Boxing Day There are two Australian traditional events the day after Christmas: cricket and the start of the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race. This year I went out to Watsons Bay, by South Head and the Gap, to watch the start. The line forms just past Shark Island by Rose Bay, and crowds line the harbour and the view points out to sea, at every vantage point along the way. Boats of all sizes and types also pour into the harbour to view the start and to accompany the racers, past the heads if they're suitable to the open ocean, but generally staying out of the way. Lots of helicopters, too, and one blimp, the latter a somewhat unusual sight. The Americans have a boat in the race, too, a super-maxi called Commanche, and it's apparently had a credible start. Next year perhaps I'll see about going to see some cricket, if there's any in town. I think the Boxing Day test is in Melbourne.

Moral Compass: Lacking Here we have the true measure of the current Attorney General of Australia and the Liberal Party's commitment to the rule of law: Because David Hicks has been labelled a terrorist, torture is o.k. Without the courage to face his questioner, George Brandis dismisses the torture of David Hicks by the CIA, with the apparent knowledge and complicity of a government of which he was a member, and scuttles away from actually answering to the charge. As much as it pains me whenever Dick Cheney rears his hideous mien to pontificate on terrorism and justify his crimes, it is worse to bring such men as this back into power and pretend that it's a good thing. Brandis, you toad, answer the question.

All Dogs Go to Heaven Remember that Twilight zone episode where the guy dies and doesn't know it until he meets the devil and can't take his dog with him? Apparently, just like in that show, when he meets the angel, he will, because dogs count. Gotta like this pope, don't you? Showers at St. Peters for the homeless, Patti "my sins belong to me" Smith playing a show at the Vatican, and now we get to see our pets in heaven. If we can get to gay marriage and women priests, it'll be the New Jerusalem right there.

Paying for It The Liberals are abandoning their proposed $7 co-pay for doctor visits: good. It was a bad policy. The policy proposed adding this out-of-pocket tax to pay for a so-called “medical research future fund”, but the purpose was quite simply to drive people away from doctors, based on the claim that too many were going too often for too little. Are there people turning up at their bulk-billing physician’s office or clinic at the least sign of a sniffle or just because they’re lonely? Probably, but that doesn’t make Medicare “unsustainable”, as is so often claimed to be its status. In fact, Medicare is eminently sustainable, but health care itself does need work. I read a lot about various efforts being undertaken to improve health care delivery in the US and elsewhere. These may involve larger initial outlays, but the outcomes produced provide significant reductions in long-term costs well-beyond what’s spent at the beginning, and overall patient health is similarly improved. That’s big, as big, in its way, as antibiotics. It’s also smart, much smarter than driving people away from doctors or increasing the tax used to pay for health care. The supporters of the tax call it “structural reform”, but it isn’t a reform, unless you think abandoning universal health care is a reform, and it isn’t structural, as it doesn’t address health care itself. Pushing people away from health care is only going to make it more expensive as more people end up with worse health an earlier intervention could have prevented. Pushing health care into the private sector will not only increase costs, it will make it unavailable to the poor and burden the middle class, but that’s the idea, really. Liberals hate the poor. They regard poverty and illness as moral failings that should be punished. They despise the middle class for being aspirational and sucking up money that belongs to the wealthy. This is an ideological driver for the party and for the policies they seek to enact. That and the fact that Medicare was a successful Labor Party initiative for the last forty years, and nothing Labor has ever done can be tolerated. The Liberals have decided on a practice of extreme opposition, even in government, and this is one of the worst actions they’ve yet undertaken. Don’t count on the “co-pay” tax being gone forever. The Liberals are nothing if not persistent. Update: Absent the ability to put through their tax, the Liberals now propose to effectively stop paying doctors what they're owed for providing health care under Medicare. This is a despicable abrogation of their responsibility to the public and a slap in the face to doctors.

Who's Got the Guns? O.k., it's America, so the first answer is everybody. Except that's not right. What we need to remember while Ferguson burns is that the police have the guns, and having the guns means using them right. Quoting from Spiderman is simplistic, perhaps, but with great power comes great responsibility. Having guns and the right to use them means using them responsibly. Having the legal power to use force, even non-lethal force, for the purpose of controlling crime means using force responsibly, with restraint and judiciousness. A lone cop against a lone alleged assailant shouldn't require a spray of gunfire. The grand jury got it wrong. Well, they got what they got, and that led to wrong, so the question has to be what happened to lead them to their decision? Why did they think that all that gunfire didn't warrant an indictment? Maybe we'll find out from AG Holder, but I have my doubts. We surely won't find out from the arrests that will follow the riots. We didn't find out after Rodney King, either. But it's long past time we did, that we asked ourselves the questions: why are police so quick to shoot and kill unarmed black men? Why do we need our police to be so heavily armed that they serve effectively as an occupying army? Our politicians have let this get out of hand. In the scramble to be most "tough on crime" they give the police far too much leeway, far too many powers, and even where judicial restraints may exist, this requires judicial review, and it's too late by then. There were marches in the 1970's and '80's to "take back the night", a campaign against sexual violence against women. Maybe we could use some "take back our communities" now.

Whatever a Spider Can I want Spiderman gloves. I'll probably need Spiderman shoes, too, and a forklift, but Christmas is coming . . . .

October Showers Bring November Flowers Doesn't have quite the same ring to it. But as we head rapidly into summer, for now, the Jacaranda trees are in bloom, spreading purple joy and a carpet of petals as the head towards leaf. This is the "philosopher's tree" in the Sydney University quad, a very popular tourism location these days.

Orders and Disorder It makes no sense for John Boehner to say in the same sentence that Americans "want to get things done and they don't want the president acting on a unilateral basis", when he's spent his entire time in the House doing everything he could to ensure nothing got done. Equally, it makes no sense for Obama not to use executive orders as much as he can, but I admit that sometimes Obama, and the Democrats who used to run the Senate, made no sense to me in their inaction previously. Harry Reid could have gotten a lot more done if he'd just woken up to the fact that he wasn't working in the Senate he was accustomed to from years ago, and Obama could have given up on giving away the farm in his attempts at bipartisanship, too. Now we have to hope the veto stamp has a fresh inkpad.

