You Do The Math

Maurice Iemma’s announcement that more carriages will provide an extra 1200 seats on our trains shows just how hopeless our state’s transport planning and management has become (Petrol prices push commuters onto trains, SMH Online June 24).

Iemma’s trumpet was blowing as Transport Minister Watkins was telling us that rail passengers have increased by over 4% in the last twelve months - on a rail network that carries over a million people a day, this means an extra 40,000 people; all squeezing into Iemma’s extra 1200 seats. With no end in sight for escalating fuel prices it can only be assumed that rail patronage will continue to increase exponentially. It is time that the NSW Government, particularly the Premier, the Transport Minister and the Treasurer, admitted that the RailCorp network is vastly inadequate, and returned to fix the problem.

This means finishing the rail clearways program, investing in a substantial increase in rolling stock, simplifying ticketing into a time based and zonal system like every other civilised transport network, having concessions that don’t penalise part-time low income workers with high marginal transport costs and providing more than Mickey Mouse Metros that won’t come online until this city is well and truly gridlocked.

Working people and business rely on a reliable transport system to keep this city functioning - it is not a cost, it is an investment. It is laughable - and typical - that the Transport Minister reaches for the Orwellian spin of a phrase such as “people are either coming back to rail or trying rail for the first time, and it is important that we continue to improve the experience they have”.

Well, derr! We’ve seen this coming for over ten years. The experience we have is timetables that are slower than in the 1920’s, dangerous overcrowding, poorly trained and insufficient staff, management who appears to carry incompetence as a badge of pride and a government that relies on spin doctors to deny reality.

We are well down the path of creating ghettoes where populations are stranded and isolated from employment and participating in the life of this city because they cannot access it as transport is too expensive or unavailable. The disconnect between government and the population it is supposed to serve has got to the point where the entire legitimacy of this administration is called into question.

At what point does the refusal of commuters to pay for this daily humiliation become a realistic act of civil disobedience to force the orgy of incompetence that passes as the NSW Government to live up to it’s responsibilities?

PLAY ABANDONED #23 – Welcome To Barbados And Have a Nice Day

In the fifties my Grandmother, who came from Paddington when it was a slum, worked in a match factory in Zetland, then an industrial suburb in inner southern Sydney. Her legs were stuffed for the rest of her life from mixing phosphate, but this was the post war boom, wasn’t it, and while my drunken Grandfather was off somewhere in Sydney driving a bus she threw a sickie - the West Indies were in town, and ‘Keithy’ Miller was batting.

“They had this big tall fast bowler,” she told me. “As black as the ace of spades. After the end of one over he went back to stand in front of the hill. A bloke offered him a bottle of beer; he upped and downed it all in one go. What a cheer he got from the crowd!”

These days he’d probably get banned for twelve months, while the bloke with the bottle would probably be ejected. The crowd wouldn’t cheer that. We live in conservative times, our lives controlled by yellow shirted goons with wires hanging out of their ears and IQs that match their shoe sizes.

Back in the fifties the West Indies were part of the orientalism that brought a cosmopolitan flavour to post war cricket. Australia hosted and went on a widening array of tours, more or less successfully, with nations from the Caribbean and the subcontinent, playing with a grace that was often forced to stand up under very trying circumstances.

A couple of generations later, after my Nan had become part of the working class retiring to the Central Coast of NSW, the Windies had grown into a fearsome pace battery backed by some of the most entertaining willow wielding seen in cricket. She still loved watching them.

I recall watching a NSW game against a touring West Indies side (when we used to do such things, letting touring sides get used to our wickets and thus making our domestic test matches competitive, rather than the learn-as-you-go fiascos we are presented with today, where touring sides get their act together by the second, third or - if they’re lucky enough to get one - fourth tests). It was at the SCG and Viv Richards was batting. Richards had played and missed against a NSW fast bowler, which might have been a young Geoff Lawson, and was rehearsing his shot as the bowler went back to his mark.

It was possibly Rick McCosker, fielding in the covers, who suggested to Viv that ‘you can’t hit the ball after it’s gone past you’.

The gum chewing of the Antiguan intensified and he fixed the fielder with a steely glare. Next ball was smacked about two feet to the right of the cover fielder, flying like Lord Mountbattens sandshoe to bang into the advertising hoarding in front of the [then] Paddington hill.

Richards rocked back on his haunches, resting on his bat to calmly observe that ‘you can’t field the ball after it’s gone past you either, mon’.

Which brings us to the surprising brittleness of Australia’s test campaign in the Caribbean.

On paper - and form - Australia should have won this series 3-0 by an innings in each test. It should be no contest. But it is. The Windies went close in the first test and, while never quite getting on top, weren’t disgraced in the drawn second test either. After the first days play in the third test in Barbados they appear to have a chance to take Australia cheaply in the first innings, but there is a lot of cricket left to go in this match.

Backed by a hubristic media following and a self induced air of supremacy, Australia has gathered an invincible aura about itself that was exposed a little during the Indian tour.

Has Australia, as Ricky Ponting implied about its bowling at least, come back to the pack? Or is the West Indies really improving? Caribbean commentators continue to bemoan the state of West Indian cricket, while the loss of Warne, Gilchrist and McGrath really are akin to losing Lillee, Chappell and Marsh in the early eighties. Does that mean Australian cricket is set for something akin to the wilderness years we experienced in the eighties?

Probably not, but the Windies have indeed lifted while Australia is not as certain of it’s status as it has been. A lot rests on the performance of the new spinner, Beau Casson.

Just as the Indians took a moral victory out of the tied test series in Australia last summer, the Windies ability to tie this series could see some serious soul searching - especially regarding Ponting’s captaincy - amongst the Australians and could herald something of (yet another) renewal for the formerly dominant West Indies.

But these signs have emerged before, after a win in South Africa and their most recent drawn (two test) series against Sri Lanka.

West Indian cricket - facing, as it does, the cultural onslaught from North America via cable TV to pull kids to Basketball, Athletics and Baseball - probably is terminal, but Indian cricket isn’t. They’re flogging all comers at the moment, and will take great glee in watching the Australians struggle.

The Australian cricket team is mortal after all. And my dead grandmother would be cheering for the West Indies today if she could. She always had a lot of time for the underdog - you get that working in a match factory in Zetland - and, if we lived in more enlightened times, someone would give Daren Powell a bottle of beer.

