something like an average of 20k per week, the shoes held up remarkably well, as you can see.


I'm still using this pair, but in the end, seriously debating whether to get a new set or reverting to standard issue Asics/Nike/New Balance/Addidas/whatever. The main point is that other than the gimmick of the cleats or lugs or whatever you want to call them that force your landing, there was no benefit to these shoes I couldn't get for $50+ less.

Happy Birthday, Queen
Thanks for the day off.

Of course it isn't really Liz's birthday, it's just the commemoration or some such, a practice observed throughout the Commonwealth. Last week it was NZ's turn. Funnily enough, it isn't even her birthday across Australia. I think WA gets next Monday.

I suppose the idea is that in days of yore the monarch would travel through its dominion collecting tributes. Travel being what it is, different days across the year would become the official date for such payments.

I don't know about NZ, but if you want to guess what HRH would have gotten from us? Opals, sure.

Power & Serenity
As part of the Vivid Festival, Lou Reed, as he does whenever he's touring, brought his tai chi master, Ren GuangYi, who graciously consented to teach four sessions for beginners. The rain stopped late on Friday night, but I didn't go for the 7 a.m. session on Saturday, electing to sleep in and go to today's eleven a.m. class. Again, the weather held, and there I was without about three or four dozen others, running through the basics of the Master's Power 21 set, movements meant to be performed in a limited space, but for maximum effect. You see tai chi here and there, but doing it, having it explained - where your weight should settle, how to turn and pivot, you get the sense of the martial arts behind it. The best part: Lou Reed came along and even helped various of us move into the correct stance.


PS: no cats.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Vividity
Slow Music Night was definitely the right choice of show for the Vivid Festival. Not only did Laurie Anderson act as host, Lou Reed turned up to perform, along with the rest of the showcase musicians, and they were a cast of stars in their own rights, mostly. I could have done without the violinist, who was a bit of a noodler, and Holly Miranda didn't exactly wow me with her Feist-meets-Beth-Orton-crossed-with-Cat-Power performance. But Shara Worden, of My Brightest Diamond, whose cover of Blind Willie Johnson's "Lord I can't keep from crying" raised the hairs on my neck, and Colin Stetson consistently blew me away, and the Blind Boys of Alabama (formerly the Five Blind Boys... - only three left) were a stand-out. Emily Haines was o.k., but couldn't keep up with Lou on her duets with him, which was a shame. I hope the rain holds off for some of this weekend, so I can get some Tai Chi in.

Winter
So let's see: it's rugby league season, and I have my home games tickets to ANZ Stadium for Rabbitohs home games, so pretty much at least every other weekend more or less there's an event to attend; the Sydney Film Festival is on (but not much I'm really interested in, although that hasn't stopped me from buying a ticket to a documentary on the roots of Reggae on the same day at the same time as a Rabbitohs game - smart!); the Vivid Festival is on (tai chi on the Opera House forecourt, with Lou Reed & his tai chi master - is Lou an early riser? Saturday morning is the way to go; or does he sleep in? Sunday midmorning, then); and today Leonard Cohen tickets go on sale for his triumphant return in November. So much to do, so little time to do it in.

Fixing Cat
I don’t see any good reason to deny the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens a visa. I also don’t see any reason to reward him by attending any of his concerts or buying any of his music, past, present or future. He supported the fatwa on Salman Rushdie no matter what he claims now. He wasn’t joking, he wasn’t taken out of context, but he is an ass for trying to avoid saying he was wrong and apologizing. Let him go where he wants, but let him play to an empty hall.

SMH Half Results
2:02 clock time and 1:59 chip time is much better than I had any reason to expect. I'll take two weeks to rest before training for the half in October and see what kind of result I can manage then.

It Can't Happen Here
From the Department of Good Thinking, 31 new offshore drilling projects for Australia. I guess it'll be o.k. so long as we don't use BP.

We have more solar energy beaming down you'd think we could make a go of that, but I guess we'll keep digging coal and pumping oil until every last molecule is expended. Thank goodness the ETS was abandoned until 2013.

Around the World in 210 Days
Phileas Fogg's got nothing to worry about, but all props to Jessica Watson, sixteen years old and alone on a pretty small sailboat for all that time. What do you bet she tends to wobble a bit for a week or two now on dry land again? She doesn't get a record - some miles short and the category "eliminated" - but it's quite an accomplishment. I won't go into the whole "what were her parents thinking" trope. That's nonsense, clearly, now. And whether or not technological assistance made this possible only in the last twenty years hardly matters either. Good job, kid. What next?

