Heart of Glass I understand why that review I read of Iron Man 3 was so . . . angry. I don't remember if it was the NY Times or the New Yorker, I think the Times, but they were really upset with the whole terrorism thing. I get it: it was very effective, at least for me. It was triggering. I've been angry, too, all this time. I was, of course, able to enjoy the usual moments of humor in the movie, the lessons to be drawn from the little kid, and the political polemics about war and the environment and the overreach of government and so on, blah, blah, blah. No different, really, from any of the other comic book movies. It was exciting, fast-paced, a thrill ride. And also hit me in a way that no other movie I've seen since 2001 has done in regard to the events of September 11. And it didn't even take place in New York or, except peripherally, Washington DC, let alone some lonely field in Pennsylvania. Although there was that bit in the rural midwest. That was pretty spooky. But the Avengers trashed NYC and I didn't experience it the way I did this film. Space aliens aren't the monsters that scare anyone much anymore, maybe. Mostly it was the performance and presentation of Ben Kingsley, which is, I suppose a tribute to the actor and to the screenwriters who crafted the part and the plot around him. It was a very effective presentation of what we've come to know of as terrorism, specifically of the al Qaeda variety. Even if it was, in the end, more a caricature of Osama bin Laden, it still worked. What it was was exploitative. That's what terrorism does: it exploits fear. That's what art does, including mere comic book movies, it exploits our emotions. But this was an exploitation that hit home where other instances have not. I suppose I have changed in ways that I have tried to channel more than to fathom since 2001, so I was a little caught by surprise to find myself so affected. It was just a movie. As good as any of the others of its genre. But I'm still angry. Anyway, Guy Pearce was very good, the pace was managed well enough, Robert Downey, Jr., may be looking for something else to do after the second or third Avengers movie is in the can, probably he is already, and Ben Kingsley, well, even his big reveal didn't change how I felt walking out at the end. Glad it was over, that I didn't have to see any more of that - was it a Mcguffin? no, I don't think it was, quite. Maybe I'm done with the super heroes, the "real cool cats with a heart of steel." Well, until the Wolverine movie comes out, anyway. Meanwhile, I can be angry at Obama, for not closing Guantanamo, and I can be angry at the Republicans for not letting him, and I can be angry at the crazy extremists who still think blowing things up is a path to a solution for their problems. I can be angry at Big Oil for working every angle to avoid responsibility for killing the environment, at the NRA for exploiting whatever convoluted rationalisation then can to prevent simple gun control measures to keep people safe, and at every otherwise decent person who makes up stupid excuses for the bad decisions of the GOP, the NRA, the terrorists, Obama, or anyone else. But I'm not mad at the movies, or at art. They do their jobs, usually, even though they are sometimes exploitative, like Iron Man. At least in that case the conflict is built into the story from the start.

Chechnyans Really? Wow. I thought they were mad at Russia. 19 and 26 and one's dead so far. Stupid, hateful bastards. Good riddance. Alas, poor Chechnya, you cannot ask for sympathy ever, past, present, or future, if this is what you export.

Cruel Leaving aside for the moment that it is probably inappropriate to the event, but how cruel to set off a bomb at the Boston Marathon, and to have it go off four hours into the event. This is when the most ordinary people would have been coming through, people like me, in fact. It's so deliberately targeted at being mean. I am reminded of the Swedish killer, Brevik, who went after children in the same way. In this case, I am left at the moment to wonder what the motivation was, what could possess someone to do this, and this way Annoyed, of course, at the media, who seem intent, post-Benghazi, at scoring points on who calls something "terrorism" first. This is obviously terrorism, regardless of motive, or whatever else unfolds in relation to it. Nevertheless, when officials use the term they have a specific meaning in mind, which the media are ignoring just so they can point fingers, or, even better, get politicians to do it for them, generating more acrimony, more noise, more "news". Shame. Annoyed, too, at the inevitable politicians who will use this to deny that gun control is still a problem. It is; it's separate; deal with it - and this, too. Very sad for the injured and the killed and their families. Heartfelt condolences and sympathy.