Methuselah, playing uppishly behind point

John Della-Bosca's Election Adventure

Mr John Della-Bosca, the St George boy who made the seachange to Woy Woy Bay, has been in the news lately - which prompts me to republish a piece from ten years ago that features a bit of history regarding Della and his partner Ms Neal, and a bit of nostalgia for old times that some may find interesting.

JOHN DELLA-BOSCA’S ELECTION ADVENTURE

October 1998.

When Kim Beazley gave his address to the party faithful on election night he went out of his way to single out for praise the General Secretary of the New South Wales Branch of the ALP, Mr John Della-Bosca. This was the first clue that Mr. Della-Bosca himself was already at the forefront of discussion within the ALP.

The praise itself was extraordinary. The ALP had performed remarkably well in Queensland and Western Australia, and had achieved a clean sweep in Tasmania, yet if there was ever an area where they stumbled it was in the marginal seats in the big eastern states. Della-Bosca, whose branch picked up a mere two seats, is elevated above the more successful party structures of the smaller states. What is going on?

The divisions within the ALP that coalesced around John Della-Bosca have an interesting history. Their public manifestation reveals the increasing stresses, external and internal, that face the dominant right wing faction in NSW.

The internal pressures publicly appeared in the once all powerful faction a few years ago with the formation of the so-called ‘Terrigals’ - a faction within the right that likes to see itself as more sophisticated than the more traditional right-wing supporters in NSW, known as the Trogs. It’s greatest success was gaining the defection of the prominent left-winger Peter Knight, now the NSW Olympics Minister [and what a success he was!].

That in itself was an indirect result of another problem that the faction faces - attracting bright young talent. There is a school of thought that Della-Bosca, and his deputy - Assistant Secretary Eric Rozendal, are not a patch on recent predecessors such as Stephen Loosely and Graeme Richardson, even in purely administrative terms. While there are many in both the faction and the broader party that are relieved that the right no longer relies on individuals like Tom Domican and institutions like the Balmain Welding Company, there hasn’t been the convincing replacement of these traditional methods with a more forceful intellectual competence.

Graeme Richardson himself, along with former Keating staffer, Peter Barron, are also understood to be offside with Della-Bosca. This is primarily over the New South Wales Branch’s decision to dump their long term advertiser, John Singleton. But this conflict all gravitates back to Singleton’s mate Kerry Packer. So any moves by Richardson or Barron would receive little support from within the ALP.

Along with this has been a number of preselection battles among competing right wingers. These have primarily been at a state level but it also popped up in the federal seat of Lindsay.

The whole situation hasn’t been helped by loose cannons within the right. the obvious example is Mark Latham. An intellectually vain man, it begs the question of political intelligence for an individual to publicly attack a Federal Leader who has achieved arguably the parties greatest result short of winning government. In doing so he was trying to go into bat for Della-Bosca who was under criticism immediately after the election from outside of NSW as well.

The Left was able to harness Right Wing trade union support on the floor of the NSW ALP state conference in 1997 - thereby rolling the NSW governments electricity privatisation proposals. This was probably the most significant achievement of the Left in NSW since the introduction of Proportional Representation in internal ALP ballots in NSW in the early seventies. The position of Della-Bosca’s Sussex Street machine went down with that of the Premier, Bob Carr.

The unthinkable had happened. The NSW Right had been rolled.

The Left in NSW, through Damian O’Connor, the Assistant State Secretary in NSW, were able to use industrial links that had strengthened during the waterfront dispute. The industrial wing of the Labor movement in NSW noted the absence of Sussex Street apparatchiks in important areas of that dispute. It seemed strange politics for the Right that at a time when the political and industrial wings of the faction were splitting that the titular head of the Sussex Street machine, Della-Bosca, should alienate important sections of their own base. The influence of the Sussex Street machine has also been assailed from interstate in a dispute that has been described as the ‘Rugby League’ states versus the so called ‘Southern’ states. The primary focus of this opposition is the Victorian Right. But Robert Ray and his pals have little to crow about after their own branch’s dismal performance on October 3.

Which brings us back to the recent federal election. Della-Bosca had criticisms of his own, especially about the ALP’s capital gains tax policy. Sources within the ALP revealed that Della-Bosca voiced such criticisms at NSW Branch Administrative Committee meetings immediately prior to the election. He has also described subsequent criticisms of himself as cowardly and challenged his detractors to come out publicly.

Della-Bosca has identified a whispering campaign against him that goes right to the top of the ALP. There are allegations that Kim Beazley made off the record comments about Della-Bosca while briefing journalists late in the campaign. A lot of the whispers surround Della-Bosca’s role in the campaign of his wife, the former senator for NSW Belinda Neal, in the marginal NSW seat of Robertson.

Robertson, which was held by former Hawke government minister Barry Cohen and NSW left-winger Frank Walker, covers the NSW Central Coast. Based on Gosford it is an area that in the last 10 years become the outer northern suburbs of Sydney.,

Della-Bosca and his wife, Neal, live in the seat. He was attracted to the area after working on the Peats By-election in the 80’s. Peats being a state seat wholly within the boundaries of Robertson based on the area around Woy Woy.

Neal’s pre-selection raised some interesting developments. The right propped up it’s support within the electorate by establishing the Peninsula Branch of the ALP, a daytime branch based on the Woy Woy/Ettalong/Umina area. The branch itself has been suspected of irregularities since it’s formation. The branch also appears to be remarkably close to the Catholic Parish of Woy Woy - raising the spectre of sectarian tensions that still linger beneath the surface of ALP, especially in areas like the Central Coast with a significant population of elderly retirees.

The NSW Branch Secretary was publicly accused by the Liberal State member for Gosford, Chris Hartcher, of focussing on Robertson in the latter part of the campaign to the detriment of the ALP’s broader NSW campaign. Hartcher slated Della-Bosca for ‘taking his eyes off the ball’, and said that the ALP had spent $75 000 on radio advertising alone during the final weeks of the campaign. Other local branch sources pointed to the highly personalised nature of the Neal campaign that focussed on the candidate with any mention of the ALP’s name being largely invisible. This also served to alienate the local party rank and file.

Other whispers emerged that the resources thrown into Robertson were greater than that thrown at other NSW marginal seats. Hughes and Lindsay, two of the other seats implied by these whispers, certainly faced the problem of unpopular or inadequate candidates, but Macquarie, Parramatta and Eden-Monaro are seats where extra resources may have changed outcomes, and where disaffection with Sussex Street may be harder to ameliorate.