Cooperation Co-opted Here’s the thing: Obama always promises to work with Republicans, but Republicans don’t cooperate. Their concept of cooperation is “do what we say or we’ll do nothing at all.” It seems to have gotten worse over time, maybe since Nixon. The whole impeachment thing seems to have set a partisan divide in place that cannot be reconciled. The Reagan “small government” line has taken hold in the mind of voters to the extent that Republican politicians cannot recognize that their sainted Ronnie didn’t shrink government, he increased it; didn’t lower taxes, increased them; didn’t eliminate the deficit, increased it. Or else they simply won’t admit it was all spin and lies, although even the author of Trickle Down Economics, David Stockman, eventually repudiated the concept. Clinton co-opted much of the conservative agenda, to the country’s harm, particularly by 2008, when financial deregulation bit the country hard, leaving little recourse for the next Democrat to deal with the legacy of the incompetent buffoon, George W. Bush, who left the country mired in two wars and without the tax revenue it needed or the economic nous to deal with it. The end of the Greenspan era couldn’t come soon enough, and didn’t. Maybe this is what it really comes down to, the deliberate conflation of the economy and the society, pandering to the far reaches of the latter with anti-abortion legislation, no effective gun control, and false-flag racially discriminatory anti-voting laws, while serving the interests of the extreme end of the former, the 1% (and themselves, of course, servants of the 1%), with insane tax cuts and the elimination of any help for the poor, let alone any support for the middle class or those poised to transition to it, all with a rhetoric that treats poverty and illness as moral failings. And the country falls for it. Regularly. Clinton was a good President, especially domestically. But his personal transgressions were enough for the Republicans to gain the White House, and key governorships around the country have ensured a stranglehold on the House for many years yet to come. Carter was, if not a good President, at least not a bad one, who had to struggle more with foreign affairs than left him any way to deal with domestic, which was especially unfortunate with the rise of OPEC, let alone Iran, let alone the reds-under-the-beds fervour of Reagan. Obama, too, has been a better President than he gets credit for, if only because of Obamacare, a flawed but significant revision in the nation’s vision of itself as a progressive country. And, yes, that vision is itself flawed, although when “progressive” became a curse I’m not sure. Does it go all the way back to FDR? Sometimes I think so. The assaults on Social Security certainly indicate as much. But the assaults on civil rights suggests it goes back even further, and you’re left wondering if any progress remains possible, with so much left yet to do in making that “more perfect union”. The Republicans serve wealth alone. They hate anyone not them. And they even hate themselves. They have built their party on envy, on greed, on selfishness. They will not stop, because they can’t, not any more. It’s too late for them to suddenly become reasonable. It will take generations, if it ever happens at all, and the so-called “tea party” is doing everything it can to ensure it won’t. And the 1% are doing everything they can to ensure that any conservative impulse serves their interests and not those of the nation.

Why the Privileged Can't Have Nice Things So Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey isn't allowed to take up the entire footpath at his favourite pizza shop and that's a problem with government, not with him wanting more than is reasonable, not with the reasonable regulation of public space. Just another example of "Big Government" stomping all over the "little guy". Of course, in the same article you'll see that the cost of governmental red tape is nothing compared to the costs businesses impose upon themselves. I feel sorry for the neighbourhood that had to endure Hockey shouting and stamping his feet and waving his arms and berating the shop owner. This "Don't you know who I am", born-to-rule attitude is typical of the Liberals. When will the Australian public learn: the Liberals hate them, they hate everyone who isn't them or isn't rich. Get take-away, Joe, and shut up.

No Help to Women Of course Julie Bishop, Liberal Foreign Minister, is "not a feminist". I doubt she's done one damn thing ever in her life to benefit any woman other than herself. She won't use the term, won't describe herself as a feminist as a consequence, but also because she belongs to a party that has no time for women or equality. Julie Bishop cannot be a feminist or describe herself as such because if she was her party would not allow her a voice, let alone a seat on the front bench. She cannot be a feminist because that would mean valuing herself and other women equally to men. Her sneers at and contempt for women are evident. She might as well start wearing a blue tie. It's her only hope of getting to be PM.

Rock 'n' [Out]rage Best cover versions? What about Husker Du's cover of "Love is All Around", the Mary Tyler Moore theme song?

Pokies in the Eye Back when Peter Holmes a Court and Russell Crowe took a majority ownership in the South Sydney Rabbitohs, they tried to get the scourge of poker machines out of the club venues. It didn't work. Today, James Packer, billionaire and casino owner, has bought out Holmes a Court. This is bad for the Rabbitohs, who already have far too close a relationship with gambling, and for the NRL, which is also far too invested in the betting industry. It's also bad because it's James Packer, scion of one of the most rapacious capitalist families in Australia, and whose casino in the Barangaroo development now being erected on the harbour foreshore is one of the finest examples of real estate and government collusion you could ever hope for; we may never know just how the approvals for this got done and the extent to which current and future modifications will continue to preference Packer and the developers over the rest of the city. Don't think for a minute that it's a coincidence that the public housing residences that overlook Barangaroo are being forcibly vacated and auctioned. As a long-time member, I am very sorry to see Holmes a Court leave, but even sorrier that it's come to this: selling out the club to the gambling machine of Australia. Sports gambling isn't the problem it's been in the States, or at least not the problem it's sometimes been. It happens, and players caught out get canned. But you can gamble on damn near anything in this country, so there's a lot of money in it, and therefore a lot of influence. It's still ethically challenging for South Sydney, though, as this is traditionally a club that prides itself on its community roots in an underprivileged and once-majority indigenous part of the city, with a history of social services commitment, and here they are playing into the hands of one of the most significantly socially damaging sectors of the economy. Every club needs money. They have to pay the players, the operation of the club has to mean the team can perform, and the NRL has to get its cut. Sure, the league has television, increasingly catering to the more moneyed cable end of town, at the expense of everyone who doesn't turn their hard-earned over the Murdoch's Foxtel, and the usual marketing gimmicks like home and away uniforms, variations on branding, etc. pull in plenty - you can buy a membership for your dog, you know, although he's not likely welcome at the ground - but it's still expensive, even with the salary cap. Russell can't support the club on his own forever, as he famously YouTube-ranted at us a few years ago. I still object. Packer is the last one I want with an ownership stake in the Rabbitohs. Well, one of the last ones. There are probably others I haven't even thought of. The Rabbitohs wear Crown Resorts branding, and Star casino, and it's wrong. They are promoting a social cancer that harms their base more than anyone else. All too late, of course. The money's there to stay.

