Through Blood Spattered Tears
*
Months later - perhaps ten - I walk down St Mark's Place and I am insanely drunk. It is after midnight but the street is jammed with people and the vendors are selling Yankees caps, temporary tatoos, bootleg videos. Halfway down the block I see two beefy black guys sitting on the tall stairs that lead to the converted brownstone. As I pass by, one of them says, "Rock?"
I stop. "You have any crack?" I ask.
They rise and come down the stairs. "You a cop?" one of them asks.
I laugh. "I am so not a cop," I say...
It's difficult to stand without swaying.
Augusten Burroughs, Dry.
In the starkness, in the terror, in the grisly depths this country had veered towards, into darkness, into chaos. There was no room for manoeuvre. The parasites had taken over. Ironically, it had begun with a government which people had naively labelled conservative; but that same government, the Howard government, had massively expanded the bureaucracy and the government's reach into people's lives. When they ultimately lost power due to his own hubris, his friends as much as his enemies could have dragged him up a back alley and given him a good thumping. It mightn't have been PC, but that was the way they felt. Nothing else seemed to get through; nothing at all. They shook their heads in bewilderment.
Why, why, had he betrayed his own kind so fundamentally? Why, why, had he seen fit to inflict so many left-wing policies on an already groaning nation? No move, not a single solitary move, could be taken without the government there in their pockets, monitoring, exploiting, taking, controlling. This was his poisoned legacy. And then the communists took over; and all was lost. Myriads of committees consumed millions upon millions of dollars, the government gifted by windfall mining revenues. But that didn't stop them taking, taking, taking every last damn cent off the groaning populace. They couldn't bear it much longer. The grit and the fiasco, that's what it was, the infliction of pain. The comrades couldn't have cared less.
These heartless souls showed no compassion for the people they exploited. Program after program was inflicted on people, and all for what? You could take away 90 per cent of what governments do in this country and we would all be better off; we would certainly have more money in our pocket. Australia is grinding to a halt, with layer after layer of government full of parasites, hands in their pockets, their arrogant snoots directed at noble causes. All for your own good dear.
All the lies, the astonishing lies, that's what made him weep with frustration. The fake epidemics whipped up to keep the parasites in power; obesity, domestic violence, drugs, global warming. All of them were grotesquely exaggerated. All of them kept thousands upon thousands of people in a job. The campaigns, the mind control, he remained astonished that in fact these blatant dishonesties actually worked. People did believe. People queued up to participate, to bleat for the victim, to feel part of the mass, to be one of a kind, one of them. The age of the outsider was long gone, if it had ever existed. But at least then, back then, "in the day" as they say, the rhetoric was all about individuality and creativity and pushing boundaries.
Now it's all about hiding their faces and executing control. Our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, he who must be loved and obeyed at all times, has hit his first roadside kerb and is briefly looking tawdry and manipulative. The press has finally got his measure, after a year of pandering. They've worked out that none of it translates to anything on the ground, that "working families" was a piece of over-used spin dug up from a focus group and repeated at least a million times. They've worked out that as he counts off the points with his fingers, firstly this, secondly that, building a slather of committees so numerous and so complex it would take years to disassemble, these people had forgot to govern for the good of the people and were simply enthralled by themselves, at our expense.
Sadly, one thing is for sure; once a bureaucracy is in place it takes more than dynamite to unearth it; and our layer after layer of government is full of, virtually made up of, past pieces of bureaucratic flotsam no one has had the guts to undo. Local, state and federal; all spewing forth lies and propaganda, all justifying their own existence; all existing when there was no need. He couldn't make head nor tail of why it had come to be so messy; why the country had deteriorated so rapidly. Every last cent had been hoovered off the populace. Crazy days were here again and his grizzling discontent mirrored a much broader discontent in the populace. His own despair was their despair. His own blistering contempt for those who governed was rapidly spreading, from one to many.
The only chance of survival was retreat; and greater minds than his had worked that out. "Kevin Rudd's cracking pace" the TV murmurs, "warned to slow down", "exhausted public servants"; as the kids get ready for school. Cracking pace may be, but none of it is anything; frenetic froth, activity for its own sake, filling holes that can never be filled. "Everyone will end up hating Rudd as much as they hated Howard", I predict, and people look at me. "That's impossible," they say. "Want a bet?" Well I've been wrong before; but how many more staged photographs can be taken in child care centres? How much longer can we fall for the control and manipulation? How stupid do they really think we are? Obesity, domestic violence, child support, global warming, racism, Iraq, how many more dishonest campaigns can be inflicted on people before the cat is belled, before they state the obvious: none of this is true. To borrow a famous comedian's invective, every word they say is a lie, including "a" and "the".