Half Measures
Tomorrow is the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon. I am less ready than I was supposed to be, and my right achilles tendon is pretty sore. Excuses, excuses, but I'll be satisfied if I can stay close to two hours.

Iron Man, All Jets Ablaze, He Fights & Fights with Repulsor Rays
And not just Iron Man, because Iron Man 2 features 'Rhodey' Rhodes as War Machine (basically Iron Man's suit with additional guns). Best of all, it's got Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, and he's about as menacing as you could want in a villain. Sam Rockwell slimes his way through the picture as the egomanicial and ultimately incompetent corporate bad guy so well it hurts to watch him, kinda like Ricky Gervais in "The Office", and Garry Shandling is perfect as the sleazy Senator. The rest I could take or leave. Scarlett Johansen's pretty, sure, and I'm sure she enjoyed flying around on wires as the Black Widow, but that's about as far as that goes, and don't get me started on Gwyneth Paltrow, stuttering her way through every movie I've ever seen her in like she's desperately seeking a good ad lib. But so what? People complain about the Hollywood blockbuster like it's a bad thing. It's not true; they should all go back and watch Sullivan's Travels.

Minimal Maximal Marimbas
Synergy Percussion put on a program of Steve Reich compositions at the City Recital Hall tonight, including Part 1 of "Drumming", one of my favorites, and a new piece, "Mallet Quartet". The highlight of the evening, however, was "Sextet", a piece involving four different marimbas, two of which were, over the course of the piece, played with violin bows. I attended on the mistaken impression that Reich's "Double Sextet" would be performed, the one he got the Pulitzer for last year, confusing it with the "Mallet Quartet", due to my usual vagueness, but that hardly matters, as it was a highly enjoyable evening. The one non-Reich piece, "Kalabash", by Nigel Westlake, was very funky, as advertised, but put me in mind of nothing quite so much as music from "West Side Story", whereas the Reich pieces, for all the staccato sections' resemblance to newsflash dit-dit-dit-dit-dit, really sounded like nothing but themselves, unique compositions finally, not lacking in any way any complexity for all their "minimalism". An excellent evening worth staying up for.

Swing Votes
I’m not surprised that PM Kevin Rudd isn’t polling so well lately. Backing off on even a bad choice on carbon reduction was enough to get me seriously thinking about going Green. Even though, as usual, tax reform gets me nothing, I’m not unhappy with the cherry-picking and slow pace of implementation Labor conducted following the Henry Tax Review, I am unhappy with other, more or less consequential implementation failures. Do we have hospital reform yet? What about water management? Whaling? Getting scared out of the home insulation scheme was just stupid, not to mention ineffective communications management. (I don’t blame the government for contractor errors; I do blame them for letting the Liberals control the message.) A one-term Labor government wouldn’t make me happy, though. If the Coalition does come back into power, and worse, under Abbott, we’d be reverting to anti-labour schemes and the culture wars altogether too soon.

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.

Dissent into the Maelstrom
It's so much fun living in another country and having to answer questions like "why don't Americans want health care?" and "is everybody over there crazy?" Because clearly they don't and clearly they are or at least some noticable proportion. How has it come to this? Is having a black man in the Oval Office so maddening to some people that they cannot approach any issue he raises with rationality? Is the thought of others having equality, the availability of a social safety net something to make these people sociopathic? Or is it that 8 years of fear and loathing under GWB has deranged this part of the population so that anything and everything that smacks of denigration for the bedwetters' heroic torturers sends them into a rabid fury? Maybe Obama really should take away their guns.

Downside
I have to wonder whether the NY Times’s assertion that “a sizable part of the nation is unenthusiastic” about the health care [insurance] reform bill is another example of their Judith Miller reportage – i.e., we got it from a press release transfusion – or whether it’s more simply the usual broad-brush approach to analysis media outlets seem prone to indulge in for sales purposes. Yes, there’s much to disparage, and yes, many people wish the outcome had been different, but the majority of Americans elected this President and this Congress with the knowledge that “socialised” medicine was on the agenda, among other things, no less so than closing Guantanamo or getting out of Iraq, also recognising, one would hope that none of these issues were any less fraught than another, although that’s clearly hoping for too much. The “tea baggers” – and who among them could possibly be so naïve as to have missed out the alt-sex nuances of the phrase (oh, right, all of them) – and their GOP enablers have decided that a black President and a Democratic Congress must equate to the apocalypse, but anyone capable of taking a deep breath and not triggering an embolism must know that however flawed the present bill really is, and it is, the modern world does not, cannot, allow its population to rely for health care on catch-as-catch can “market forces” because that only leaves the most vulnerable, the most likely to succumb most disastrously to even the most common ailments, unprotected, and solely to maintain an unequable distinction to the least vulnerable. This is the same thinking that has led to CEO salaries of 250% more than the lowest paid workers in some companies, a variable that used to be magnitudes more reasonable, and yet the selfishness on parade is being exhibited by thousands of people who fall into exactly these categories, as if precluding government intervention in such areas would ever give them a chance to close either gap. The “American Dream” has, at least since the so-called Regan Era, become the American Mythology, and many of us now worship these false idols. The wake-up call cannot come soon enough, but I fear for the nature of the alarm.