Nobody Did It Gone Girl is a long movie, at 145 minutes, but worth all of it, and doesn’t feel long. It moves along at a good pace for a mystery that has no mystery in it, or at least not after you know the gimmick, after which it becomes a pretty good psycho-drama. It’s missing some exposition from the book that might have been helpful, but doesn’t suffer, and some of the emphasis was changed. Neil Patrick Harris was Supporting Actor Oscar-worthy, and the leads, Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, were more than just well-cast. Definitely worth the price of admission and one of the best adaptations to the screen I’ve seen. Best Screenplay, too? Could be.

They Stand Above the Rest Rabbitohs vindicate their fans' faith, over 43 years, and the 2000-2001 fight for reinstatement to the competition, with a decisive win over the Canterbury Bulldogs. Glory, Souths, indeed, a magnificent effort. Valiant Sam Burgess will go down in the annals for his determination and courage. Lote Tuqiri will the grandest "old man" of Rugby League for years to come. Greg Inglis has his first "legitimate" premiership and it couldn't happen to a better player ever. Chris McQueen stepped in at just the right moment to make a terrific difference. Adam Reynolds is a champion beyond price. John Sutton captained the team through a tough season and a convincing win, 30-6. We all wish David Tyrrell a swift recovery and most welcome return in 2015. Sad to see Sam Burgess off to Union in the UK, but wishing him all the very best success regardless and sending him with our thanks for his years of service, along with his brothers, whom we hope to retain, George, Luke, and Thomas, all bringing us to this fantastic result. Sad also to see retire Nathan Merritt, one of the most exciting players in the game, but wishing him great good fortune in the future, whatever next path he takes. Everyone contributed, everyone deserves praise and thanks, tonight and across the season and the years that have led to this. Glorious, and privileged to have been there.

Glory, Glory South Sydney Rabbitohs are in the Grand Final, taking on the Canterbury Bulldogs (boo, hiss). An historic occasion, as they are here for the first time in 43 years (41 if you discount for when Rupert Murdoch - boo, hiss - kicked them out of the competition for two years; there were riots in the streets!). It's gonna be a night to remember.

Dear Tony Do you have any of those fridge magnets left that prevent terrorism? I lost mine and now there's women in burqas everywhere!

The Nanny State Becomes the Police State When the USA Patriot Act went up, we knew it was a bad job. Sure, mostly because John Ashcroft was part of it . . . o.k., not mostly, but don’t discount the influence of evil. But bad. The whole NSA scandal came straight out of the this act, among other things. And now Australia, the ten-years-later me-too nation, is headed into the same error. Laws passed today, without significant dissent, will allow the Federal Attorney General to issue warrants for Australian police and spy agencies to tap phones, internet usage, and conduct searches, without judicial oversight or even, effectively probably cause. These police will be exempt from prosecution for any misdeeds – except, incredibly, torture, by the specific concern on one Liberal Party member at the concession of the AG, as if the rest of what abuses may occur are irrelevant. Why? Because some Syrian blowhard recommended killing, among others, Australians, on behalf of the so-called Islamic State. Naturally, some weak-minded moron proceeded to attempt exactly that, was shot and killed for his efforts, and the whole nation is in an uproar of fear and loathing. It’s gone so far that there are police with assault rifles patrolling the halls of Parliament House and more weak-minded morons saying Ban the Burqa (as if wearing a veil was a common tool of suicide bombers even in those countries where it’s commonly worn, among which Australia is not). “Less freedom for some for the protection of the rest” is the mantra we’re being conned with. More freedom reduces risk, especially if it can be grown in those countries where freedom is severely restricted , but it isn’t really about suicide bombers, beheadings, or what threat IS actually poses here or abroad to anyone, let alone Australians. It’s about power. And as we saw in the States, once power is gained it is not easily relinquished, even by those professing more high-minded ideals. Obama has not closed Guantanamo. He has not curtailed warrantless wiretapping. He has stepped up the use of assassination-by-drone, including against US citizens. The powers Bush established for himself and his administration have not been ceded by Obama, and any expectation that he would do so was always delusional. Why should he? Especially if, in doing so, he armed his opposition with tools to use against him? The same is true here. Howard instituted laws following the 2002 Bali bombings that were a USA Patriot Act lite. Rudd and Gillard, achieving government in 2007 did nothing to dismantle them, and while the spying on Indonesia is likely to have commenced under Howard, it was certainly escalated under Rudd/Gillard, to the point of tapping the Indonesian president’s wife’s phone. Abbott caught the flak on that one, but he didn’t back off it. And now we have more laws, more extensive spying, domestic and international, with plenty of exemptions to keep the spies from answering to any abuses they inflict, either procedural or physical. They may stop short of torture, but we know from the Bush Justice Department how easy it is to redefine torture. These laws are wrong, but they’re never going away. What a mess.

Believers Yesterday was the People's Climate Mobilisation, and around the world, people gathered to let their politicians know the time for action is now, not later. BBC coverage includes the gathering in Glebe, where we formed a "human sign": Beyond Coal & Gas". Now that China has reduced its imports of our brown coal, we can hope they will make further progress towards emissions reductions, but also that our Prime Denialist, Tony Abbott, will take renewable energy production seriously, regardless of whether Treasurer Joe Hockey finds wind turbines objectionable intrusions on his aesthetic sense while driving between Sydney and Canberra, or not. (What did we do to deserve these lunatics as our government?)

No Contrition So former Prime Minister John Howard was ”embarrassed” there were no WMD in Iraq? He bought the American line without question, tens of thousands of people have died, and that’s as close to an apology as we’ll ever get from that man. It also makes every subsequent assessment he makes more than a little suspect. He didn’t have the nous to evaluate information then, and he doesn’t now. He lied then, he’s lying now. He is, as he was famously dubbed within his own party, a lying rodent. Shut it, Howard, you creep.

Perspective Down to Melbourne over the weekend, for the Anywhere Festival, in Frankston, a series of theatrical events of one kind and another, set in unusual venues, such as, and specifically, Affinity Circus, featuring some spectacular acrobatics, and set, cleverly, in a skate park, with the audience perched along the rim of the bowls, for a most unique vantage. Highly enjoyable, with an enthusiastic crowd, and seasoned professionals performing. Would definitely make a point of this again.

Seriously I'm not sure who has less shame, the Republicans and their racist supporters or the media for reporting on such stupidity. The suit looks o.k., I thought. Creeps, cretins, idiots - and this is what passes for international news? Lift your game, morons.