Certainly Della-Bosca retains some powerful friends in senior ALP ranks, including Michael Lee and Laurie Brereton who will most certainly be in Beazley’s shadow cabinet, but the impact of all this tension may be harder for John Della-Bosca to deal with as a whole.

In all of it it’s hard to escape the fact that the once pivotal NSW Right is, through a combination of factors, on the slippery slope of internal division. The full extent of this may not be fully revealed until after the NSW state election, especially if the Carr government performs poorly,.

All in all it will make internal ALP politics less predictable in the months ahead. Even so, Della-Bosca’s position should be secure for now. Besides, Kim Beazley singled him out for praise on election night. I guess that this means he enjoys the opposition leaders total support.

Doesn’t it?

Of Course Beazley (and Latham) are long gone, and we now have a Federal ALP Government, and ten years have passed before we got to that. But the seeds of the devolution that is the Iemma Government can be seen here (cronyism, a lack of talent, hubris). The Iguanas incident is just fluff and nonsense, and Della Bosca may be one of the more capable members of Iemma's cabinet - but that isn't saying much. The greater issue is the sustainability of the ALP. Decades of self serving 'look at me' types rising like effluent to the surface of a very shallow gene pool have exposed something that may yet be terminal for Labor. As a party it attracts and promotes some of the worst types imaginable, with the populace as a whole suffering as a result. This is not the sole domain of the ALP. The Liberals have an equally dire problem on the talent front, especially at a state level. It's the logical end game of zero sum Machiavellian machine politics that dominate our major parties. This society faces some big problems, and fixers with their eye on the election cycle ain't gonna solve them. Exhibit A in this regard is Mr John Della Bosca. Thanks mate.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging lefty fought for minimum water quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie bastard fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $7.50 of his medications are paid for by the PBS because some lazy union workers fought for universal public medical insurance, Medicare – now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man fought for laws to regulate the meat industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby do-gooder fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the train station for his government-subsidized trip to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants socialist fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, sick leave, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy union bludgers fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment benefits because some stupid bleeding heart didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the Reserve Bank because some godless ALP hack wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is safe because some fun-hating technocrat fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by single desk trading boards that allowed farmers to bargain collectively. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government ALP stooge stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on a pension and a union superannuation fund because some Chardonnay swilling lefty made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home and turns on a radio talk show. The talkback host keeps saying that leftys are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Liberal Party and big media have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government socialists ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

With apologies to PunkVoter.com

How many revolutions per minute?

PR Watch is good. they appeal to me.  

Speaking of which, check this out.  

A year ago Elizabeth Lukin, a director of essential media communication (the company that sacked me in 2006), ran for the National Council of my union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). I contacted MEAA national secretary Christopher Warren at the time to voice my displeasure and his defence was that the union wanted more people from Public Affairs (aka turd polishing) involved in the union.  

Now we have the ninth MEAA turd polishers love in - and there's no sign of that carpetbagger Lukin anywhere involved in what you'd think would be the high point of MEAA and the esteemed world of what is euphemistically referred to as as public affairs. Little wonder her relationship with her offspring is a shambles. 

We're talking about people with serious developmental issues here. 

People who shouldn't be walking the streets of society, breathing our oxygen, let alone being a part of the union movement. Which is why we need PR Watch, who aren't just about exposing bottom feeding carpetbaggers like Lukin, as the following report from my contact over at the Wankersphere illustrates:

Now putting aside the obvious bullshit of the whole US election process and the idiots it dishes up to the rest of the world, as well as the level the whole thing is pitched at - to 10-year-olds - I found this analysis very interesting: "Obama's speech is a great test of the following question: Are we still living in the age of sound-bite politics, where the sharp attack line, even taken out of context, can become the 'truth' of an event or a person thanks to the amplifying and distorting effects of broadcast media? Or are we entering the age of sound-blast politics, where a 37-minute speech can actually be watched, read, and digested by millions of people (a million views already on YouTube!) using the abundant spaces of the internet -- and the themes and meanings they encounter and absorb will be not about the 'politics' of a speech, but its actual content? In other words, are we entering an age when politicians can be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?"

All very interesting, but methinks that this guarded optimism is exactly that, optimism. I wouldn't go rewriting the rules of engagement just yet. remember, Uncle Barak is pretty light on when it comes to detail. 

As far as the three big issues of our time are concerned: global warming, the imperial war in Iraq and the ability of working people to organise collectively, he continues to be light on when it comes to the detail.  

Maybe they're just super long sound bites, or it's someone tapping into a culture that's now inundated with preachers and loves a good sermon, just so long as it makes the audience feel good, rather than uncomfortable.

The Tora Bora Blues

Liberal Democracy didn't die in the hills of Tora Bora (primarily because it never lived there), but the events in Great Game II certainly didn't help. This was, after all, the new home of the eponymous Al Queda after this arm of the US backed Mujahadeen went all native and started going after western interests after they sent the Ruskies packing. AQ became a household world in one of the more stunning examples of Blowback, when the jihadis landed a 747 on the observation deck of the World Trade Centre.

The CEO of AQ is the infamous boogie man of neoconservatism, Osama Bin Laden. And he was the subject of an off-the-record briefing from a 'Bush administration source' this week in what was a telling indictment of who the White House is backing in Central Asia.

The gist of the statement was 'Osama's alive and well in Pakistan, but we reckon the Paki military are the mob who can keep a lid on the situation.'

The Pakistan regime, of course, denies it - in the oblique way that tinpot dictatorships invariably fail to spot a subtle friendly gesture when they see one.

For what the Bush Toadie was offering Islamabad was a nod-and-a-wink green light for the military to run the show in Pakistan, especially if the Islamacists win elections scheduled in a week or so.

There was a very strong hint about who exactly they are backing - and here's a name for the little black book - General Ashfaq Kayani. As the Reuters' report says:

The Bush administration also has been very impressed with Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and considers him a 'promising partner,' the official said.

So there you have it. If the incumbent dictator Musharef is unpalatable to the Pentagon and the White House, they have a ready made replacement just in case the jihadis win control of the Pakistani parliament.

Ah, the land of the free, defender of democracy, hopelessly compromised dumb asses.