Gavel: Pen
So Speaker Pelosi used the Medicare gavel to ring in Health Care [insurance] Reform (at last), which leaves me wondering if Obama's got a corresponding set of pens to sign it with? Man, I'd give almost anything to get me one of those socialism biros.

Hooray for the Democrats and another major step forward into the modern world for the US of A.

More Rabbit-woes
I don't really know enough about the rules to be sure of what I'm seeing all the time when the referees call a penalty, and I really think the sledging that goes on is probably more than a little over the top, especially the whole off-sides business, given that our side does it too, but I do think tonight's match was decided as much by penalties as by performance, and that's a shame. The Titan's got a penalty kick through to tie the game at the "golden minute", putting the match into overtime. A subsequent call in their favor put Gold Coast into scoring position, and they capitalized with a one-point field goal, giving them a sudden death win at 19-18. It was an exciting match, all the same, very aggressive and energized, but we failed to take advantage when we had it. I'd guess that some of that aggression also accounts for the number of calls against us. More fundamentals drilling this week for the boys in red & green.

Round One Wrapped, Not Rapt
The Mighty Bunnies performed miserably today. I had to come home to watch the news just to validate I'd seen some of what happened out there. 36-10 is not a result anyone can be happy with, except the Roosters, of course, but the score only tells half the story. Souths went out and dropped the ball regularly and spectacularly, seemingly on every set. Passes were desperate and misguided. Meanwhile, Easts seemed to have an extra man on the field. Every pass they made, every off-load was picked up, as were all of our errors. Our side seemed mired and easily misdirected, leaving the opposition free reign over the field, regularly bringing the ball back to the try line with long, unopposed runs. Only desperate goal-line defense saved the score from being even worse. Russell Crowe's presence at past games has seemed to fire up the Rabbits, but not this time. I'd guess he's hoping for something requiring a distant location shoot soon.

Happy GBLT New Mardi Gras Nudes News
Photographer Spencer Tunick (note: NSFW) came to Sydney at the invitation of New Mardi Gras and as a result, more than 2,000 people turned up at the Opera House this morning at 4 a.m. to get their kit off and stand around for about three hours. We had to wait for the sun to come up, which it was slow to do, a grey, cold morning, made rosier by the blushing. I've been colder in Sydney, but not by much.

It was an odd thing to do, I suppose, but interesting insofar as human behavior goes. I was a little surprised by the numbers of groups there were, not just couples, but four or five people, college students and the like, all about to become just that much more intimate with one another. It got a little uncomfortable when were directed to embrace and kiss, especially as the guy I was standing next to was a good head taller than me.

Somehow it was even less comfortable once we went inside the theatre, which is perhaps why one woman left in tears and one was booed into disrobing. (I rather like the idea of one dressed person; I'd have left her alone.)

It must be said, however, that it's obvious why Mr. Tunick is a photographer: he has zero verbal skills and minimal management skills. "This group here"; "you, with the tan lines"; "this way"; "that way" - these are not useful directions. Dude, take the picture, please.


Correction: 5,200 people.

Rabbitohs, Ho
Rugby League season is underway, with Souths vs. the Dragons at the Charity Shield, a late-starting game that ended at ANZ Stadium in a draw, 26 all. With new players and a new coach, I thought I might see something different from last seasons, and at least insofar as we were aggressive throughout, I did. Nevertheless, one call missed by the ref and some sloppy attempts at on-side kicks and a flagging second half kept us from keeping St George from responding to every try we posted. Only a missed kick at the end kept us from losing outright. Still, it was an exciting, high-scoring game, with 3 trys for Fetuli Talanoa. He ought to make the NSW Blues this year on that result alone.

