Vantage Point
*
Obama's generation missed the sexual revolution of the 1960s - he was six in the Summer of Love. But they were in a prime position to watch the Boomers go wrong. They absorbed echoes of Woodstock, Vietnam, the social dislocation, with parents, perhaps, like Obama's mother, who were caught up in the heat of the time. They experienced first-hand the chaos of old certainties being torn apart. Then they watched the anti-establishmentarians become the establishment, and sniffed it for the phoniness it was.
Miranda Devine.
It was only recently that I realised that all these habits of mind and life would scarcely have been imaginable in my parents'
youth; that the very facts and facilities that shape my world are all distinctly new developments, and mark me as a modern type.
It was only recently, in fact, that I realised that I am an example, perhaps, of an entirely new breed of people, a transcontinental tribe of wanderers that is multiplying as fast as international telephone lines and frequent flyer programmes. We are the transit loungers, forever heading to the departure gate. We buy our interests duty-free, we eat our food on plastic plates, we watch the
world through borrowed headphones. We pass through countries as through revolving doors, resident aliens of the world, impermanent residents of nowhere.
Nothing is strange to us, and nowhere is foreign. We are visitors even in our own homes. This is not, I think, a function of affluence so much as of simple circumstance. I am not, that is, a jet-setter pursuing vacations
from Marbella to Phuket; I am a product of a movable sensibility, living and working in a world that is itself increasingly small and increasingly mongrel.
I am a multinational soul on a multicultural globe where more and more countries are as polyglot and restless as airports. Taking planes seems as natural to me as picking up the phone, or going to school; I fold up my self and carry it round with me as if it were an overnight case.
The modern world seems increasingly made for people like me.... Ours is the first generation that can go off to visit Tibet for a week, or meet Tibetans down the street; ours is the first generation to be able to go to Nigeria for a holiday to find our roots-or to find that they are not there. At a superficial level, this
new internationalism means that I can meet, in the Hilton coffee shop, an Indonesian businessman who is as conversant as I am with Magic Johnson and Madonna. At a deeper level, it means that I need never feel estranged. If all the world is alien to us, all the world is home.
Pico Iyer
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:EhwBGKNrGDkJ:www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/pdfarticle.php%3Fid%3D4639+We+pass+through+countries+as+through+revolving+doors&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=au
They were crazy; and he could see the filaments, the silhouettes, black shapes in apartment buildings built layer on layer, cresting up the hill, an architectural wave. From his vantage point on the rooftop he could see directly into their lives, into the alcoves each of the humans had established as a home. There were glowing red lamps and handsome young men in pyjamas, scratching themselves. There were office workers preparing for work, while he prepared for desolation. They were a different species, these humans, these people going about their days. He would never belong to them.
As the day ended for him and began for others, he knew the partying crowd in the apartments below were probably just on their way to bed, and he could join them, find shelter. Homeless as always, he hoped for kindness. He was dissatisfied. In his heart there was no answer. The astonishing scenes that he witnessed each morning up there on the rooftop, they were his alone. There was no one to share these experiences with. No one to point out the different people in the units, to make smart comments or simply to perve, to watch others go about their lives.
Every other roof top was empty. He couldn't understand that. The sunrise over the harbour was so extravagantly beautiful from here, he couldn't understand why there weren't sentinels standing atop every rooftop, gazing out at what he alone could see, drinking in the landscape like a thirsty man. And hiding himself in a dreadful drug haze, anything to avoid being himself, anything to avoid close thought, reality, a dark beauty, the glistening sheen. Anything to avoid that moment when he realised he was a hopeless failure; and would be better off dead.
Euphoric recall it was called, the memory of these divine moments when God crawled through the fabric of things and everything was wise. He was at peace. He was not torn apart. Despair didn't sink through every heart beat. And he didn't peer over the edge of the building, looking down eight floors to the concrete below; wondering what would happen if he made the dash over the ledge. Would any of the apartment dwellers going about their breakfast even notice? He had come to know them, from watching them so closely. And they didn't even know he was here.