Part of the Family Annette Funicello was a regular presence in our house, on television, that is, and is better remembered than any of her fellow Mouseketeers. She died tough, though, developing MS and living for 25 years with the degenerative disease. Her charity will continue, and leave a more lasting legacy than her television shows or films, but there are still some heartbroken boys remembering a first crush out there, I’ll bet.

Thatching I don’t want to celebrate anyone’s death, except maybe a few people’s, and Margaret Thatcher had only a minimal direct effect on anything I experienced during her period as Prime Minister, so, too bad, so sad, and let’s all move on. Nevertheless, I was in England in that period, and I remember the society I encountered, a concept she denigrated and did all she could to despoil. It was a very troubled time, much more oppressive than a free society would be expected to be, although you also need to keep in mind the IRA, whose activities certainly weren’t helping. (But Bobby Sands, remember, too.) There’s a reason, more than just the excesses of “prog rock,” that we got punk music there and that it went the way it did, with its hard political edge. We got that in the States, too, although remember we also had St. Ronnie. I had no regard for Ronald Reagan, and insofar as his regime and hers fed into the triumphalism of each other, allowing them greater leeway in crushing unions and demonising the poor, that’s a big part of how I will remember Thatcher, right there in the same special circle of hell occupied by the Gipper. Not that I expect them to languish there alone for long. No small part of Clinton’s policies was all that dissimilar from Reagan’s, nor Blair’s from Thatcher’s. In fact, they could not have enacted the “reforms” they did without Reagan and Thatcher having been so successful in wearing down the opposition. It’s a great shame to all of us in democratic countries that we haven’t been able to develop the political will to truly stand in opposition to the kinds of policies Thatcherism represents. We have yet to see, in the US or Britain or Australia, a national government devoted to uplifting its citizens. We seem endlessly to play at “culture wars”, pitting rich against poor, a game only the rich can win, which seems the intent. Daughter of a shopkeeper, Thatcher betrayed her class, when she could have made things better.

Boom I really can’t figure out North Korea. Throwing missiles around, let alone nukes, isn’t going to make them any friends, let alone reunite them with their prosperous southern cousins. The whole Kim dynasty thing is mysterious, too. Could the latest in the succession actually be the real power, or is this the military throwing up a façade? I don’t believe the they’ve got intercontinental ballistic missiles, but they seem to have rockets capable of hitting Japan, Russia, South Korea, even Indonesia, and possibly Hawaii, Alaska, and northern Australia. (Poor Darwin; last time it was Imperial Japan.) I’m similarly sceptical of their nuclear capabilities. Even assuming the actually do have the bomb, it doesn’t seem they’ve achieved the degree of miniaturisation required to stick one on the end of missile and launch it anywhere, which puts South Korea at risk, still, but fewer other places within their range otherwise. So what do they want? Well, they’re starving over there, and freezing, in winter (except, maybe, the military, who at least appear to have warm coats), so maybe they want a war, one they can lose. Losing a war isn’t the same as saying, hey, look, this whole business since the 1950’s was a mistake, so we’re going to change it up and see if the South will have us back now, so we can have jobs and fuel and food again, sorry. That’d be a loss of face. But losing a war, that lets you bluster along pretty nicely, all in all, except if you get hanged, or shot, or otherwise killed. Look at the collapse of Yugoslavia. The leadership over there did quite well for a very long time. And there’s always exile. Some murderous monsters managed to live peacefully and comfortably elsewhere in the world for many years after they lost their jobs. That might be a little harder to get away with if you throw nukes, but less so otherwise. I’ll bet Pakistan would take in a couple of Kims, although it might not be quite the safe haven these days that it might have once been, given how the U.S. managed to fly in and zap bin Laden. Maybe not. Could be this is just a little more of their usual bluster, trying to get the rest of the world to agree to food donations and fuel oil shipments and so forth in exchange for them stepping back from the line they’re threatening to cross. It’d be a loss of face, too, to ask for help, so getting it offered and accepting it, reluctantly, means they get to goose-step through the streets but go home to a bowl of rice instead of eating grass. Are they really all that crazy? Are there none who question their leaders? No Winston Smiths? It’s decades of propaganda, control, and punishment. It’s possible. It’s terribly sad.