”You Know, They Call Them ‘Killer’ Whales”
It’s always news when animals kill people, but hardly “man bites dog”, is it? These are wild animals, howsoever trained they may be, and without regard to whether or not it’s a zoo or we’re rehabilitating the creature. I’m sorry when people get hurt like this, I was sorry for Steve Irwin and his family, too, but nobody should be surprised. I’m glad to hear that they won’t be “putting down” the fish. That kind of retaliation is always wrong, too much like trying a pig for witchcraft.

(Thanks to Neko Case for the lyric; came to mind as soon as I heard the story.)

Rings
I don't think I watched any winter Olympics since moving here, so I'm a little intrigued this year to try to catch some and compare the coverage I'm used to - it's all about the women's figure skating - although given that this year we're pretty well assured of being constantly reminded of the dangers now, I reckon it'll be hard to judge. Shame about the luge guy, but aside from ski jumping, and apparently these other new X-Games entries, flying around the ice like that is pretty reckless.

Grey
The post-apocalyptic landscape of The Road is cold and bleak, warmed only by the father's love for his son and the determination to bring him to whatever small salvation may yet remain. This is a movie that reaches into your sense of mortality and shakes it hard, leaving dread and a taste of ashes, even as it offers a final hope. I see why Cormac McCarthy was so happy to endorse the resultant film of his novel: it's better, even while remaining so largely faithful as to be almost bookish itself. It's a hard emotional task to watch this film, like few others before it, but it would have been harder still to have missed it and to deny its power.

Bush Walking with the Ex
Ex-Father-in-law, that is, and only virtually. Russell Atkinson has finally published a sequel (of sorts) to Diary of a Drop-Out: Gone Bush. This is the story of the period during which Russell was well and truly a drop-out, not just an "alternative", but living off the grid up in Bellingen, NSW, and making one good decision after every bad one (if not quite to such an equivalence). The chapters are short and not entirely sequential in time, but each rely on the characteristic Australian dry, ironic sense of humor, although it is a vein of humor that has a fairly universal appeal. I could wish for more - no, really, I do wish for more, as I know there is more to come. When you're ready, Russell, but don't wait so long this time.

Daylight Cinema Limitations
I've kind of made it a practice to wait a couple of weekends before hitting any new releases at the movies and to attend early sessions. This ensures good seat selection and few immediate neighbors, which latter can be important when the room between the edge of my seat and the seat-back in front is restricted to the minimum required by your average dwarf. It can be a problem when the movie selection is something like Fantastic Mr. Fox, at least insofar as the former principle of movie-attendance, due to the increased likelihood of small children. Who were surprisingly better behaved than their parents, who choose to read aloud and otherwise narrate pretty much throughout, due to the children being a little on the too-young side, which became especially apparent at about an hour in when they all started needing to be taken to the toilets. I had hoped that the more "realistic" elements of the film, the growling and other more animalistic behaviors, would send a few out in tears, but you can't have everything.

Mr. Fox was very entertaining, if a little mannered, although it's hard to see how that could have been avoided. Roald Dahl was not a childhood staple for me, so I hadn't encountered this story before, but it's got the same element of not talking-down to kids that Charlie & the Chocolate Factory had, the one Dahl book that came into the household while I was still reading such fare. I enjoyed the animation - and to say the characters were animated should be taken in both senses of the word: yes, puppets; and yes, expressive, active, lively. Wes Anderson's done a good job with the material, and I look forward, as ever, to his next film, whatever it may be.

Bush Legacy: Supreme Court Hates Democracy
The latest ruling from the Supreme Court, making corporations more equal than people in regard to campaign finance, ensures our elected officials will act to the benefit of business - big business, at that - rather than those of us who actually vote. I suppose a 5-4 decision offers some hope that we can get a law back in place, maybe even something more far-reaching than we've had before, but with the teabaggers and haters in a position now to stand pat and block anything from happening, it doesn't seem likely. This is the Reagan-Bush-Bush legacy for the country: democracy doesn't live in America anymore.

More Festival Festivities
Why do event promoters use thirty-year-old photos in their advertisements? John Cale's got to be like 70, so I'm not fooled. For Xmas, M. got me tickets to the show at the Enmore theatre. This is a nice, civilized venue, often putting on the best local, national, and international rock concerts anywhere in town. Cale put in a hard-rocking set, covering pretty much the full span of his early career, up to and including Sabotage. In some ways this was disappointing. I appreciate his early stuff, but it's largely characterized by screaming, crashing finishes after an extended period of seeming to be incapable of bringing the song to a conclusion. His pop sensibilities were perhaps a bit more honed later, and that might have been to the good for this set. Still, with a full band backing him, it was a relief that it wasn't to be a repeat of the last few shows I saw, with him reprising his catalog on solo piano. And thank goodness that his 90's turn into "classical" composition wasn't featured. Songs for Drella and his Dylan Thomas song cycle were dreadful. So, all up: a good night out and a fine performance from a grand old man of rock.