Below the party crowd was going about its duty = getting fabulously out of it. This was their mission. A fabulous batch of characters. Joe flip flopping; going out for milk and coming back days later; dripping, drug fucked, a whole universe in the extended flap of a wrist. All these people were about breaking boundaries. The all wanted to be fabulous. They all wanted to be in love. He looked out from the darkness and still couldn't see. They were shadows of himself, the Blue Boy, as he was known, after the colour of the tablets he arrived with, making himself welcome.
Methaqualone, the chemical inside the blue capsules, was the drug of the moment. Everyone was taking it. The mandrax stagger was just a part of Sydney life; people were stumbling every where, spectacularly out of it. Colin went down to the Cricketer's Arms. Joe kept dancing and they all laughed; and he knocked on the door with something amounting to fear. He couldn't stay on the roof forever, although he would have liked to. He could have built a hut up there, brought up food, vanished from the world. Instead, he was knocking on the party house door, seeking shelter. A shower, some sleep, someone to say it didn't really matter, he wasn't mad.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jarSVzHp6A3bt3xlvhsZ0Bmv8EIwD94BJNV00
Indonesia boosts security after Bali executions
By IRWAN FIRDAUS – 1 hour ago
TENGGULUN, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia boosted security Sunday after three Islamic militants were executed for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. Emotional supporters thronged ambulances carrying their caskets through narrow streets, some calling for revenge.
Several embassies, including those of the U.S. and Australia, urged citizens to keep a low profile, saying they could be targeted.
Imam Samudra, 38, and brothers Amrozi Nurhasyim, 47, and Ali Ghufron, 48, were brought before a firing squad near their high-security prison on Nusakambangan island in the middle of the night Sunday, said Jasman Panjaitan, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
They refused blindfolds and died instantly, he said.
The Oct. 12, 2002 attacks — allegedly funded by al-Qaida and carried out by members of the Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah — were the first of several suicide bombings in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Many of those killed were Western tourists, who packed into two nightclubs on the popular resort island on the busiest night of the week. Seven of the dead were American.
The three militants confessed to helping plan and carry out the attacks but were without remorse, saying they were meant to punish the U.S. and its Western allies for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nurhasyim, ever gloating, came to be known as the "smiling bomber."
The executions ended years of uncertainty about the men's fate.
Their lawyers launched several unsuccessful legal challenges that kept them in the media spotlight, frustrating relatives of victims and enabling the militants to rally supporters even while behind bars. They repeatedly demanded retaliation if their executions went forward.
Most in the nation of 235 million are moderate Muslims who have little sympathy for the bombers, but the men have strong support among an increasingly vocal radical fringe.
Thousands of supporters and onlookers lined streets in their home towns of Tenggulun and Serang, located in east and west Java. Some jostled for a glimpse of their caskets or headed to the cemetery with family members for the burials.
Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir led the prayers in Tenggulun, home of Nurhasyim and Ghufron, one of their final requests.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rudd-could-teach-obama-about-expectations/2008/11/09/1226165380046.html
In the grand scheme of things, Kevin Rudd is to Barack Obama what Oasis is to the Beatles, but in relative terms, they face a similar predicament. They carry the weight of great expectation into an uncertain world.
Obama, at least, could be thankful he was not elected president of Australia or that burden would be even greater.
Four polls released in the lead-up to the US election showed he was vastly more popular here than in the US - between 72 per cent and 75 per cent of Australian voters would have chosen him if they could. In the actual election, he won just over 52 per cent of the popular vote.
Even so, John Utting, the market researcher behind much of Labor's success, including Kevin Rudd's election victory, believes Obama will not be able to meet the weight of expectation upon him.
He bases this assumption on field work carried out 10 days before the US election in which Utting's organisation, UMR Research, interviewed 1000 Australian people, of which 724, or 72.4 per cent, wanted Obama to win.
Although support for Obama was higher than in the US, the sentiments expressed by those willing Obama to victory were the same as they were in the US and, indeed, Europe and elsewhere.
The qualitative analysis asked Obama backers: "What do you think would be different under Barack Obama?" The answers fell into eight broad categories: young and fresh; positive global impact; better leadership for America; historic moment for race relations; will deliver much-needed change in America; better approach to domestic and international affairs; less focus on war; and better economic management.
http://www.poligazette.com/2008/11/09/obama-prepares-to-quickly-undo-bush-actions/
President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has been working for months on a plan to undo many of President George W. Bush’s actions without Obama having to consult with Congress. According to the New York Times, the team has made a list of approximately 200 items, which Obama could reverse immediately after taking office.