61% What do I know? I'm not even in the census anymore.

Straight Up We hit the Enmore Theatre on Sunday to see Tedeschi Trucks, on the basis of their recent live recording CD, which includes some find blues singing from Susan Tedeschi and some very flash guitar from her husband, Derek Trucks. We had fun, but wondered at the stage configuration and sometimes lack of engagement from the performers, although there's a lot to be said for musicians that just get on with playing instead of capering. The music is pretty much just straight-up rock 'n' roll, which is no bad thing, and they concentrate hard on getting it done. The two drum kits were maybe overkill, but as one of the few live performances I've seen where that configuration is at work, I did get at least an inkling as to why you'd bother. Tedeschi Trucks were supported by Trombone Shorty, a New Orleans-inflected funk band, definitely worth checking out. I may have to hit the record stores to secure a copy, especially with the guest line-up.

Control vs. Out of Control The NRA solution to gun violence in schools is more guns. They have, over the years, prevented any scientific study of gun violence, but will categorically assert that the reason there are shooting at schools is because they are designated gun-free zones and therefore attractive to anyone with a gun and a grudge or whatever other motivation they may have to go shoot someone. This is a false narrative, of course, as many mass shootings occur in areas with no such designation. The idea that the “good guy with a gun” is an effective disincentive to deranged killers fails to note the “deranged” component of the equation, not to mention also that even trained individuals are shooting themselves and others regularly, as well as losing their guns from their cars, homes, offices, etc., although these things don’t get reported on a national level. How many times have we read of some idiot teaching his dog to retrieve guns who ends up getting shot by Fido? You won’t find it in the New York Times, but in your local paper you may very well. Check your police blotter, if your paper publishes one. Such stories are often treated as humorous exceptions, but they add up and they mean that people with guns are dangerous to themselves and others, regardless of whether they are themselves criminals. It is sensible in a country with millions of guns that those weapons should be regulated, like the militias they were meant, 200 years ago (when there were also a lot more dangerous animals in close proximity to humans, and when feeding your family required some deer to supplement what you could grow yourself), to empower against tyranny. How the NRA became the bastion of murder instead of an amateurs’ society devoted to actually keeping people safe around guns I cannot understand, just as I cannot understand how what is actually such a marginal group can wield such disproportionate political power. Well, that last point I think is probably attributable more to the lack of courage our politicians routinely exhibit than to any actual power the NRA may have, although they do have far too much money for advertising than is good for the country, clearly. Keep writing to and calling your representatives in Congress. We have to fight these bastards. Peacefully.

The Harder It Gets Jimmy Cliff, at the Metro, Thursday night, kicked the evening off with "You Can Get It If You Really Want", and had the crowd dancing and singing along right away, and pretty much never let up. He performed many songs, his own and those of others, from the soundtrack of the movie that made him, and reggae, famous, all over the world, as well as songs from the rest of his catalog. His band were very tight, right there, driving the evening, especially his backup singers, one of whom acted the role of MC as well, keeping the crowd engaged, as if he needed to. I haven't kept up with Mr. Cliff for many years, and while it's nice to know he's got a new record, the songs he performed from it being of good quality, even the anthemic "One More", his defiance of any suggestion of having peaked too soon, the audience around us seemed very up-to-date with every song sung. "Many Rivers to Cross" remains one of the most beautiful pop songs to come out of the '70s reggae scene, and no one can fail to hear the plaintive soul of the Melodians "Rivers of Babylon". All up, a consumate entertainer, maybe struggling a little to stay at the top of his game, but no less beloved or deserving of admiration.