Comics Is Guardians of the Galaxy as good as the trailers, or even the music on the trailers? Yes, it is (and so's the soundtrack, which I picked up as soon as it was available). It is, of course, a movie adaptation of yet another comic book franchise, and a fairly marginal one at that, one I'm not familiar with more than to know the name of the raccoon (Rocket, if you hadn't heard), or that it involves the Marvel universe's intergalactic characters, notably the Kree. It's full of little unreconcilable anachronisms and loose ends, not least being the nearly unintelligible Kree/Thanos subplot, but then again, so what? Sure, Peter Quill, Starlord, has access to spacecraft capable of taking him back to Earth, but why would he do so? Sure, Rocket is a raccoon, but he's smart, fairly talkative, and good with a gun; what's not to like? Groot, Gamora, Drax, well, maybe in the next movie we'll get more out of the latter two. The tree-guy's going to be the tree-guy and apparently not develop much further in his vocabulary than an additional pronoun. And we have the prospect of Awesome Mix volume 2 comprising the sound track in the sequel! Very entertaining, well-performed, very good to look at. Can't really ask for more in a movie and not be churlish, can you?

Bushwalkers Not a Ned Kelly among them. Oh, that's bush rangers. Never mind.

They Might Be Giving It Away They Might Be Giants are giving away music to their fans. I count myself a fan from the early days of Dial-a-Song. Thanks, Giants.

Fishing Out for whale-watching season to the Botany cliffs, where we saw no whales. Too choppy. Just when you'd think "thar!" there was none. Or maybe, but probably just spray, not spume. Still pretty. And still a working port.

Mountains Up to the Blue Mountains for a weekend get-away. Very brief. Stayed at the old Carrington, ate at Leura Garage and Niagara Cafe, walked along Evan's Lookout to Govett's Leap, with not much view due to the dense cloud cover. It was like walking in front of a blank movie screen sometimes.

X-Notes Xmen-Days of Future Past" over the Queen's Birthday long weekend. A nice return to form, although I would have let it end more ambiguously. From the stinger after the credits, it's clear where they're going next, so I only wonder at the composition of the Four Horsemen, Death in particular, originally Angel, only a very minor character in the third of the film series, and last I saw still in possession of his wings. So, 2015 or 2016? Bryan Singer or someone else? Meanwhile, Guardians of the Galaxy was never in my rotation, but how can it be bad if it's got Rocket Raccoon?

End of Life Planning So our Federal Treasurer thinks we should work until we die, because life ends at retirement. No, Mr. Hockey, you bullying creep, life does not end at 65 or 70 or at whatever age we retire. Work does not define life. The economy is not society. We are not your serfs. Who voted for these jackasses?

Visiting Sauron On Thursday, we flew over to Auckland and drove down with friends to Tongariro National Park, one of the world's oldest national parks, to tramp the crossing. ("Tramping" being the word used in NZ to refer to long hikes, usually involving an overnight stay, and sometimes referred to as a bushwalk in Australia.) This is the first time I've ever gone "camping" on this scale in a very long time. We had packs and boots and all the Icebreaker gear you'd ever want, sleeping bags, etc. No food or cooking equipment, though, as we'd hired a guide, and the service included meals. New Zealand's Great Walks, of which there are eight (you can look them up if you're interested) allow camping proper or you can book into huts along the way, which we did for our two overnight stays. These huts are communal, sleep about two dozen, all lined up in bunks, and include gas and wood stoves and water, so it all sounded very unarduous. The description of the tramp we booked was a three-day hike; 6-7 hours on the first day, 3-4 on day two, and finishing with a 6-7 hour walk. We shared carrying the additional material necessary, food and so forth, on top of the 10 kilos of our own stuff, so that wasn't hard. The rain, on the first day, was relentless and cold. I can't say as I was terribly happy by the time we reached the hut, but we made the best of it, and after a bit of rest felt better. The prospect of day two's limited tramping seemed promising of an easier time. On day two I discovered that taking pictures in the rain was bad for my camera. It's working again, but some of the very best scenery was not documented. I also discovered that a 3-4 hour walk in showers and a driving wind was not any more enjoyable that just downpours on day one. And some of those "easy" hills our guide promised were pretty tough. Even with all the walking and running and trying to keep up a level of fitness that we'd done in the weeks since booking this trip in January wasn't enough for me, so I was pretty sore. And more glad to reach the hut than I was on day one. While most of the others went out to view the local terrain, two of us stayed back and watched the rain and wind increase and judged ourselves to have made a better decision. Day three was the true test. We left the cabin and proceeded across the plains of Mordor - not kidding; some of the Lord of the Rings scenery was shot here. This has led me to a newfound respect for hobbits, as we had to climb for an hour up a lava flow ridge, barely wider than me, with gale force gusts and freezing rain. My visibility was reduced to nearly zero, so watching my feet and staying low was my only option. And to think that some people do this for fun. We didn't climb all the way up this cone, and we abandoned the idea of doing the crossing, opting to get out as quickly as possible, via the alternative route, which took us past the area where there'd last been an eruption, two years ago, still smoking away. On the morning of our last day, the weather cleared, and we could see what we'd been battling with. We could also see that one more day might have given us more to contend with, based on the snow that had fallen on the higher peak overnight. Let's go bushwalking, says B. Sure, says I. Bushwalking indeed. A walk in the park, turned into mountaineering. Next time, I pick the holiday. Update: Here's a map, with the tramp highlighted.

Whistle Stop Yesterday we headed out early for a bushwalk, from Taronga Zoo to Balmoral, along the harbour foreshore. We had only just started, really, when, upon reaching Bradley's Head, where the HMAS Sydney memorial is, we ran across a small group of metalworkers, promoting a worldwide event, that started long ago in Germany: Spengler mit Pfiff. The story goes that there was a tinsmith who wanted to promote his business, so he made up hundreds of whistles, bending strips of tin and wrapping them around one another, embossed his business name on them, then went around town handing them out to children. Seems to have worked, as 5 April is now Spengler mit Pfiff day, effectively, and in 80 cities around the world yesterday, metal workers associated with the original business in one way or another, and seeking to promote their trade as something for young people to pursue, set out to make 20,000 whistles. They made over 50,000. The group we met, on our return trip, about an hour later, had made over 500. B. & I each made one, a simple process, where you wrap one end around a metal rod, bend back the rest of the strip, clip the ends, wrap another strip around it, and holding the rounded ends shut, blow, for a high, piercing note. Keeping the gap between the rounded end and the flat strip narrower or wider will alter the tone. Excelsior, Spengler mit Pfiff! I'm keeping my eye out for next year.