Running
Last year I focused in training in running on my forefoot. I found that I maintained strength in my legs for longer than when I allowed myself to land heel-first. Except for wet conditions, where it seemed a forefoot-strike slid more, I even maintained this gait during the half-marathon. So I was intrigued enough by a capsule article in Wired over Christmas to make a point of finding a local store here that carries the Newton running shoe and to spend more than I ever have on a shoe that wasn't going to get me back to Kansas. I've only been using it in the run-up to the May SMH half for three days now (and 20k) so I don't know if this is really going to work, but so far I like them and they really seem to work. Due to shipping errors, the shop only had my size in the racer, but since I already run this way, I figured the trainer was superfluous. We'll see how it lasts and whether, when the race time approaches, a new pair is required. I'm thinking I should get through the next couple of months o.k., but as I intend to also run the Blackmore's half in October, I probably will need to replace them.

Devastation
Haiti would have been entirely unprepared for the earthquake, such events being probably quite rare in the region, not to mention decades of endemic poverty and governmental corruption. I don’t doubt that the death toll will be terribly high and that recovery will be a very long time coming. I can’t even imagine coming back from this without some very open and forthright assistance from the wealthy nations of the world. I worry that the response will be great pledges of aid that come to little actually spent and less spent where it’s really needed. This is often the problem with underdeveloped countries with entrenched governments with high levels of corruption or despotism, that they insist on sovereignty and keep much of what passes through their hands, favoring this contractor or that who themselves operate similarly, not to mention that charities and even donor nations have “administrative” costs built into their pledges. A million dollars pledged in aid isn’t a million dollars spent on the ground rebuilding homes and hospitals. A better system is needed. Humanitarianism needs to be more open at both the giving and receiving ends.

Meanwhile, could God please call Pat Robertson home, heaven or hell, I don’t care, just please get him off the planet: who knew that Toussaint L’ouverture was the Devil? (Maybe if a white man had freed Haiti from the French it would have been o.k. with Pat?)

A Fan’s Notes
To Neko Case Monday, thanks to the intervention of a Sydney Festival staff member, to exorcise the songs from Middle Cyclone that play on endless repeat in my head day and night. Well, that didn’t work.

The venue is home to the Australian Chamber Orchestra, which may explain the acoustics, unless it’s just the curse of trying to build a concert hall. Has anyone ever successfully built a “sound” opera house? As Ms. Case commenced the first song of the set, she stopped on the first note, taken aback by the room’s lack of acoustical warmth. For someone with such a tin ear as I’ve got, the sound had to be bad that I noticed it, too (but I’d have thought Neko would have noted the quality in the sound-check; guess not). So it was an odd show, and for other reasons, too. For one thing, the backup singer seemed to run most of the stage patter. And while I knew nearly all the songs inside and out (a couple of pieces at the end were from albums I haven’t heard), the lack of warmth, if I can continue to use that expression, kept the experience from replicating or exceeding that of listening to the recordings. I probably should have made more of an effort to get out to the Blue Mountains for the set she did in Katoomba, which was a pub venue.

Finally, the show was perhaps somewhat rushed and shorter than it might have been, which probably affected the performance, due to the fact that Grizzly Bear were due to take the stage at 8:30. This meant Neko was operating with a curfew, annoyingly, especially as I can’t stand Grizzly Bear so see no reason for them to be preferenced. For a band with one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2009, I just don’t get them.

Glad I went, happy not to miss out, just the same.

Traffic
There was a time in the States when holiday road deaths were publicised, and it may be that years in NYC made this less conspicuous to me, but it seems this time has long passed. So it was surprising to me to be seemingly barraged with details over each long weekend or holiday period with state-by-state deaths on the road figures, perhaps most especially because the figures never seemed so high as to warrant such attention. 10 deaths in NSW vs. 12 in QLD or wherever just didn’t seem statistically significant for a three+ day period. And because nothing ever seems to be done to alleviate what must be of concern to Australians, the focus of the reporting would better serve public interest by shifting to the do-nothing public servants.