0.0025 Why does Justice Kennedy say "We have five years of information to pose against 2,000 years of history or more"? Because he's not Jewish? Because he doesn't know that marriage as a formalised, state-sanctioned ritual administered by churches is actually a development from the Middle Ages? And why, then, do I feel I cannot trust him to rule well in this case? If I reckon Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas are nearly certain to rule against anything that advances equal rights to gays & lesbians in regard to such a ludicrously divisive issue, Kennedy now becomes the fifth vote in the majority ruling I expect. Maybe Ruth Bader Ginsberg can be counted on, at least in regard to California's Prop 8, and maybe Kagan and Sotomayor, but what about Bryer? Can I hope that Kennedy might yet come up to bat for the other side? The remarks off the bench during the arguments aren't always instructive. I hope for the best.

Swell Music Season Start A bit of a pun, that, as last night we went to see The Frames at the Sydney Opera House, billed as "Glenn Hansard & The Frames", a result, apparently, of Mr. Hansard commencing a solo career or side project, in addition to his previous efforts following the film Once as the Swell Season, with Marketa Irglova. Hansard spent a portion of the show, which ran for about three hours, alone on stage, or duetting with Lisa Hannigan, who also opened the evening. I spent some years remembering and forgetting to follow up on my brother's recommendation to listen to the Frames, finally only buying a relatively recent release by the band and enjoying it no end, not to mention how much I think Once is a lovely movie. The show gave me a chance to hear songs from across their catalog, which goes back about twenty years, and left me thinking I've got some catching up to do. Any band with a title track song named after a Werner Herzog movie (Fitzcarroldo) has to be ranked among the very best arts bands of all time - but they are more, really. Hansard spoke of his "busker's arm" problem, in which he strikes his guitar harder than is necessary under amplified conditions. "I've finally found strings that will stay on, but the guitar suffers," he told us, and sure enough, his two acoustic guitars, as can be seen in Once have indeed suffered, with holes worn into them along the striking pattern above and below the resonator. But this is more the point: he and the band are entertainers. They are having a great time, but all the better when the crowd is with them. Encouraging the Sydney Opera House attendees to forget themselves and their prestigious environment for the evening, Hansard and the band had us singing along, snapping our fingers, and, if not dancing in the aisles, engaging otherwise, including, at one point, helping out with forgotten lyrics. (We might all have been better served, however, with less participation during the instances when Hansard or the ensemble assembled at the edge of the stage to play without amplification - a bit too big of a venue to transmit the sound effectively, at least for the songs performed.) We were also treated to an acapella rendition of the Bright Eyes tune "Devil Town", during a broken-string hiatus. I haven't seen a performance as purely fun as this in a while. They walked off the stage at 11:30, playing as they went, Leonard Cohen's "Passing Through", and as we left the Opera House after them, I swear they were still playing in the dressing rooms. Just too much fun to stop.

New Traditions I first encountered Chinua Achebe when I was pursuing my Master's at the University of Michigan, under Lemuel Johnson, for whom my thesis was probably adequate but perhaps never as good as he'd hoped to see, in his first year directing the program of study he developed, devoted to African literature of the diaspora. We studied so many wonderful authors that, at the time, we had no idea of, those of us in the program, and I found that experience broadening in ways that Achebe's most famous character, Onkokwo, would have been bewildered by. But I guess that was part of what Achebe was after. Achebe's novels, those that I've read, are marvelous explorations of traditional society on the cusp of destruction. They see into the effects colonial policies would have years and decades after, with profound insights into the social and psychological damage the inherent and inherited loss of identity would cause, and included enough criticism of the post-colonial government, especially of Nigeria, that Achebe ended his days in exile, but no less revered and admired for all that. The politics of African nations are fraught with dangers for its artists, but they remain fearless, and many have produced works of great quality, deserving of even greater recognition than they have achieved. Achebe, though often criticized by some of those who followed him, was among the very best, whether others may be considered to have surpassed him or not. There are now highly skilled Nigerian writers, many producing world-class material. They owe a debt to Chinua Achebe. On a side note, I am very sorry to have learned of the passing of my professor at Michigan, Lem Johnson. Professor Johnson, as the link above will show anyone who reads it, was a brilliant and accomplished man and scholar. He taught me a lot. He was near-infinitely patient with me, and I'm sorry he's gone. I hope that some part of his program will survive, so that the literature he championed in my time with him and thereafter may continue to receive the attention it deserves.