Anachronism What I like about repeal day is that this is an exercise every new government should undertake. Getting outdated laws off the books is very sensible, even though my ex-father-in-law once successfully defended a charge of public urination on the basis of one such, wherein a specific exemption was provided for if the act was performed, as I recall the story, against the wheel of a gentleman’s carriage, and since he was pissing on a car tire, well, there you go. Still, here we are, new government well into its first year, and what have we gotten? Most of the revisions are typographical, dropping or adding punctuation. Not much substance, even if a comma here or there can indeed change the meaning and the use of or over and even more so. But the “red tape” repeals the LNP really wants are getting set aside or watered down, thank goodness. The idea that financial planners should be free from restrictions specifying that they act in the best interests of their clients, for example, which is, in reality, a means for banks to allow their staff to sell dodgy products their clients don’t need and won’t benefit from. Removing provisions in the anti-discrimination act to allow offense, intimidation, and humiliation and exempting any words or images “in public discussion of any political, social, cultural, religious, artistic, or scientific matter” is extraordinarily broad, and, as the Attorney General himself has stated, accords everyone not only the “right to be a bigot” but full protection from acting like one, too. I guess if I tell everyone your taste in ties is the worst of anyone’s that might fall afoul of the proposed change, except it’s social. Or is it fashion? Is that artistic? I give up. What is this government on about? Is it all just repealing whatever Labor did for the sake of it and “stopping the boats”? (Have the boats actually “stopped”? Seems not, although they are getting turned back, the ones they allow us to know about.) Come July, when the balance in the Senate changes, Abbott will have quite a romp, if he wants it, or can think of what to do with it, which latter I rather doubt, as he’s shown no capacity for actual ideas so far. While he was leader of the opposition, he was very good at attacking. It seems as though as leader of the government he doesn’t know how to lead but still expects everyone to follow. Unfortunately there’s no evidence of anyone among the LNP, front bench or back, with the capacity to do any better. It’s going to be a long three years. Let’s hope it doesn’t get any longer.

Rolling Clover From day one in Sydney I have witnessed the attempts by both sides of politics to rid themselves of their troublesome colleague, Clover Moore. They have forced her out of State Parliament, they have changed the City of Sydney Council to alter the voting base, they exaggerate and obfuscate. Whatever it takes. Now they are proposing to change the voting laws to require absentee business owners and landlords to vote, with the idea that they will swing the balance against her. Sure, because they'll have a two-votes-to-one advantage over residents. Yes, if you run a business or rent out commercial or residential space in Sydney you get two votes, whether you live in the city or not. This is anti-democratic. Corporations are not people, my friends, and they are not worth two of you. The problem we face is that Labor, now in opposition, hates Clover as much as the Liberals do, and the Greens would be more than happy to see her go, especially if it meant a chance for them to dominate the Council. Will all hands turned against her, the only hope for Clover, and for a progressive government in Sydney, is to fight this proposal, tooth and nail, and for even those who oppose green energy, bike lanes, and whatever lies her opposition trots out, to vote her back. We want government of the people, by the people, for the people, and this ain't that.

Royalist Pain Tony Abbott wants to name Knights and Dames as higher honors than otherwise accorded by the Order of Australia, but will they be supplementary or in replacement of any such honors conferred by his monarch, QEII? Does he get to whack them with a sword? What is it with this buffoon? A republic can't come soon enough.

Is Everybody Happy (Nowadays)? See? This is why the UN is bad: world government telling us we're happy, black helicoptors surveilling unhappy people . . . .

The Poor You Will Have with You Always (but not when you can make a buck off them) The decision by the current NSW government to sell the public housing in the Rocks and Millers Point isn't just heartless, it's corrupt. With the development of the former shipping wharves into a high-profile high-price precinct, complete with a high-rollers casino, was bad enough, bypassing normal planning reviews to largely benefit a single enormously wealthy man, but to now divest the poor of their homes to capitalize on the increased property values shows just how far the Liberal Party is willing to go to line their pockets and those of their wealthy patrons (read: masters). Community Services Minister Pru Goward says AUD$7 million has been spent on the public housing stock to be sold over the last two years and that this money could have been used to build more housing or conduct maintenance elsewhere in the State. I would suggest that the money has been badly managed in the first place, and in the second, spending $7 million on housing for the poor in the city is not "better spent" elsewhere - the poor deserve our compassion and our government's money. It's one of the things we pay our taxes for. 300 properties to be sold for upwards of 1.3 million apiece is certainly a lot of money, but it's a one-off. Less than half-a-billion dollars isn't going to get this government very far, not when it's committing itself to spending billions on unnecessary tunnels and freeways. The poor can't live in the street, but this heartless mob will have them there if they can. There just isn't time enough to get the ICAC onto this lot. (Link fixed.)

Two by Two Last year, Russell Crowe was Jor-El in Man of Steel. The Rabbitohs, of which he is part-owner, issued a limited edition commemorative jersey with the Superman 'S' on it. (No, I did not buy one. There's a limit to fan-boy gear even I will own. Besides, they only have "ladies" and kids left in stock.) This year he's in Noah. Will they do a special rain day match? Wear wet jerseys? Sell wet jerseys? Will mascot Reggie Rabbit come onto the field two-by-two? Will Russell get drunk post-game and fall asleep naked on the pitch? If they win the championship this year, will all the other teams and fans be denied access to the stadium while the climate-change floods rage outside and the South Sydney faithful huddle within, waiting for an opportune moment to send out pigeons and meanwhile subsisting on ANZ Stadium pies and hot dogs? Man, I can hardly wait.

Quiet, Loud, Both So, Yo la tengo at the Opera House last night. Don't think B. liked it much, but then again, I think I like them better as recording artists than performers. Yes, I'll listen to their records, but going to see them highlights some points recorded music disguises. Their singing voices seem to be quite weak. This may be deliberate. Their reliance on feedback effects is something I blame on Jimi Hendrix and Adrian Belew but don't get the impression they have the same . . . purpose. It seems more introspective and less playful. They have some good lyrics, when you can hear them, so maybe even when you can't, but who could tell? Finally, the Opera House is probably not the ideal venue. A smaller theatre or other venue would be more suitable. This, however, is a problem with Sydney. There aren't enough places for an international act to draw an adequate crowd, perhaps only from a promoter's perspective, though, as the New Pornographers, for example, played the Manning Bar and the Annandale Hotel, and even the Enmore would do better. I wonder about the "politics" of music promotion sometimes. Enjoyed the music, but it might have been a better night, somehow.