Pakistan will be an open civil war by the end of the year. they can cancel Australia's cricket tour now.

Meanwhile Osama, himself a creation of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, can continue to hobnob around Waziristan at will if he likes.

What NATO makes of this - considering they are fighting a war against a Taliban that is tacitly supported by section s of the Pakistan military and ISI - is anyone's guess. But London to a brick the Europeans are probably less than impressed at the thumbs up the bumbling dodos over the border.

It also makes clear that the choices for Central Asia are a) Islamic fuindamentalism or b) military dictatorship. What a stunningly successful outcome this is after two centuries of meddling in the lands of the Pashtun.

Back playing hide and seek in the Library of Alexandria

The Blog That Never Sleeps is returning from a cogitating hiatus. This blog has been pondering the meaning of the sub-prime lending crisis, the US Presidential primaries, rain, Electricity Privatisation, Kevin Rudd, the Job Network and how and why Liberal Democracy died. That Liberal Democracy is dead is certain. It's just that nobody has told it yet. Those eponymous images of planes flying into the twin-towers will be as much an exclamation mark in history as Archduke Ferdinand getting his face blown off in Sarajevo or William the Bastard taking to the field at Hastings in 1066. Of this we can be certain. But even at those times I doubt most people understood the significance until the dust had fully settled, usually decades, or a generation, after. But Liberal Democracy is as dead as my grandfathers dog, leaving us swimming in a septic tank full of hubris that borrows the words and clichés of the democratic process, and liberalism, but leaves us a reality more akin to soviet Russia, medieval Europe or Pinochet's Chile. Luckily The Blog That Never Sleeps can make sense of all this, and maybe even name this new world order that looks like Hollywood, smells like a dead man and sounds like fingernails down a blackboard. Here's luck!

Warm Nights On A Non Moving Train

Further signs that the Third World lifestyle we all crave is coming our way...

RailCorp must revisit procedures for managing stranded trains after scores of CityRail passengers were trapped on an interurban service between Hazelbrook and Lawson on Wednesday afternoon for over two and a half hours, despite being metres from Hazelbrook station.

The delay, initially caused by a loss of power to the privately operated Indian Pacific, was exacerbated by train controllers needing authorisation paperwork before the stranded interurban service could proceed.

In these situations the health, safety and comfort of the travelling public must be paramount. Every effort must be made to get the passengers off the train as soon as possible. Two and a half hours is a pathetic and unacceptable response, but par for the course for a management whose response to the Glenbrook Disaster is to cover their own backsides while denying resources and authority to frontline operational staff.

Justice McInerney’s inquiry into the Glenbrook disaster and the tragic loss of life made recommendations, especially regarding train operator communications, which are still yet to be acted upon. Blustering arguments from RailCorp management about safety are just hogwash as it was perfectly safe on Wednesday night to transport passengers two hundred metres to the next station (as was acknowledged by operational staff on the spot) from where people could have made alternative arrangements.

Alex Tibbits from SMH Online reported at 6.51pm that delays were due to “a truck that had rolled on to the tracks at Blackheath at about 4.50pm today.” And that “commuters are being transferred to buses at Penrith [to continue their journey]” This wasn’t happening at Lawson nearly an hour after Tibbits’ report appeared online.

Tibbits relied on a CityRail spokesman, who made no mention of the failure of the privately owned Indian Pacific - which managed to travel on to Lithgow on the “closed” line, as did the service I was stranded on after the RailCorp paperwork was completed nearly four hours later.

This is shoddy journalism as not only was his report plain wrong - and I speak as an eyewitness - but would have added to the confusion for not only the travelling public, but caused anxiety for friends and relatives of those on the train trying to find out what was happening.

When newspapers meant something they employed people on the ground called stringers to inform news editors and journalists of stories, and act as a confirmation of official versions of events. This journalism-by-press-release has undermined the credibility of the Herald in the eyes of its many readers from the Blue Mountains.

It couldn’t undermine their view of RailCorp as that simply isn’t possible.

The Depression We Had To Have

George Soros is no screaming Trotskyite, but even he can see what's happening to global capital.
In an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, he has blamed "market fundamentalism" for the crisis afflicting global capital markets. He could have a point.
Deregulated financial markets in the US allowed capital traders to create easy credit, with no oversight from the Federal reserve. This is turn led to inflated property values as a whole bunch of people jumped into a market they had no place being in the first place.
The loans were chalked up by financial institutions - some of them banks, but a lot simply mortgage warehouses - who onsold these liabilities to a lot of chumps left holding a pile of candy no one wants to eat.
The financial institutions reward themselves with NINE figure incomes (The CEO of one mortgage warehouse, Countrywide, was on US$615 Million a year) and walk away whistling while the end-gamers - often retirement funds and municipalities (including here in Australia) take a bath.
Meanwhile, the poor marker who took the loan just loses their house. In reaction - and this is reaction as in reactionary - the leading candidates in the current race to be Emporer Of The World are falling over themselves to embrace Keynesian pump priming. This will, of course, horrify the very "market fundamentalists" Soros has been warning about. But will the pump priming make any difference?
Welcome To The Wankersphere has pointed out that the US recession - which is an actuality, if not technical reality - stems from over inflated asset values, not a lack of economic activity. Yet. Which is precisely the problem that bedevils the Australian finance market. People borrowing against homes that are vastly over inflated. It's not hard to see what will happen once the Easy Credit crisis starts to haemorrhage around the globe.
We are already seeing it with the bearish stock market fluctuating like manic depressive on amphetamines. The real crunch will come in the form of a credit squeeze, the like of which we have not seen in some time. Which is no doubt why Central Banks are flooding capital markets in an attempt to stay that frabjous day.
But western capital reserves are not exactly flush - witness the US deficit - and diving further into an already empty cookie jar will have to be paid for somehow. Which is when the Chinese will come along with the greatest foreclosure of all, and bye-bye liberal democracy for the duration.
Mind you, this seems to fly obliquely over the heads of a general populace - concerned more about partying teenagers and sooky cricketers than the fact that the roof over their heads is about to disappear like Dorothy's house in Kansas.
Housing is a significant player in the Australian economy - if it tanks then it is going to screw up the retirement and savings plans of millions of Australians. The flow on through the economy by a credit squeeze will affect the big employment sectors of retail and hospitality. We could see money dry up, along with jobs. All this at a time when the economy is 'growing'.
Of course a lot of this stems from the legacy of ten years of doing nothing with the proceeds of a mining boom apart from splashing cash around and inflating a housing bubble (that's now about to burst).
While responsibility lies with Howard and Costello, this won't wash with the Australian public - they'll be calling for Wayne Swan's head on a stick by Christmas. I noticed that the Harvey Norman retail chain has announced sales growth of over A$3 Billion, or a little over 12%, for the first half of this financial year. The bulk of these sales will be on credit, and if we drop into a recession that looks like being of the scale that Soros predicts, Harvey Norman won't see half of that money.
This is the problem with credit - it only works if there's a capacity to repay - and years of supply side market fundamentalism has destroyed the household sector's ability to do exactly that.
I was travelling back from Lithgow before New Year and was amazed at the number of cars, boats and bikes saw on the side of the road for sale.
The last time I remember this phenomenon was in 1990 when the then treasurer Paul Keating was assuring us that there was no recession . Later that became the recession we had to have.
This recession promises to be much deeper, as Soros has pointed out. The financial sector has gone a bridge too far - simultaneously calling for, and getting, policies that squeeze those on the bottom, then trying to milk those very same people through credit, as Ralph Nader pointed out this week.
They could never have it both ways and now the harvest shall be reaped. And a bitter harvest it will prove to be.