Disarray I am so tired of Presidents standing up in front of Congress and saying "the state of the Union is strong". It isn't. This is evidenced by the nonsense spouted by Marc Rubio in the GOP response. It is evidenced in the fact that the Republicans also have a "tea party" response, and that they invite insane jackasses like Ted Nugent, who have actually threatened people, including the President, with guns, to attend the address and comment on it. It is evident in every single businessperson who claims that the ability of his or her employees to have health care is a threat to free enterprise. Every State that gerrymanders its electoral districts to ensure a Republican majority or that seeks to disenfranchise its voters - its poor voters, minority votes, Democratic voters - proves that the U.S. political system has fallen into disarray. Gun control is necessary. Tying the minimum wage to the cost of living index is a good idea. Supporting education and business initiatives are positive steps. Fixing the electoral system is a priority. All those election observers we send to other nations would report on our own elections positively. But only because the electoral frauds the Republican extremists want us to believe are a problem simply aren't. If they look at the actual structures of the system, however - and let me assure you that here in Australia and elsewhere in the world than America they do - the criticisms are harsh. Obama should have called out Boehner. He should have called out McConnell. Hell, he should have called out Reid, for that matter. Name names and shame them to their faces. Ryan, Cantor, Rubio, every damn one of them. And then tell his Democratic "friends" to get up off their asses. If you want something done, you've got to do it yourself, said the little red hen, and to hell with the socialist metaphors.

Wrasslin' The IOC shouldn't drop wrestling from the Games, it should go to the WWE format. Or revert to the more traditional Greco-Roman format: naked and greased up with olive oil.

Popery I'm happy to see Ratzinger resign, because it shows he maybe has a better sense of reality than you would normally get from the higher-ups in the Roman Catholic church, but instead of a Latin American or African pope, I'd rather see a woman. Now that would be progress. New blog label: "Anybody but Pell".

Credit Where Creditors Are Due Because I own a piece of it, does the Annandale going into receivership mean I get paid out? (I'd rather it would stay open, even if I don't go all that often.) Something's wrong with this city: first the Hopetoun, then the Sando, now the Annandale. Music is going to be relegated to theatres only before long, and that's going to make it even more expensive than it already is.

Southern Holiday
We took the public holiday to drive down to Mollymook for a beach holiday.  In terms of traffic, our timing couldn't have been better, as we saw kilometers of cars lined up going nowhere from about Nowra nearly down to where we were headed, a beach house - well, a house near a beach - that I'd be more than happy to share with two other couples, who'd easily fit, even with a couple of kids.  Maybe that Tasmanian set someday.

The weather, on the other hand, was awesome.  It bucketed down rain all through the four-hour drive (which we stretched a bit, in consequence, and for lunch), and all night thereafter.  It was torrential, a result of the cyclone up north, traveling down the coast.  The floods in Queensland and northern New South Wales were pretty much as expected, although Bundaberg got surprised when their river jumped its course, but all we got was cold and wet, impressive though those conditions were.

The storm surge, when we went out the following day, was still strong, although pictures (or my photography, that is) hardly do it justice.



The next day wasn't much better, but by Wednesday evening it was clearing.


Thursday was the best beach day we got.