Not that I take such criticism as does focus on government entirely seriously. There are an awful lot of pundits whose hearts just bleed over traffic light cameras and speed cameras – as if running a red light or exceeding the speed limit isn’t dangerous. These same commentators say little about the stepped-up holiday period random breath tests.

But it’s been a terrible time to be out on the roads this year, with a week to go, unofficially, for the holiday period, including a tremendous accident involving a petrol tanker exploding, killing the truck driver, two small children and their dad, and leaving the mother seriously injured. The visibility of the incident has people up in arms over the particular roadway where it took place and which is regarded as a neglected stretch of infrastructure and over long-haul truckers sharing space with passenger vehicles, particularly in regard to dangerous materials transport.

I don’t recall what prompted me to read Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says about Us), but I did, and it highlighted some things for me, not least that accidents between trucks and cars are most usually because the car driver does something stupid rather than that the truck driver is hopped-up on speed, overtired, or aggressive, but also that the large majority of car drivers are overconfident and under-trained.

Unfortunately, that’s not news, or not within the consciousness of journalists, anyway. Certainly any reporter pointing fingers at the majority among his or her audience is going to lose credibility. We all know it’s the truckies, the cyclists, the pedestrians, the government – not us behind the wheel. (You, that is, since I’m a life-long pedestrian.) I won’t say, and neither does Tom Vanderbilt, that these other parties don’t share blame, but the majority share should lie where it belongs. I’ve seen enough of Sydney traffic to know that aggression is pretty nearly a universally innate behavior once behind the wheel.

Tom Vanderbilt suggests taking the “How’s My Driving” technique to another level, where the driving performance of everybody is recorded and fed back into a system that rates them and offers penalties and incentives accordingly. The technology only partially exists, but it might focus our attention more appropriately than the usual “He did it” approach.

They Hates Our Freedoms: Boxers vs. Briefs
The Shoe-Bomber. Now the Underpants-Bomber. These guys are scary, sure, but ineffective, inept, except at ensuring that under-trained airport and airline staff are increasingly responsible for making air travel inconvenient and uncomfortable. We shuffle through the security checks in our socks. We're subjected to mandatory pat-downs. Makes me glad I'm not traveling to the States this year. Someday the TSA will work out a way to implement an effective and efficient system of detection and prevention. If the GOP allow a director to be appointed or a bill to get them some money to be passed. But they didn't get that done when they were the majority, either.

Dances with Aliens
So much for the snark, although I suppose I could go on. Avatar is terrific. I sprang for the whole Imax 3-D experience and it was totally worth it. Sure, it's 3 hours of my life, but it rocks, rolls, and left me reeling (quite literally, as I'm a bit prone to vertigo and the 3-D stuff did get to me now and then, but I was able to mostly control for it). I haven't bothered about any of the other big 3-D releases there have been lately, but having done Imax, I think I'll have to do another, just for comparison.

O.k., all science fiction movies come down to westerns in the end, and this one is no different, but seeing Sam Worthington's giant blue girlfriend crouched above his prostrate and incapacitated form, snarling at the villain in giant's armor, well, that was worth the price of admission. And while it's usually considered quite daring for an incipient leading actor to take a role that spends that much time in somebody else's face, the makeup and digital effects are such that you never lose sight of him and that each character is sufficiently distinct and recognizable, which is only a little disconcerting in the case of Sigourney Weaver.

Great stuff, a triumph - and a serious contender for Best Picture, I reckon.

City Views
While I was out, I took a few photos, intending to capture a bit of summer imagery.

Coming back from Kirribilli, I found that the World has come to Sydney, as, in another sense, it usually does, this time of year.


"This time of year" being the run-up to New Year's Eve, when they'll set the Harbour Bridge on fire, sort of, and reveal the logo in the centre, which, from the framework already in place, you can't really work out. The theme is captioned "Awaken the Spirit." I think I miss the disco ball.


The sun's well up by 8 a.m., and glaring off the surface of the water.


There's a similar effect looking into the city from the Botanical Gardens as there is looking across an open prospect out of NYC's Central Park, but things are a bit more open here somehow. Still, I like some of these buildings; they show a bit of flair. Although I wonder at the lack of solar panels. Wouldn't that just be smart?


The Sydney Opera House is a well-known and over-photographed construction, but it's a stand-out nevertheless.


What you don't much get, though, is how broad the forecourt is. During the days of flashmobs, I thought it would be a good place to have a large number of people walking up and down in some kind of pattern and then suddenly dispersing. Maybe with umbrellas, too.


One thing about the harbor: it's very clean. Clean-looking, anyway. I'm not inclined to try the fish.