Play Abandoned #22 - We Hate Ricky

An interesting observation by Thomas Hunter over at Crikey regarding public attitudes to the man holding the highest public office in Australia - the captain of the Australian Cricket Team. Cricket is a game of numbers - a statistician's orgy - so it was interesting to see a collation of numbers courtesy of Mr Hunter from some online polls regarding the Australian cricket team. Hunter rightly points out the unreliability of voluntary online polls, but even so, the sentiment is rather staggering. The Age asked 'Are Australian cricketers bad sports?' to which 76% agreed. The more parochial Herald Sun asked 'Should Ricky Ponting be sacked as captain of Australia?' to which a staggering two-thirds, or 67% - 6958 votes - agreed. The Hun's sister paper, the Daily Telegraph, posed the question 'Do the Australian team play in the true spirit of cricket?' A suspiciously similar number, 6918 votes, said no, which equates to 82% of respondents. The considered folk over at Today Tonight asked: Do you think Ricky Ponting should be removed as Australian cricket captain? 28% agreed. Pay-as-you-go Foxsports offered three answers to it's 'Has Australia's behaviour in the current Test series changed the way you will support the team?' Yes: I will no longer support this side romped home with 61.8%, or 5342 votes, while 'Yes: but I still love the baggy green' lagged third on 11.63%, or 1006 votes; while 'No: I think their behaviour was appropriate:' captured 26.56%, or 2296 votes. Of course you'd think you'd have to allow for the participation of cricket fans from the subcontinent, who are unlikely to hold Mr Ponting in high esteem, but nonetheless these are pretty damning numbers. Hunter's contribution was somewhat more useful than that of Geoff Lewis Raglan who, in a letter that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on January 22 under the sub-headline 'Mongrel goes missing' wrote:

The Indians and the media had cricketer A. Mongrel dropped from the Australian XI and they lost. The same player was not selected in the Wallaby World Cup team and they lost.

Lewis may wish to reflect on the fact that A Mongrel is an insecure little bully who shouldn't be on the sporting field in the first place - and if winning means winning ugly, then it is no victory at all. In the meantime the Third Test in Perth was a cracker. With a highlight being Sharma having R. Ponting all over the place, the first time I've ever seen him batting like that. Ponting looked all at sea against the young Indian quick - weaving, leaving, missing and taking a few on the body before edging to first slip. With the series at 2-1 to Australia, there is a lot to play for in Adelaide. If the Indians finish this series 2-2, with a moral victory in Sydney, they will be well set to roll Australia in India this September. There is no doubt Australia missed Hayden, who was suspiciously omitted after the shenanigans in Sydney. The godbotherer was officially out with a bung leg, but was fit enough to go deep sea fishing the day after the 'injury'. But the Indians bowled better, and batted well when it counted. A spirited rear guard action made the final day's play a riveting spectacle. Adelaide, a city not known for its excitement, could be a defining moment - not just for this summer, but also for Australian cricket. If the Indians win, it could mark the end of an era.

The Man Who Wasn't There

Interesting developments in the race to be Emporer Of The World, with new data in the US showing the country is pretty much in recession. Which, of course, is no news to working stiffs in the States, as they've been pushing shit uphill with a toothpick since the big NAFTA job losses started to bite, and modern management practices meant growth went north while wages went south. In short Yanks are working harder for less. This successful business model has been having the sort of effect on the US middle class that Vikings had on monasteries in Britain in the ninth century - it's a litany of pillage and plunder from corporate America. Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards, of course, cottoned on to this sentiment writ large amongst American proles being squeezed by unsustainable credit and declining incomes. His anti-corporate position was viewed with concern, not just by Wall Street, but by hard heads in the Democratic National Committee, who have long plumped for the corporate friendly Clinton II. But this piece in The Nation by William Greider illuminates how Hillary and the ubiquitous Barak are now jumping on Edwards' Keynesian bandwagon. They're not alone, over to you Bill:

Bill Gross, the insightful managing director of PIMCO, the major bond-investment house, has called for virtually doubling the federal deficit in order pump hundreds of billions into new economic activity. When bond holders are more alarmed about the economy than political leaders, you know something is backwards in American politics.

This is gonna be one hell of a ride kids. There may just be enough fuel in the tank for this election to turn into an "I'm more left wing than you" slanging match. Bring it on I say; after all, these people are shallow enough and hopeless enough to get led around by pundits and pollsters then this is the sort of lunatic groupthink it leads to. In the meantime the architect of returning to the sanity of a pump priming economy after three decades of supply side economic madness, John Edwards, has been run over in the stampede by Obama and Clinton to seize the populist high ground. Strange days indeed. As the good Doctor would say, Mahalo

Vote Kang

I am indebted to Nathan Brown over at the WankerSphere (now part of my must read list) for the following:

Very very funny

On Weirdo Cults And Loving Thy Neighbour

"We should drink enough water so that our urine is not yellow and smelly. This will save us great amounts of money and we will not have to flush the toilet so much." - Elbert Eugene Spriggs, founder of The Twelve Tribes, Brazil 10/19/92

The Blog That Never Sleeps has the pleasure of living across the road from a wacky crew that locals say is called the Seven Brothers, or the Twelve Brothers, or Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, or something somesuch wonderful.