Every Road a Toll Road User-pays is not a good model for funding roadworks. Really big new highways and bridges or significant renovation works on such may require a toll for a period, but there’s a lot more to public infrastructure works than that. Claims that the fuel excise is user-pays ignores the plain fact that all tax goes into a single pool which is then allocated according to the government of day’s budgeting priorities. Which means building concentration camps in other people’s countries to house refugees Australia doesn’t want, buying fighter jets that are unproven and not even in production yet, giving tax breaks to the wealthy to have more children than the poor – not roads and bridges and airports. It’s just a draft report. The productivity commission hasn’t finished yet, although they were supposed to have the report out at the end of last month.

Advancing Australia’s Flag I’ve written about this before, but look: New Zealand is proposing to change their flag, and we’re not. Well, they are a more progressive country a lot of the time, even, apparently, when they have a Liberal government. I quite like the Aboriginal flag, but it will never be Australia’s. Too much politics. (There’s a science fiction movie with that crazy New Zealand actor, Sam Neill, in which he’s an Australian space explorer in the future, and he wears a flag patch on his uniform, with the union jack replaced by the Aboriginal flag; that was pretty good; still never gonna happen.) NZ has been prompted to make the change after being a bit fed up with having their flag and ours mixed up too often. Nobody mistakes ours for the UK’s, but if Canada can do it, I think we should be capable of achieving a unique design without reliance on mother England. If NZ does go to a fern or whatever, I say we just drop the crosses in the corner and have a nice Southern Cross on a field of blue (that isn’t the Eureka flag).

Keep Movin’ Movin’ Movin’ There has been years of talk of adding a second airport to Sydney and rarely any discussion of why it’s necessary. We’re not London or New York, after all, with millions upon millions of our own moving in and out; we’re mainly talking about international arrivals. So it’s good when someone raises the issue and asks: what will we do until then? Unfortunately the answer appears to be increase the number of planes coming through. While I agree that if capacity is the issue, it will be years before a second airport can serve it. But the experience I’ve had shows the problem not to be the carrying capacity of the airport in regard to takeoffs and landings but in moving people to and from the planes. Taxi queues are a trial at the domestic terminal, evidence it was designed with a different throughput methodology in mind, but one that no longer serves, if it ever did. People don’t want to park at the airport. It’s expensive, it can mean the family car is taken out of use, and the traffic getting in and out doesn’t help. People don’t want to do private drop-offs and pick-up, although they do, because of the traffic and the limitations on the design, which privileges long-term parking. Taxis are feral. The international terminal is not bad for taxis, although you’ll spend half the fare into the city just exiting the airport. There is a train, and it’s quick and relatively cheap, so long as you’re travelling alone and with minimal baggage. Once you add another passenger travelling with you, the fare has now gone up to be equivalent to a taxi, which latter has the obvious benefit of not having to lug your bags around. If you drive you are probably not going to miss your flight, but you will have to leave earlier and wait longer, especially along the various bottlenecks on the roads serving the airport, not least being within the last kilometre of the trip. You’ll eventually get into town for your meeting, too, but you’ll face the same bottlenecks, and more, in reverse, especially if you need to cross the CBD to get to your destination. Frankly, the roads that disgorge the daily commuters into the city aren’t up to it as it is, let alone with the addition of airport traffic. Adding additional flights to the mix is going to increase the numbers coming and going and exacerbate an already frustrating situation. And I haven’t even mentioned the curfew. Add changes here and the numbers are that much more and increase local community frustration. So let’s do something about the mass transit. Let’s make it easier to get to the airport from the scattered suburbs and give passengers a way to arrive in Sydney that doesn’t leave them queued up for hundreds of meters and as many minutes. Terminal infrastructure will have to be improved, too. If we’re going to screen people as extensively as America’s War on Terror ™ requires, we’re going to have to admit to it and have the capacity. It will be painful, but that can be mitigated. Possibly the Richmond RAAF base or other regional airport facilities could be brought into play, at least for some portion of domestic services. A new airport is inevitable, and I accept the need. We need to prove we can execute the supporting infrastructure before we start building it.

Medical Care, If You Can Pay for It In case you weren't listening in the lead-up to last year's September election, Tony Abbott promised no fundamental changes to, among other things, Medicare. In case you were dropped on your head as a child, Tony Abbott was lying. Today we have proof. Health Minister Peter Dutton, one of John Howard's henchmen prior to the 2007 election that saw the exit of the Liberals from government, has announced: "one important job of the Abbott Government is to grow the opportunity for those Australians who can afford to do so to contribute to their own healthcare costs." No, really, he said "grow the opportunity." What he means, of course, is that Medicare is not going to be universal health care in Australia anymore. It will be user-pays. Now, keep in mind that we already all pay a tax levy to fund Medicare, and that this levy, in the last, Labor, goverment, became means-tested (so that those "who can afford to do so" are already paying more to fund heathcare costs - not just for themselves, but for the whole country; and that, under Howard, it became compulsory to hold private health care insurance, the premiums for which are regularly approved for substantial increases. But we're going to "grow the opportunity" to pay more - not for the country overall, but for our "own healthcare costs." I do not object to paying taxes. Taxes are a public good and the price of living in a society. The society I joined has an admirable universal healthcare provision and a healthcare system that is second to none. But user-pays is the US model, pre-Obamacare (and post, pending refinements I'm sure a vast number of Americans are looking forward to under next-President Clinton), and it is the very model of unsustainable. If healthcare costs are indeed rising at unsustainable rates for Medicare, it's not Medicare that's the problem: it's the healthcare system. We need better, smarter care, not just more and paying more for it. In this latest example, Abbott and his ministers yet again prove they have no idea of the role of government, no vision, and nothing but their own pre-formed opinions on which to develop policy. We have a great opportunity to model significant advances in healthcare, but all they can think to do is to gut the system. Howard wanted an end to Medicare as much as he wanted an end of labor unions. He couldn't get it done. Abbott is well on his way to reducing the power of workers in favour of employers, and now he's proposed to complete the job of eliminating Medicare. Australia will never be the same if we let this happen.

