Is it that long ago?

The Empress has sent an edict:

Lest We Forget

31 October 2001

Yum Cha this morning was myself, The Empress, Clive, James, and eventually M, absolutely exhausted and needing the food. It was a good Yum Cha (The Emperor’s Garden service was friendly and excellent). After that M went home to sleep — he starts again tonight at 6 pm, and I went with James and The Empress to the Albury — yes, I was there this Sunday — where we surprised the bar staff by eating barbecued quail that Ian had purchased, and added a Chinese tonic to our beer (it said it could be used in beer) which caused the beer to look like some Jekyll-and-Hyde potion, but actually improved the taste!  — March 4 2001

It is also where M and I first met in July 1990. Is it that long since it closed?

Yawning Bread on Radio National

Alex Au was on Radio National last night. You may listen here (MP3 podcast), or see SINGAPORE: Government bans gay sex - 29/10/2007.

Other…

1. Go to English/ESL — and more today if you enjoy Shakespeare. And YouTube. It’s in the “and more” department really.

2. I see The Rabbit has garnered some serious support for his views on marriage. David Smith was in my Year 10 of 1996 and is now doing a Political Science doctorate in Michigan. UPDATE: Jim Belshaw is intrigued by The Rabbit’s idea as you will see on Let’s take the law out of marriage. I await further developments.

3. I had that postponed blood test today… Two hours. Afterwards I discovered a lovely new coffee shop on Crown Street.

4. Antony will be pleased to know I am watching the wormed version of the Treasurers’ Debate on Nine. Thomas has live blogged it. He must have better typing skills than I have…

5. Daniel (Seeking Utopia) has gone behind a password again. I guess I ought to have seen it coming… I have deleted him from the side bar but the address is still in the main blog roll, just in case. He writes very intense jeremiads mostly, but also some quite beautiful posts. He is undoubtedly sincere but also perhaps expected too much… To each his own way, but I prefer to drop quite serious messages at intervals rather than maintain a constant state of angst. This is partly for my own sake; after all one function of blogging, for me, is to relax a bit, to unwind, if sometimes to vent, sometimes be silly… Whatever.

Contrasts in my recent reading and viewing

I’m a sucker for film noir. Play “spot the movie” with this.

So I have enjoyed Elmore Leonard’s La Brava: wickedly good. The novel is a riff on the idea of film and celluloid, what is and what isn’t simulacrum… Makes it sound quite pomo, doesn’t it?

“He’s been taking pictures three years, look at the work,” Maurice said. “Here, this guy. Look at the pose, the expression. Who’s he remind you of?”

“He looks like a hustler,” the woman said.

“He is a hustler, the guy’s a pimp. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Here, this one. Exotic dancer backstage. Remind you of anyone?”

“The girl?”

“Come on, Evelyn, the shot. The feeling he gets. The girl trying to look lovely, showing you her treasures, and they’re not bad. But look at the dressing room, all the glitzy crap, the tinfoil cheapness.”

“You want me to say Diane Arbus?”

“I want you to say Diane Arbus, that would be nice. I want you to say Duane Michaels, Danny Lyon. I want you to say Winogrand, Lee Friedlander. You want to go back a few years? I’d like very much for you to say Walker Evans, too.”

“Your old pal.”

“Long, long time ago. Even before your time.”

A best read of 2007, even if the book is almost 25 years old!

How Downer, Howard, Nelson and company are out of the debate…

I wonder if the gentlemen above ever read the magazine on the right, or if they have taken note of such recent books as After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads (Profile Books 2006 — $6.95 at your friendly remainder shop!) It appears a substantial portion of the Right have been embracing reality while we were looking the other way. Just what the implications of this are for the American elections remains to be seen; there are implications for our elections, because there is no doubt that what I am reading in After the Neocons and in the magazine on the right is far more Kevin Rudd friendly than the current Australian government’s ongoing love affair with the failing but horribly dangerous policies of the current US regime. This is not to say all these people are born-again liberals now: far from it. But there is more of reason in what they say and publish.

Fukuyama, for his sins, had been one of the signatories of the Project for a New American Century back in the Clinton era, and we know what that led to. There is a profile of Fukuyama here, and I commend the entire IRC Right Web Program from which that comes.

From the current American Interest: After Bush leads with an article by Barry R Posen.

Some light rather than heat on non-standard marriages

… otherwise known as “gay marriage” and the focus of much heated debate on both sides. However, do look at the discussion that has started between Jim Belshaw (from a somewhat conservative but far from homophobic perspective) and Marcellous on this topic. I am not joining in as I feel outclassed by both of them. However, go there for a refreshingly hysterics-free — and non-theological — exchange of views.

A trained policy analyst and a barrister on the case. Interesting.