Of the 200 items, the most important ones are probably stem cell research executive orders and issues related to abortion.
With regards to stem cell research, Obama will enable the federal government to fund it immediately. Stem cell research is believed to enable scientists to find cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s and others that continue to ruin hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives. However, days-old human embryos are used for stem cell research which are destroyed in the process. Many conservative Christians oppose such research for that very reason. Bush agreed with them, signing an order that would prevent the federal government from funding it.
Obama may now undo that highly controversial move shortly or even immediately after taking office.
Also, the team has advised Obama to lift a so-called global gag rule, which bars international ‘family planning’ groups that receive U.S. funding to inform women about the availability of abortion.
Although Obama expects to work closely with Congress in the coming years, he also wants to bypass Congress when he can. He will be able to do so in order to ‘undo the damage,’ from his perspective, caused by Bush in the first days after taking office, by simply focusing on regulation and social issues. Which is exactly what he intends to do.
The above mentioned policy changes are probably supported en masse by the American people, although most certainly not by Republicans. They will be controversial in so far that the average Republican will not be happy with the changes, considering it to be part of the ‘culture war’ they have been fighting with liberals for decades now.
He will also almost immediately act against global warming, the Times report explains. He might even officially declare that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering human welfare, and he might ‘create a National Energy Council to coordinate all policymaking related to global climate change.’
Although many believe global warming to be real, and partially man-made, many also believe that jumping to conclusions and implementing policiies out of fear is unwise. Rather, the average person believes, leaders should look at the situation seriously, and come up with ways to limit the damage. However, the first move Obama will make in this regard is to let California and other states to determine their own strict rules for automakers. This would most likely be welcomed by liberals and moderates and perhaps even by conservatives who believe the government does not have the right to tell states what to do in this regard; Bush intervened only to help automakers, not out of ideological reasons.
And so, Obama will act immediately after taking office, thereby undoing many of Bush’s decisions. Bush’s legacy lives on though, in the Supreme Court and Iraq.
Flannel flowers, Sydney coastline.
Obama's generation missed the sexual revolution of the 1960s - he was six in the Summer of Love. But they were in a prime position to watch the Boomers go wrong. They absorbed echoes of Woodstock, Vietnam, the social dislocation, with parents, perhaps, like Obama's mother, who were caught up in the heat of the time. They experienced first-hand the chaos of old certainties being torn apart. Then they watched the anti-establishmentarians become the establishment, and sniffed it for the phoniness it was.
Miranda Devine.
It was only recently that I realised that all these habits of mind and life would scarcely have been imaginable in my parents'
youth; that the very facts and facilities that shape my world are all distinctly new developments, and mark me as a modern type.
It was only recently, in fact, that I realised that I am an example, perhaps, of an entirely new breed of people, a transcontinental tribe of wanderers that is multiplying as fast as international telephone lines and frequent flyer programmes. We are the transit loungers, forever heading to the departure gate. We buy our interests duty-free, we eat our food on plastic plates, we watch the
world through borrowed headphones. We pass through countries as through revolving doors, resident aliens of the world, impermanent residents of nowhere.
Nothing is strange to us, and nowhere is foreign. We are visitors even in our own homes. This is not, I think, a function of affluence so much as of simple circumstance. I am not, that is, a jet-setter pursuing vacations
from Marbella to Phuket; I am a product of a movable sensibility, living and working in a world that is itself increasingly small and increasingly mongrel.
I am a multinational soul on a multicultural globe where more and more countries are as polyglot and restless as airports. Taking planes seems as natural to me as picking up the phone, or going to school; I fold up my self and carry it round with me as if it were an overnight case.
The modern world seems increasingly made for people like me.... Ours is the first generation that can go off to visit Tibet for a week, or meet Tibetans down the street; ours is the first generation to be able to go to Nigeria for a holiday to find our roots-or to find that they are not there. At a superficial level, this
new internationalism means that I can meet, in the Hilton coffee shop, an Indonesian businessman who is as conversant as I am with Magic Johnson and Madonna. At a deeper level, it means that I need never feel estranged. If all the world is alien to us, all the world is home.