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.scopical.com.au/articles/News/6305/Diggers-withdraw-from-Iraq-as-cost-tops-$2.3-billion
Australia has officially withdrawn it's 550 combat troops from the Iraq war, delivering on a key promise made by the Rudd Government.
The withdrawal ends Australia's five-year commitment to the war and keeps the nations combat death toll in Iraq at zero.
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said that a flag lowering ceremony was held yesterday at the Talil Air Base as a symbolic end to Australia's combat roll.
Mr Fitzgibbon said that the Government was proud of the soldier's commitment to Iraq.
"Our soldiers have worked tirelessly to ensure that local people in southern Iraq have the best possible chance to move on from their suffering under Saddam's regime and, as a Government, we are extremely proud of their service," he said.
Defence was unable to confirm when all the troops would return to Australia. Mr Fitzgibbon said this was likely to happen over "the next month".
It is understood at least half arrived last night in Brisbane.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/a-cold-sign-of-possible-life-on-mars/2008/06/01/1212258648106.html
PHOENIX, Arizona: Sharp new images from NASA's Phoenix Mars lander have largely convinced scientists that the spacecraft's thrusters have uncovered a large patch of ice just below the Martian surface.
That bodes well for the mission's main goal of digging for ice that can be tested for evidence of organic compounds, the chemical building blocks of life.
Photos showing the ground beneath the lander suggested the vehicle was resting on patches of ice, Phoenix team members said on Friday.
A Washington University scientist, Ray Arvidson, said the spacecraft's thrusters might have blown away dirt covering the ice when it landed a week ago.
Scientists gave an updated assessment on Saturday after a more detailed image taken under the lander showed one of the craft's three legs sitting on coarse dirt and a large patch of what appears to be ice - possibly 90 centimetres in diameter.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23795270-952,00.html
AUSTRALIA'S combat mission in Iraq is over and the first troops have arrived in Brisbane, following an election promise to pull out of the unstable country.
The first of about 500 soldiers from the Overwatch Battle Group (West) 4 and Australia's Army Training Team reportedly touched down in Brisbane late yesterday afternoon.
The homecoming delivers on a promise made by Prime Minister KEVIN RUDD in the lead-up to last year's election.
Polls show 80 per cent of Australians oppose the war.
Australia will continue to have a military presence in Iraq, leaving behind two maritime surveillance aircraft and a warship to help patrol oil platforms.
Months later - perhaps ten - I walk down St Mark's Place and I am insanely drunk. It is after midnight but the street is jammed with people and the vendors are selling Yankees caps, temporary tatoos, bootleg videos. Halfway down the block I see two beefy black guys sitting on the tall stairs that lead to the converted brownstone. As I pass by, one of them says, "Rock?"
I stop. "You have any crack?" I ask.
They rise and come down the stairs. "You a cop?" one of them asks.
I laugh. "I am so not a cop," I say...
It's difficult to stand without swaying.
Augusten Burroughs, Dry.
In the starkness, in the terror, in the grisly depths this country had veered towards, into darkness, into chaos. There was no room for manoeuvre. The parasites had taken over. Ironically, it had begun with a government which people had naively labelled conservative; but that same government, the Howard government, had massively expanded the bureaucracy and the government's reach into people's lives. When they ultimately lost power due to his own hubris, his friends as much as his enemies could have dragged him up a back alley and given him a good thumping. It mightn't have been PC, but that was the way they felt. Nothing else seemed to get through; nothing at all. They shook their heads in bewilderment.
Why, why, had he betrayed his own kind so fundamentally? Why, why, had he seen fit to inflict so many left-wing policies on an already groaning nation? No move, not a single solitary move, could be taken without the government there in their pockets, monitoring, exploiting, taking, controlling. This was his poisoned legacy. And then the communists took over; and all was lost. Myriads of committees consumed millions upon millions of dollars, the government gifted by windfall mining revenues. But that didn't stop them taking, taking, taking every last damn cent off the groaning populace. They couldn't bear it much longer. The grit and the fiasco, that's what it was, the infliction of pain. The comrades couldn't have cared less.
These heartless souls showed no compassion for the people they exploited. Program after program was inflicted on people, and all for what? You could take away 90 per cent of what governments do in this country and we would all be better off; we would certainly have more money in our pocket. Australia is grinding to a halt, with layer after layer of government full of parasites, hands in their pockets, their arrogant snoots directed at noble causes. All for your own good dear.