In fact the group is The Twelve Tribes The Commonwealth Of Israel, a messianic cult.

On their website they proclaim that living in the Blue Mountains allows them to hear the voice of creation - which apparently sounds something like a hammerdrill, with these bananas out since sparrow's fart wielding one for the last week, punching bricks off the front of their 'shop'.

The hammerdrill is such a soothing sound. It promotes calmness and concentration. It is like meditating whilst having your temples sliced off with a rusty razor blade.

It could be karmic - hell, I've never been in the running for neighbour of the year - but it's not just my discomfiture that is causing me concern here.

Rather it is the very nature of the groupthink over the road.

They moved in about five years ago, buying up a dilapidated building in the middle of Katoomba. One of those pre-war brick edifices that takes advantage of the sloping terrain to create three stories where there should be two.

The group themselves is populated by about half a dozen or so bearded chaps who seem to spend their entire day beating swords into ploughshares. They have turned their back on society (well, that part of society that involves engaging with the community - they seem to be very happy with that part of society that uses power tools and spends money on their organic mush - more on that later), and appear to believe that God is some kind of DIY handyman - a sort of cross between Charlie Manson and Backyard Blitz - which isn't far from the truth, as the cult was founded by a former carnival spruiker and has some weird beliefs.

The bearded band of brothers is accompanied by about three or four permanently fecund womenfolk, who appear in handmade dowdiness reminiscent of the nineteenth century, along with about half a dozen overly energetic kids who appear to be insane with boredom. Which is not surprising given that The Twelve Tribes' "teachings instruct that children not play with toys, play imaginary or fantasy games, have candy, or watch television or movies".

When there is a stubborn child you should shorten the child's life. It limits the family.
- from "Training Up Our Children In The Way They Should Go" by the Twelve Tribes.

No one has called the Department of Community Services yet, as they tend to keep to themselves - except when doing some kind of passive-aggressive good deed, which always seems to be in their interest. But this is not the case elesewhere, where their activities have drawn the attention of the authorities.

One of the cultists delivers papers for the local newsagent, while another helps the arsehole with the furniture store on the corner.* They make their quids by trucking around to festivals far and wide where they dispense wholesome food for a fee and, according to their website, they live off the proceeds from two other communities, including one in Picton, where income is generated from plumbing, building and running the 'Common Ground Cafe' at festivals around the place. So, while they reject the licentiousness of popular culture, they are more than happy to make a quid out of it.

They shared the building with a Chilean upholsterer called Raoul and a Thai restaurant. They 'did up' Raoul's upholstery business preises (a garage) and then promptly evicted him. They're in the process of turfing out the popular Thai restaurant as well.

On top of all this they've been doing up the building, which in and of itself sounds like a good thing - until you have an angle grinder starting up at 7am on a Saturday morning.

They've been threatening to 'open' their organic cafe for about three years, but their always seems to be some bit of work that needs to be done that stymies their ability to 'open'. A lot like those people that build seagoing boats in the backyard - the whole project appears to never be meant for completion, with the constant building being reason enough for existence.

Which, of course, is symptomatic of cults - keep the kids busy and they never get their head around how they're the butt of some narcissists weird joke.

All of their activities, from evicting the infidels to the ever present home-handyman-for-Jesus routine, is accompanied by the passive-aggressive smug superior air associated with your usual cult-like activity.

They pepper this with a lot of pseudo-biblical tosh, claiming to be the first real Christians (where have we heard that before) since the Apostles - with what we understand to be Christianity actually run by Satan (which will be news to Aaron Badderley) - along with some homey palaver parried around as a 'revelation' and being (yawn) God's Chosen People, all underpinned by the usual 'get out of jail free card' gibber that passes as playing on your average human's fear of death. They all want to go to heaven, but they don't want to die.

But what really exposes these people for the cant that they are is the hypocrisy of their brotherly love - which, of course, doesn't extend to loving unbelieving brothers (ask Raoul) or even members of their own flock. Like every other manifestation of religion there are haves and have-nots, rulers and ruled, bosses and slaves - and the Golden Rule applies, those with the gold, rule - controlling the lives of the cult's footsoldiers, who end up doing all the dirty work. It's laizzes faire capitalism with a beard.

As my live-in Legal Counsel says, "it sounds like typical religious dribble", and he's right.

So, if you're out at a festival and you see the Common Ground Cafe, just remember they think their urine is nice and clean.

Enjoy the coffee.

* This bottom feeder unilaterally turned off my neighbours power supply a while back in some weird attempt to avoid a power bill, then refused the electrician access to turn it back on again, complained about the car parking arrangements and has generally managed to give everyone the shits in a five kilometre radius.