Pico Iyer
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:EhwBGKNrGDkJ:www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/pdfarticle.php%3Fid%3D4639+We+pass+through+countries+as+through+revolving+doors&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=au
They were crazy; and he could see the filaments, the silhouettes, black shapes in apartment buildings built layer on layer, cresting up the hill, an architectural wave. From his vantage point on the rooftop he could see directly into their lives, into the alcoves each of the humans had established as a home. There were glowing red lamps and handsome young men in pyjamas, scratching themselves. There were office workers preparing for work, while he prepared for desolation. They were a different species, these humans, these people going about their days. He would never belong to them.
As the day ended for him and began for others, he knew the partying crowd in the apartments below were probably just on their way to bed, and he could join them, find shelter. Homeless as always, he hoped for kindness. He was dissatisfied. In his heart there was no answer. The astonishing scenes that he witnessed each morning up there on the rooftop, they were his alone. There was no one to share these experiences with. No one to point out the different people in the units, to make smart comments or simply to perve, to watch others go about their lives.
Every other roof top was empty. He couldn't understand that. The sunrise over the harbour was so extravagantly beautiful from here, he couldn't understand why there weren't sentinels standing atop every rooftop, gazing out at what he alone could see, drinking in the landscape like a thirsty man. And hiding himself in a dreadful drug haze, anything to avoid being himself, anything to avoid close thought, reality, a dark beauty, the glistening sheen. Anything to avoid that moment when he realised he was a hopeless failure; and would be better off dead.
Euphoric recall it was called, the memory of these divine moments when God crawled through the fabric of things and everything was wise. He was at peace. He was not torn apart. Despair didn't sink through every heart beat. And he didn't peer over the edge of the building, looking down eight floors to the concrete below; wondering what would happen if he made the dash over the ledge. Would any of the apartment dwellers going about their breakfast even notice? He had come to know them, from watching them so closely. And they didn't even know he was here.
Below the party crowd was going about its duty = getting fabulously out of it. This was their mission. A fabulous batch of characters. Joe flip flopping; going out for milk and coming back days later; dripping, drug fucked, a whole universe in the extended flap of a wrist. All these people were about breaking boundaries. The all wanted to be fabulous. They all wanted to be in love. He looked out from the darkness and still couldn't see. They were shadows of himself, the Blue Boy, as he was known, after the colour of the tablets he arrived with, making himself welcome.
Methaqualone, the chemical inside the blue capsules, was the drug of the moment. Everyone was taking it. The mandrax stagger was just a part of Sydney life; people were stumbling every where, spectacularly out of it. Colin went down to the Cricketer's Arms. Joe kept dancing and they all laughed; and he knocked on the door with something amounting to fear. He couldn't stay on the roof forever, although he would have liked to. He could have built a hut up there, brought up food, vanished from the world. Instead, he was knocking on the party house door, seeking shelter. A shower, some sleep, someone to say it didn't really matter, he wasn't mad.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jarSVzHp6A3bt3xlvhsZ0Bmv8EIwD94BJNV00
Indonesia boosts security after Bali executions
By IRWAN FIRDAUS – 1 hour ago
TENGGULUN, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia boosted security Sunday after three Islamic militants were executed for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. Emotional supporters thronged ambulances carrying their caskets through narrow streets, some calling for revenge.
Several embassies, including those of the U.S. and Australia, urged citizens to keep a low profile, saying they could be targeted.
Imam Samudra, 38, and brothers Amrozi Nurhasyim, 47, and Ali Ghufron, 48, were brought before a firing squad near their high-security prison on Nusakambangan island in the middle of the night Sunday, said Jasman Panjaitan, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
They refused blindfolds and died instantly, he said.
The Oct. 12, 2002 attacks — allegedly funded by al-Qaida and carried out by members of the Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah — were the first of several suicide bombings in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Many of those killed were Western tourists, who packed into two nightclubs on the popular resort island on the busiest night of the week. Seven of the dead were American.
The three militants confessed to helping plan and carry out the attacks but were without remorse, saying they were meant to punish the U.S. and its Western allies for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nurhasyim, ever gloating, came to be known as the "smiling bomber."
The executions ended years of uncertainty about the men's fate.