Bush

Buying & Selling Part of PM Abbot’s “Stop the Boats” campaign was to buy the boats being used by people smugglers. Well, that wasn’t the best plan, probably, and certainly Indonesia didn’t think much of it. (If I was a people smuggler, I’d have my boat on Gumtree by now, though; sell one, buy more, smuggle refugees – the business model just gets better and better). It appears now it’s been abandoned, because we’re giving them away. To Malaysia, but that’s one of those irrelevant details. Good boats, too; used, but serviceable. Driven only on Sundays by little old lady admirals or something. “Stop the Boats,” “Buy the Boats” (and don’t forget “Deny the Boats”), “Donate the Boats.” What next?

Toiletries The shoe bomb, the underpants bomb, the toothpaste bomb. Which is worse? I’d be inclined to vote the underpants bomb for obvious reasons, but when you think about it, even if you survive the toothpaste bomb, all the fluoride will make you a communist.

Ahoy Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has told us that Australian naval vessels have inadvertently breached Indonesian boundaries at sea on multiple occasions when turning back refugees travelling by sea attempting to access Australia and claim asylum. Leaving aside the cruelty and hard-heartedness of the anti-refugee policy of the Abbott government, one wonders at the competence of our navy that they cannot operate so much as a GPS, let alone all the other equipment they have available to judge their position. No, actually, one does not so wonder. Because they were acting on orders, obviously. Nevertheless our PM, Tony Abbott, persists in the lie, claiming the sailors were distracted by wind or tide or other operational complexities. Such as playing Angry Birds on their phones, maybe (but that would mean access to equipment with GPS capabilities, so it’s unlikely). What kind of vessels are they operating? Is “Operation Sovereign Borders” being conducted on First Fleet replicas? Given Education Minister Christopher Pyne’s obsession with Australia’s glorious British past (more usually with how wonderful our boys were at Gallipoli), perhaps this is a revision to the naval college’s curriculum. What a government. There are two kinds of lies: those they tell and not telling us anything. Is this the best we can expect? Will “Stop the Boats” become “Stop the Tides”? Tony “Canute” Abbott needs to step up his game.

Stralians all, let us rejoice Here we go: who will be Australian of the Year (and what other country does this)? I reckon it will be . . . a sports person. Hey, I like Adam Goodes. He may be a football player, but he's got a brain and he's got heart and he's Aboriginal and stands up for it and against racism. But I like the scientists and artists more than the sports personalities on the basis that they are advancing the culture of Australia in ways the sports, to date, does not. When we can have professional sports that aren't sponsored and don't promote alcohol abuse and domestic violence (and in the latter case I admit they're trying, at least a little bit), then the players should be included in the nominations, for their individual efforts outside of sport. Too often that's not the case. If Goodes wins, however, I'd applaud, because he has made the effort on field and off. With Tony Abbott as PM, however, given his predisposition for engaging in sport to promote himself and his vision of the country, a non-sports selection is (a) unlikely and (b) more meaningful. Update: I was wrong: Goodes won. And good for him and us, I say, and continuing to be brave and outspoken. He'll cop some flak, I suppose, in the usual circles and with the usual circular logic and missing-the-pointedness, but he's a good choice.

Reviews I try to keep up, but most of the music reviews I read are disappointing in the end, so when I finally broke down and picked up the debut CD from Lorde I was not only greatly relieved to quite like the music but also very impressed. Now I don't know if the sophomore effort will match the excellence on display with "Pure Heroine" but I also don't think I care. This is an artist to follow for a while. It may be that, like many solo acts, Lorde doesn't immediately show the kind of growth that an ensemble act might, the various creatives push against each other to keep things fresh, and it may be the case that the second album is the stuff that didn't make the cut for the first blow-them-away effort, but I don't get that impression here. Lorde shows an independence and a creativity that shows just how deep her artistry goes, how far she'll push herself from the start. Her lyrics are insightful, honest, and poetic, but don't get sappy or shy away from the points she wants to make, without getting in your face. If you can't deal, that's your problem, and fair enough. I've got "Royals" stuck on replay in my head and I'm liking it. Bring it, kid; I'm in it for the long haul if you are. I've seen a lot of movies across a fair swath of genres, often in subtitles. One of my new favourites: The Great Beauty. This has to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on film. It is often terribly funny, but then as often deeply touching, or disturbing, or sorrowful. How do you feel for someone like Jep Gambardella, whose talents have been so beautifully wasted, and who, at the same time, can both recognize this and completely miss it? Toni Servillo is a very expressive actor, his mobile face conveying so much that his words and his silences can belie. The film could be Fellini's but doesn't fail in its modernity. We are dealing with a contemporary, those of us of an age, that is, although I dare say there are many much younger who would do well to heed the message: don't deny beauty when you find it or you deny yourself.

The Poor You Will Have with You Always Especially if you can make sure they stay that way. Liberal Party policy seems intent on punishing the poor for being poor. The latest float: a co-pay for doctor visits. This doesn’t seem so controversial at first glance, but when you consider it in the overall context it demonstrates just how far market-based economics reaches into LNP policy. This is a political party that believes all the wrong lessons Tony Abbott has learned from the Jesuits: To him who has, more shall be given, for example. Along with the approved rate rise in private medical insurance cover, the highest in seven years, it’s clear that this government, like the Howard government before it, is intent on the elimination of Medicare. Private cover is, effectively, mandatory. If you don’t have private cover, you pay a tax surcharge, on top of the Medicare tax itself, and the longer you wait to take out private cover, the higher the penalty and premiums. Effectively, even though we have Medicare, everyone has to pay additional. And private cover, like in the US, pays out very little on claims, especially on anything that can be deemed elective, such as doctor visits. This year’s rate increase is already sending people to their insurance providers to adjust their deductibles, which means an increase in out-of-pocket costs. Meanwhile, the number of doctors who bulk-bill has and continues to shrink, which means that poor people already have less access to health care, and this would only be exacerbated by requiring even a small co-pay. The Liberals hate Medicare. They use it. They benefit from it. They hate it. They hate it because it was, by far, the most successful Labor policy initiative of all time. They hate it because it means that they have to pay for someone else’s benefit. They hate it because it helps the poor. They won’t say it, but it’s true. They’ll say: “personal responsibility,” as if getting sick was a character flaw, and they’ll say that until it’s them that’s ill and needs help. Of course, if they do get sick, they’ll go to their doctor and pay for it, go to the hospital and get a private room and jump the public queue and pay for it – if they can. The irony is that many of the public who support the LNP are, in fact, poor and middle class and will struggle or be unable to meet the expenses of private cover. They will, in fact, go to bulk-billing doctors and be admitted to public hospitals. What drives their thinking is merely selfishness and delusion.