Thoughts On George Orwell

Before George Orwell there was Eric Arthur Blair, an Eton schoolboy who signed his letters to friends 'Eric Blair, FAMOUS AUTHOR.'
His descent into writing was no accident. As a 'scholarship boy' at Eton he grew to hate the wealthy, understanding all too well the relationship between money and power.
It was Eric Blair that went off to civilise Empire in the twenties, serving in the Imperial Police Service in Burma, before delving deep into the underclass of Britain and France. The experiences that informed his first books and essays.
Equally, he despaired of the 'keeping up of appearances' inherent in the shabby genteel English middle class.
His knowledge of power informed his attitude to class - that defining structure of English life - roughly if passionately expressed in books like Coming Up For Air and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. But equally he saw the flaws of the working class for what they were, and he understood them far better than many of his middle and upper class 'friends' on the left in the thirties.
Orwell's wartime essays and classic The Road To Wigan Pier reveal his experiences amongst the invisible people that kept England functioning. He rightly predicted that the protesting English working class of the thirties would turn out to be patriots when the crunch came. He understood the paradoxes that made ordinary people in a way that few writers have before or since.
In many ways he was a misanthrope, never more happier than in his garden or around animals, although paradoxically imbued with a tolerance for his fellow human beings that eclipsed his acerbic writing.
He was no backscratcher, savaging friends and foes alike with his typewriter. In one famous incident he referred to Stephen Spender as a 'useless Nancy poet', then invited him out to dinner. He has the same relationship with H.G. Wells, that lead to Wells cutting off their friendship after an Orwell essay ripped Wells' utopian visions of future technology to shreds.
It was the sort of intellectual rigour that railed against the black and white vision of the cult of Russia Communists in the world of letters. He had a strong aversion to hubris.
But in the end the man who fought with the Trotskyites in the Spanish Civil war has his grand work, Nineteen Eighty Four, appropriated by the Right. His political legacy bastardised by bastards.
Orwell, of course, was criticising from the left. He realised how power worked and this book is an indictment of the language used today by the free market - the Market Totalitarianism that tells us that food is 'light but filling', that McDonalds has 'healthy choices', or that going into debt through easy credit is 'freedom'.
Newspeak is Advertising 101, and the world of telescreens and constant surveillance has been brought to us by marketing corporations as much as by government.
Orwell was a socialist who understood that freedom was something to be acted by control of your life, not being controlled by employers, landlords and debtors.
Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four are books that started on the Road To Wigan Pier and were honed by the duplicity of his experiences on the Aragon front in Catalonia and, later, in Barcelona.
Although his writing was hijacked by the Right during the cold war (a term he invented in the thirties to describe the relationship between liberal democracy and totalitarian states such as Russia and Germany) the humanism of his writing lives through.
Despite Orwell's warnings freedom in the west is more undermined than ever in our permanent war against an adjective (terrorist), when the real threat to our lifestyle comes from insatiable consumer culture.
A man who himself possessed a keen sense of irony and a black humour I have no doubt he would chuckle at the thought of his greatest invention - Big Brother - being used to sell cosmetics to pre-teens and immature western adults. He was a man that understood that colonisation started from the mind before it enslaved the body and he foresaw an age when XBox, McDonalds and Coca-Cola would define freedom over the right to a dissenting lifestyle and the right to air grievances.
As a member of the ordinary poor I find Eric "George Orwell" Blair an inspiration in these days of having to believe five contradictory ideas before breakfast in order to function in this society. Nineteen Eighty Four (he always insisted on spelling it out) and Animal Farm are as removed from the solopsistic hubris of our times as barbed-wire is removed from comfort.
In the end Eric Blair died and George Orwell lived. And Eric Arthur Blair was buried by a millionaire, Lord Astor, with a fresh wife, Sonia Brownell, who had been installed there by his publisher Frederic Warburg to ensure his literary estate was in pliable hands.
His funeral was organised by a mate of Malcolm Muggeridge - himself a temporary class traitor who returned to his roots before too long.
Orwell's most recent Biography, Orwell, A Life by D.J. Taylor (Henry Holt and Company), points to Warburg's CIA connections, and it is hardly a state secret that the CIA saw in Orwell an opportunity to win their hearts and minds battle in Europe.
His widow spent a lot of time keeping his for more left-wing essay writing from the public eye until hounded into publishing his essays in the early seventies by a combination of dwindling finances and estrangement from the people (like Warburg) who had put her where she was. Orwell was no saint - being a bit of a pants man - but then again who of worth is.
He liked a drink and smoked like a chimney. Enjoyed Opium in Burma and a few friends wives.
In his essay on Dali he pointed out a shocking fact to the modernists and classicists of his age; an artist could be a good artist and a lousy human being. It's probably the first post-modernist essay in English.
He pretty much invented the socio-political essay as an artform, and gave us an insight into 'ordinary things' that are too often ignored by our visionary betters in academia.
His legacy is profound, if a little misunderstood.
I still know lefties of a certain age who hate him because he attacked Mother Russia; but who on the left really just wants to join a cult that replaces one boss with another boss?
Maybe he was, as he described himself, a Tory Anarchist. After all, he had little love of bureaucracy and a was a withering critic of power for power's sake.
I don't think we should worship him, but I do think we should listen to him, and watch how his ideas about power and language assault us every day from supermarket shelves, televisions and press statements.
He is a valuable voice, but the greatest appropriation of his work in our time is a bizarre game show.
Eric Arthur Blair FAMOUS AUTHOR, lived briefly and died young (he was only 46 when the TB got him), but George Orwell found immortality, escaping Eton, the Left, and now even the Right, to become a spectre, haunting those who seek to manipulate words to dubious ends. For that alone he is to be thanked.

Play Abandoned #21 - The Beginning Of The End

In hindsight this was always bound to happen sooner or later. I remember watching how the Australian cricket side carried on over the last decade and thinking 'one day the rest of the world is going to get sick of playing these wankers'. Well, that day has come. And India, with 70% of the world's cricket revenues, looks like taking it's bat and ball and going home. For Australian cricket this is a disaster. A lot of this began under Alan Border, a man who learnt humility the hard way - by getting flogged - but it accelerated under Tubby Taylor (who at least had a bit of dignity about him) before it soared to new heights under the coaching of that nazi Buchanan, to the point where Ponting now defends winning ugly. When even Shane Warne is saying you need to learn some humility, as he did prior to the Indian series, you know that there is a problem. Years of arrogance is coming home to roost this afternoon, when we find out what the Indians intend to do. Even if Harbijan did call Symonds a monkey, so what, Ponting overreacted by having him charged. At that stage in the game India were on top and the whole thing smacked of sour grapes. That Harbijan had Ponting's number in the first two tests just adds to the murk - it looks like Ponting has gone hell bent on having the guy rubbed out. Then we get to the disciplinary hearing that comes down to the Indians' word versus the Australians' word, and match referee Mike Proctor lumps for the Australians. Obviously the white man is more trustworthy than his sable brethren. The reaction of Clarke isn't even at centre stage here, and the mediocre umpiring is a sideshow to this, but these, along with the Australians' reaction at the close of the test, are a symptom of the greater malaise that infects Australian sport across the board. It's probably best summed up by that godbotherer Hayden crossing himself like Saint Francis while churlishly disdaining any good words about his opponents' cricket. His reaction during the first test that the Indian spinner 'stole' wickets sums up his ungenerous, grasping triumphalism. The sad thing is that so many Australians will not see anything wrong with this sort of behaviour. They too have become infected with the infantile braggartedness of a 14 year old bully. They live their lives and dreams by proxy through the experiences of cocooned and spoilt elite sportsmen who swagger like so many pint sized Liberty Vallances around a hall of giants. From Greg Norman through to Lleyton Hewitt we are lumbered with this white-bread jackasses that, in the scheme of things, have done nothing worth a fraction of what they are paid. They are not heroes but insecure little losers. They win by theft and discriminating thuggishness. They look, and are, ridiculous. As Peter Roebuck points out, it is possible to love a country and not it's cricket team. There are many Australians that are heartily sick of these prima-donnas. Roebuck has called for Ponting to be sacked. I wouldn't stop there, but sack them all until we find an XI that can play with a bit of humility and grace.  
Any resemblance to persons living or dead I consider a compliment.