On the drive down, even in the rain, we could see the tremendous damage caused by the fires a couple of weeks ago.  The evidence was just as stark on the return journey.


What's nearly as impressive as the fire damage is the fact that these trees are, at least most of them, still alive, as you can see in the top left.  With all the rain we got, the lush, green country we traveled through will soon return to its fullness, even in these sections.  I'd say you'll see the evidence before very much longer, after we get a little sun, too.

Punditry Fail

Gerard Henderson writes a regular column in the Sydney Morning Herald, and he is, like many of his ilk, dependably predictable.

The fashionable left-wing view of former president George W. Bush is he invaded Muslim lands and instituted draconian national security legislation - the embodiment of which is the Guantanamo Bay military prison. According to the leftist line, all this was a manifestation of a world view labelled neo-conservatism.

Of course, al-Qaeda's attacks in the US - which culminated in the events of September 11, 2001 - took place before the ''coalition of the willing'' (US, Britain, Australia and Poland) invaded Iraq. Also, Bush was never a neo-conservative since he has been a political conservative all his adult life. But facts rarely suffice to diminish a convenient theory. And Bush - war monger overseas and human rights oppressor at home - is a phenomenon widely referred to at universities and within sections of the media.

Well, Gerry, how was it not a manifestation of Bush’s policies – which were disingenuously referred to as “neo-liberalism”, not neo-conservatism – when he was the architect (ostensibly; Cheney was the brain[-in-a-jar] behind the administration, after all) of the actions, when it was his Defence Secretary’s bungles that screwed up first Afghanistan and then Iraq?

As for al-Qaeda’s “attacks’ [sic] “in” the US, can you enlighten me as to which ones occurred before [culminating] “in the events of September 11, 2001”? If you mean the USS Cole, that was not “in” the US, and if you mean the ’93 bombing of the World Trade Centre, that wasn’t al-Qaeda. As you damn well know.

Apologists for Bush like to point out that Obama has ordered more drone strikes than his predecessor, and they like to claim that there are no general protests being raised against them. That, too, is false.

Conflating the actions of France’s President Hollande in Mali with Bush’s actions in Afghanistan and Iraq doesn’t help the argument either. In Mali, after all, there is a legitimate government being supported by European efforts, not toppled. And adding Algeria to the mix again points to a fundamentally different set of conditions as if it was equivalent.

That’s the kind of fuzzy thinking that got Bush into trouble and America mired in wars that have made getting out of the financial crisis it’s in significantly more difficult, as well as making any effort to help others nearly impossible. It’s also the kind of misdirection that left many people believing that Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11 and believing that letting Osama get away wasn’t a big deal.

It’s flat-out ignorant. It certainly doesn’t deserve a paycheck.

It’s the Stupid Economy

When politicians here talk about how they’re going to be all about the economy, they mean inflation and they mean interest rates and they’re blowing smoke.

I don’t care what Tony Abbott thinks the unemployment rate is about
because he isn’t really going to do anything about it, at least not anything I want from government.
I want Medicare and I want major infrastructure builds, including the National Broadband Network (even though my internet speeds are fine, thanks), because these things help people and that’s what government is for.

Government isn’t just about the economy, and when that’s the focus all kinds of people get hurt, especially the most vulnerable of us. Cracking down on dole bludgers was a great gimmick for Reagan and Howard and Thatcher, but it hurt people and had absolutely no net effect for the rest of us.

Are interest rates too high? Where? Greece? Not here, so why are house prices so crazy? That’s not unemployment and it’s not government spending. It’s a lack of oversight.

Labor reneged on its budget surplus promise? I never wanted them to make that commitment, especially not when they were trying to keep us out of the GFC, which they managed well. Deficits are not evil in themselves and don’t represent mismanagement. It’s amazing that there are still people who think it’s like a credit card.

Every government spends money. I know how I want them to spend it, and vote for the party with the policies that spends accordingly. Promising to not spend is not going to win my vote.