Their lawyers launched several unsuccessful legal challenges that kept them in the media spotlight, frustrating relatives of victims and enabling the militants to rally supporters even while behind bars. They repeatedly demanded retaliation if their executions went forward.
Most in the nation of 235 million are moderate Muslims who have little sympathy for the bombers, but the men have strong support among an increasingly vocal radical fringe.
Thousands of supporters and onlookers lined streets in their home towns of Tenggulun and Serang, located in east and west Java. Some jostled for a glimpse of their caskets or headed to the cemetery with family members for the burials.
Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir led the prayers in Tenggulun, home of Nurhasyim and Ghufron, one of their final requests.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rudd-could-teach-obama-about-expectations/2008/11/09/1226165380046.html
In the grand scheme of things, Kevin Rudd is to Barack Obama what Oasis is to the Beatles, but in relative terms, they face a similar predicament. They carry the weight of great expectation into an uncertain world.
Obama, at least, could be thankful he was not elected president of Australia or that burden would be even greater.
Four polls released in the lead-up to the US election showed he was vastly more popular here than in the US - between 72 per cent and 75 per cent of Australian voters would have chosen him if they could. In the actual election, he won just over 52 per cent of the popular vote.
Even so, John Utting, the market researcher behind much of Labor's success, including Kevin Rudd's election victory, believes Obama will not be able to meet the weight of expectation upon him.
He bases this assumption on field work carried out 10 days before the US election in which Utting's organisation, UMR Research, interviewed 1000 Australian people, of which 724, or 72.4 per cent, wanted Obama to win.
Although support for Obama was higher than in the US, the sentiments expressed by those willing Obama to victory were the same as they were in the US and, indeed, Europe and elsewhere.
The qualitative analysis asked Obama backers: "What do you think would be different under Barack Obama?" The answers fell into eight broad categories: young and fresh; positive global impact; better leadership for America; historic moment for race relations; will deliver much-needed change in America; better approach to domestic and international affairs; less focus on war; and better economic management.
http://www.poligazette.com/2008/11/09/obama-prepares-to-quickly-undo-bush-actions/
President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has been working for months on a plan to undo many of President George W. Bush’s actions without Obama having to consult with Congress. According to the New York Times, the team has made a list of approximately 200 items, which Obama could reverse immediately after taking office.
Of the 200 items, the most important ones are probably stem cell research executive orders and issues related to abortion.
With regards to stem cell research, Obama will enable the federal government to fund it immediately. Stem cell research is believed to enable scientists to find cures for diseases such as Parkinson’s and others that continue to ruin hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives. However, days-old human embryos are used for stem cell research which are destroyed in the process. Many conservative Christians oppose such research for that very reason. Bush agreed with them, signing an order that would prevent the federal government from funding it.
Obama may now undo that highly controversial move shortly or even immediately after taking office.
Also, the team has advised Obama to lift a so-called global gag rule, which bars international ‘family planning’ groups that receive U.S. funding to inform women about the availability of abortion.
Although Obama expects to work closely with Congress in the coming years, he also wants to bypass Congress when he can. He will be able to do so in order to ‘undo the damage,’ from his perspective, caused by Bush in the first days after taking office, by simply focusing on regulation and social issues. Which is exactly what he intends to do.
The above mentioned policy changes are probably supported en masse by the American people, although most certainly not by Republicans. They will be controversial in so far that the average Republican will not be happy with the changes, considering it to be part of the ‘culture war’ they have been fighting with liberals for decades now.
He will also almost immediately act against global warming, the Times report explains. He might even officially declare that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering human welfare, and he might ‘create a National Energy Council to coordinate all policymaking related to global climate change.’
Although many believe global warming to be real, and partially man-made, many also believe that jumping to conclusions and implementing policiies out of fear is unwise. Rather, the average person believes, leaders should look at the situation seriously, and come up with ways to limit the damage. However, the first move Obama will make in this regard is to let California and other states to determine their own strict rules for automakers. This would most likely be welcomed by liberals and moderates and perhaps even by conservatives who believe the government does not have the right to tell states what to do in this regard; Bush intervened only to help automakers, not out of ideological reasons.
And so, Obama will act immediately after taking office, thereby undoing many of Bush’s decisions. Bush’s legacy lives on though, in the Supreme Court and Iraq.
Flannel flowers, Sydney coastline.
Comments