TV & DVD I didn't get into watching Breaking Bad right off, so ended up watching the whole thing on DVD. Now that I've caught up with the rest of the world, I can finally talk about it. This has to be the best show ever. Well, o.k., sure, there were other shows out there that at the time were the best show ever, like Buffy or Hill Street Blues, and nobody can deny how far The Simpsons has penetrated the zeitgeist. But Breaking Bad was so enthralling, even as you knew it shouldn't be. I don't know that I'll watch it through again, now that I know how it all comes out, but if an episode is running when I'm scrolling through the channels, I'm likely to linger. Update O.k., so, in response to the comment received, why is this so good? Well, there are no extraneous characters for one thing. Across the entire season, everybody ties in, serves a purpose, either in the plot overall - and from beginning to end - or in pushing the character development of the majors. Take the tweaker friends who hang around Jesse; by the end they still drive the plot and Walt's character forward, although in Walt's case, backward may be more appropriate, since they are now contributing to a kind of redemption. The structure of the episodes is also very tight; even the less cliff-hanging endings still are cliff-hanging enough to make you want to know what happens next, and season-ending episodes more so. The idea that this is a show that somehow celebrates a descent into evil misses the point. Yes, Walt does in fact go, like Michael Corleone, deeper and deeper in, and although some of the more heinous acts are committed by others they are often committed on his behalf, whether directed or not. But what's fascinating about this is the way he clings, at least initially, to the idea that his actions harm no one who would not otherwise have been harmed. The meth-heads would still have been meth-heads; he just gives them quality, and helps his family as a result. Drug dealers and higher-ups get killed, but that's the life they chose and they deserve it, don't they? Unlike Walt, he justifies to himself, that is. And Walt's development as a character is mirrored, in different ways, by his wife, his brother-in-law, and his partner-in-crime, each having an arc equally fascinating to watch, and sometimes devastating. There are the drug cartels, the lawyers who practice to the letter of the law but not its spirit, the easy marks, the easy money, the police taking shortcuts and the police doing the hard yards. And there's the society in which it takes place and the politics, at least implied, that have gotten us there. So, tightly drawn characters and plots over a short timeframe, with insights that can be applied in a variety of socio-political real-life issues. What's not to like?

Cruel, not Unusual Do I care about The Race That Stops the Nation? No, I do not, except that it is cruel and enriches parasites.

Sydney’s Gatwick There’s a long-standing call for Sydney to have a second airport. The traffic through the existing airport is stalled by capacity and by the curfew. Eliminating the curfew is one option, but the position of the airport means a lot of people would be seriously inconvenienced by the late-night noise, so it’s unlikely to pass the palatability test among the political set. There’s also, however, another issue, one that isn’t addressed by any of the proposals for a second airport: the capacity to funnel those travellers into the city. All those additional cabs and private cars aren’t going to do much for any of the motorways in existence, already carrying more traffic than they were designed for, and then what are you going to do once you hit the actual city limits? As it is, four-lane traffic reduced to two lanes at the margins causes considerable pain. The single train servicing the existing airport is inadequate, as is the rest of Sydney’s commuter rail, so don’t expect that to get better anytime soon. Successive governments have failed to address the issues other than by redefining what constitutes “late” or reducing service. Imagine what building an airport further out would entail, and what that rail system would look like. Oh, the pain. Forget it. Virgin’s dummy-spit over international-to-domestic transfers, calling the current system at the current airport ”third world” isn’t so far off, although at least some parts of the third world, like Singapore, do quite well, thanks. I had more trouble in Switzerland transferring terminals, although that also involved an additional security check and customs. (What did they think I did after the first security check and while I was on the plane? Build a rifle out of cheese and biscuits?) There is effectively no existing infrastructure to transfer between terminals. But let’s think about that in relation to travelling to Australia. How many times will an international arrival require transfer to a domestic flight? If you’ve come to Sydney, more often than not you are not then on your way to Melbourne or, for that matter, to Wagga Wagga or Albury. It’s possible; it will happen; but enough to build a light rail transfer facility? Maybe not. A Virgin Airways executive may do it, in order to bounce around the places his or her planes go to in Australia, but business travellers more generally will come to Sydney to be in Sydney etc. There just isn’t the same level of international commerce headquartered in the regional cities and towns that’s going to see a lot of flight-hopping. If the conversation prompts improvements, let’s start with fixing the problems the current airport presents. This could mean building that second airport as a replacement for the majority of international flights, leaving Kingsford-Smith for the domestic – so long as there’s a good transfer function built, of course.

Travelogue, last leg After Rome, we flew to NYC, caught a cab to LaGuardia, and visited Mom & Dad in North Carolina. Then, after a too-brief visit, back to NYC. We stayed in a Holiday Inn in Long Island City, with a very nice view across the East River. As much as we wanted to see everything, we couldn't, with only two-and-a-half days of tourism available to us. We missed a few things due to a lack of prior research and no local expertise beyond my memory of the subway system. Luckily that was enough, mostly, for a few highlights. I don't often miss living in NYC and doubt I would be successful transitioning back, as the up-front costs would be extraordinary, but it was nice to see the old place, including many of the new things I've read about. So much new; it was good to see. So much old; it was good it's still there. (The subways, however, need a serious upgrade. Rome and Berlin were so much quieter and cleaner. Although their maps aren't as good as the MTA's.)

Travelogue, part 4 Rome, the Eternal City. Absolute chaos. More tourists than I've seen outside of the Louvre, in Paris. Our hotel wasn't great, but it was less than 2 kilometers from the Colosseum, another 2 to the Vatican, so we had no trouble getting around and seeing as much as we could in two days, which was a lot. Romulus' & Remus' mom doesn't look too impressed, but she's everywhere. The Swiss Guard really do dress like 1970's McDonald's employees, but with spears and metal hairnets. You cannot escape the crowds at any time of day.