Monday

Check The Rabbit’s comment on Marcel’s post, and Jim Belshaw’s excellent follow-up.

Sirdan’s interesting neighbour

I had heard about Sirdan’s neighbour but met him today for the first time, Sunday lunch being at Sirdan’s. He was at one time a contributor to the well-remembered National Times, a paper to be reckoned with in the 70s and 80s. Conversation ranged from the Packers to Neville Wran to Bob Carr, and much else besides, 1970s Wollongong not least. One part of the conversation would have interested The Rabbit, touching as it did on someone The Rabbit once worked for.

Fascinating stuff. Quite a few skeletons rattled…

On the other hand, the lunch guest and I, being not too far apart in age, had a number of senior moments. Fortunately we both knew who we were talking about even if the names tend to escape us… 

He has been to La Paz too, this lunch guest, and once had a gallery in New York.

Fully Australian

I found this when Googling for Tom Uren that great-hearted figure from the good Labor Left of perhaps another era, but a truly great Australian respected, I think, by most Australians. The blog, Desert Star is now on my blog roll, and the accompanying site Aboriginal Art and Culture: Desert Dreams I will add to the classified links.

He is none too fond of John Howard.

On his blog you will find much of interest including some great autobiographical material which I think will interest Jim Belshaw, among others. There’s good social history to be gleaned there. I will certainly be reading it carefully.

If you look at the feed on the right you will see there is more on Oz Politics and the Big Archive.

Old teachers never die… (Blogspot)

It has been a bit lonely, that blog, but I was happy to see some movement overnight: Turning one-way education around has attracted a really encouraging comment.

Friday Australian poem #12: David Campbell "Men in Green"

This poem is literally the same age as I am, having been first published in The Bulletin in 1943. David Campbell, like my father, was in the RAAF. Both men were in Papua/New Guinea in that year, though my father was comparatively safe on the ground in Port Moresby.

You’ve been warned

This blog:

Oz Politics and Big Archive:

English/ESL:

English/ESL GLBT page:

Old Teachers Never Die…:

Thanks to Bruce.

NOTE 27 October: Obviously they didn’t like my removing their advertising link to some poxy dating service, so I have appropriated the images for myself. Now only the top one links to the widget in case you want to try your own site — or a friend’s.

Summer Heights High

…has been a work of comic genius.

Yes it has been right out on the edge in what it dealt with and in the realism of its language. But I will say two things: I haven’t seen as total a set of character creations as the three that Chris Lilley simply inhabits: you could really be forgiven for thinking we had three different actors; Chris Lilley is a brilliant linguist and sociologist.

The next Wednesday night comedy series The Librarians looks promising but has a hard act to follow.

Perhaps we will look back on the Howard years as a golden age of comedy/satire! Think about that…

Now M is in Bolivia

You can read more about La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, by clicking on the picture — not one of M’s — which leads to a fascinating account of the place from Bolivia Web. M’s latest email says:

am in lapaz. i am fine , just tired after over 60 hrs bus and train ride.

To say the least, I would say!

I am sure he will be keeping out of local politics, but via Bolivia Web — which is really comprehensive — I came upon this interesting blog (in English): Bolivia Rising. Bolivia’s indigenous people are rising up and reclaiming a new homeland. An exciting national revolution is unfolding in Bolivia today, with its indigenous peoples at its core. The movement to refound Bolivia is an inspiration to many around the world. Bolivia Rising aims to bring news and analysis about this revolution to English speakers.

South America is pretty much off the radar here in Australia, isn’t it?

UPDATE

In another email M says he is now feeling better and is starting Spanish lessons.

Remember General Wesley Clark?

Scott Ritter — who got WMD in Iraq right before the war started:

…God is not on our side, or the side of any single nation or people. To believe such is the ultimate expression of national hubris. To invoke such, if one is a true believer, is to embrace sacrilege and heresy. This, of course, is an individual right, granted as an extension of religious freedom. But it is not a collective right, nor is it a right born of governance, especially in a land protected by the separation of church and state.

Finished my journalism

Yesterday’s draft was acceptable to my editors. This morning I ran it by Mark Willacy himself and got some additional material and updates. He is now with The 7.30 Report*.

In conversation last year with Richard Fidler on Local ABC Queensland the following emerged:

Generally, those reporting on Middle East conflicts are encumbered with accusations of bias. Mark explains to Richard how he approached his assignments. He says, “I think what I’ve tried to do is show the impact of conflict on non-combatants, people who are drawn into the conflict. Whether it’s an Israeli going to work on a bus, or a Palestinian child on his way to school who gets hurt or killed for just doing what they’re doing. It’s something I’ve always tried to do is humanise this story, because people hear and their eyes glaze over and they think, ‘here we go more misery from the middle east’, and that’s a fair reaction so what you have to do is humanise the story.”