All the lies, the astonishing lies, that's what made him weep with frustration. The fake epidemics whipped up to keep the parasites in power; obesity, domestic violence, drugs, global warming. All of them were grotesquely exaggerated. All of them kept thousands upon thousands of people in a job. The campaigns, the mind control, he remained astonished that in fact these blatant dishonesties actually worked. People did believe. People queued up to participate, to bleat for the victim, to feel part of the mass, to be one of a kind, one of them. The age of the outsider was long gone, if it had ever existed. But at least then, back then, "in the day" as they say, the rhetoric was all about individuality and creativity and pushing boundaries.
Now it's all about hiding their faces and executing control. Our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, he who must be loved and obeyed at all times, has hit his first roadside kerb and is briefly looking tawdry and manipulative. The press has finally got his measure, after a year of pandering. They've worked out that none of it translates to anything on the ground, that "working families" was a piece of over-used spin dug up from a focus group and repeated at least a million times. They've worked out that as he counts off the points with his fingers, firstly this, secondly that, building a slather of committees so numerous and so complex it would take years to disassemble, these people had forgot to govern for the good of the people and were simply enthralled by themselves, at our expense.
Sadly, one thing is for sure; once a bureaucracy is in place it takes more than dynamite to unearth it; and our layer after layer of government is full of, virtually made up of, past pieces of bureaucratic flotsam no one has had the guts to undo. Local, state and federal; all spewing forth lies and propaganda, all justifying their own existence; all existing when there was no need. He couldn't make head nor tail of why it had come to be so messy; why the country had deteriorated so rapidly. Every last cent had been hoovered off the populace. Crazy days were here again and his grizzling discontent mirrored a much broader discontent in the populace. His own despair was their despair. His own blistering contempt for those who governed was rapidly spreading, from one to many.
The only chance of survival was retreat; and greater minds than his had worked that out. "Kevin Rudd's cracking pace" the TV murmurs, "warned to slow down", "exhausted public servants"; as the kids get ready for school. Cracking pace may be, but none of it is anything; frenetic froth, activity for its own sake, filling holes that can never be filled. "Everyone will end up hating Rudd as much as they hated Howard", I predict, and people look at me. "That's impossible," they say. "Want a bet?" Well I've been wrong before; but how many more staged photographs can be taken in child care centres? How much longer can we fall for the control and manipulation? How stupid do they really think we are? Obesity, domestic violence, child support, global warming, racism, Iraq, how many more dishonest campaigns can be inflicted on people before the cat is belled, before they state the obvious: none of this is true. To borrow a famous comedian's invective, every word they say is a lie, including "a" and "the".
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.scopical.com.au/articles/News/6305/Diggers-withdraw-from-Iraq-as-cost-tops-$2.3-billion
Australia has officially withdrawn it's 550 combat troops from the Iraq war, delivering on a key promise made by the Rudd Government.
The withdrawal ends Australia's five-year commitment to the war and keeps the nations combat death toll in Iraq at zero.
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said that a flag lowering ceremony was held yesterday at the Talil Air Base as a symbolic end to Australia's combat roll.
Mr Fitzgibbon said that the Government was proud of the soldier's commitment to Iraq.
"Our soldiers have worked tirelessly to ensure that local people in southern Iraq have the best possible chance to move on from their suffering under Saddam's regime and, as a Government, we are extremely proud of their service," he said.
Defence was unable to confirm when all the troops would return to Australia. Mr Fitzgibbon said this was likely to happen over "the next month".
It is understood at least half arrived last night in Brisbane.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/a-cold-sign-of-possible-life-on-mars/2008/06/01/1212258648106.html
PHOENIX, Arizona: Sharp new images from NASA's Phoenix Mars lander have largely convinced scientists that the spacecraft's thrusters have uncovered a large patch of ice just below the Martian surface.
That bodes well for the mission's main goal of digging for ice that can be tested for evidence of organic compounds, the chemical building blocks of life.
Photos showing the ground beneath the lander suggested the vehicle was resting on patches of ice, Phoenix team members said on Friday.
A Washington University scientist, Ray Arvidson, said the spacecraft's thrusters might have blown away dirt covering the ice when it landed a week ago.
Scientists gave an updated assessment on Saturday after a more detailed image taken under the lander showed one of the craft's three legs sitting on coarse dirt and a large patch of what appears to be ice - possibly 90 centimetres in diameter.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23795270-952,00.html
AUSTRALIA'S combat mission in Iraq is over and the first troops have arrived in Brisbane, following an election promise to pull out of the unstable country.
The first of about 500 soldiers from the Overwatch Battle Group (West) 4 and Australia's Army Training Team reportedly touched down in Brisbane late yesterday afternoon.
The homecoming delivers on a promise made by Prime Minister KEVIN RUDD in the lead-up to last year's election.
Polls show 80 per cent of Australians oppose the war.
Australia will continue to have a military presence in Iraq, leaving behind two maritime surveillance aircraft and a warship to help patrol oil platforms.
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