Whacky Conspiracy Theories 101

One for 9/11 Truthers out there (and we mean out there). Frank Lowy's Westfield group has just announced it will be pumping $600mill into developing a shopping centre on the old twin towers site in New Yoik. A very own Fountain Gate for lower Manhattan. As the smug yuppies say, noice. Apparently Westfield acquired the rights in July 2001, which makes the World Trade Centre attacks two months later seem a little too convenient, if you know what I mean. It wouldn't be the first time a property developer has torched an old building in order to replace it with something more amenable. Let's face it, Westfield are a damned sight more competent than anything to come out of Washington in the last eight years, and no more crazier than the theory believed by up to third of Americans - that the US Government attacked it's largest city to create a pretext for war. Then again, this is from a country where four in five people believe in angels. God help us all, they have the bomb

Play Abandoned #20 - Making A Monkey Out Of All Of Us

The Blog That Never Sleeps revives an ancient tradition from an ancient game. The factually unreliable and irregular Play Abandoned column ran as an unsolicited email from sometime in the nineties until January 2002 - it returns once more. As I write this highly civilised people have made the most popular six stories on the Sydney Morning Herald news feed all about cricket.

These stories are part of the tens of thousands of words swirling around the carnage that remains from the Second Test in Sydney in the current Australia v India series.

That this remarkable match has descended into a farce, possibly taking the tour along with it, is a sort of minor tragedy - with character failings littered like McDonalds' wrappers along the M4 - that appears to be engulfing more than just the game of cricket.

In a world beset by soaring energy costs, post election Kenyan violence, Iraq and Pakistan on the brink of civil war and a climate gone feral it's rather quaint that such a distraction can occupy so many minds.

While some point to the poor umpiring as the root of the problem, and others the behaviour of essentially spoilt brats, the seeds of this current conflict go back at least to Australia's last visit to India and the ugly taunting of Andrew Symons by the Indian crowd. I say 'current' because there is a fairly steady connection between Australian cricket and sledging, often defended by some in the game, including current test captain Ricky Ponting. What do we do about Ponting? This is the guy who got into a fight with a Big Brown Bear at the Bourbon and Beafsteak Bar over Carlotta. As TISM said, he comes across as such a boring Yobbo cunt. The sort of bloke who'd be working as an insurance assessor if he couldn't hit a ball remarkably well. When Chris Cairns sister died in a train accident New Zealand the Black Caps were playing Australia. After Cairns had taken guard the bowler was running in when one of the Aussies started a chant of "choo, choo, choo". Current conflict in the Sydney test came to a head when Symonds asked Indian Spinner Harbijan Singh on day three "did you call me a monkey?" Harbajan denies it. The umpires didn't hear anything. Essentially it has descended into a "he said/she said" playground spat. On what basis Harbajan can be rubbed out AND receive natural justice is a mystery. Ponting's (and Symonds) petulant reaction to what Harbajan may or may not have said really does reinforce the attitude that the Australian cricket team can dish it out but they can't take it. In short, they are bullies. And no one likes a bully. We now all know that Symonds was out long before he rattled up 160-odd, helping Australia to 400 plus, and there are a fair number of other decisions that have taken a shine off a game that included a wonderful batting performance by India, highlighted by Sachin Tendulkar's century. This has now led to the series being in doubt and incredibly strained relations between the two teams. If this series is to not become a fiasco both sides need to pull their heads in. Ponting needs to be reined in - he appears to have lost completely any sense of proportion or even the consequences of his side living by the sword for so many years. It would be really nice to be able to like the Australian side but, sadly, they aren't very likeable in their current guise. As someone who plays lower grade cricket I see how this sort of behaviour filters down to the lower levels of cricket - taking the fun out of the game for many. Comments directed at opponents just shouldn't be on, but sadly they are now part and parcel of playing cricket. It also legitimises a lot of the unfunny comments that can be heard at any international match or suburban pub that, while they might be overtly racist, aren't that far from a Cronulla beachside barbecue. The Australian cricket team might be celebrating, but it's ringing pretty hollow for many. While Ponting and Coy's behaviour is pretty obviously undermining the standing of a great game in the eyes of casual observers and the international community - it's also a reflection on how seriously public standards have collapsed in this country during the Howard decade. After all, Punters attitude is seen as reasonable by quite a few 'ordinary' Australians, who shrug and say it's 'a part of the game'. No doubt Howard - if he was still in power - would back Ponting to the hilt. Ponting, surrounded as he is by the white-bread world of Australian cricket probably doesn't even realise what a wally he is making of himself. What should have been a great series will now be remembered for controversy and bitterness. Cricket is now smaller and poorer for the behaviour of all concerned in creating this fiasco - the umpires, Harbajan, Symonds, Clarke and Ponting; the commentators and coaches and predecessors who created this bully-boy culture; a country too gutless to confront it's own insecurity - and a rampant win-at-all-costs sporting ethos that equates sportsmanship with being a loser. There is no glory here, no victory. Everyone has lost.

Methuselah – playing uppishly over mid wicket.

Playing Hide And Seek In The Library Of Alexandria

I am indebted to the ever prescient Neale Towart for the following observation that seems to place blogs, citizen journalism and all this Web 2.0 palaver in some sort of context...

On blogs in general, a warning I found in this book by Michael Dibden (a crime novel set in Sicily actually), when the cops were talking about the backward beliefs of the locals versus so called sophisticated enlightenment people:

"...after all, just what are we doing with these values? Take the internet. Here's the most powerful intellectual tool in the history of the human race and we use it to write narcissitic online journals and to "have our say" like a swarm of squabbling starlings. Enlightenment values? We're playing hide and seek in the library of Alexandria"

It's something worth remembering. I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to "look-at-me" journalism. I should be writing something devastating and worthwhile about the second test. I should get out for a walk. I should write something devastating and worthwhile about something worthwhile. I should get my hand off it. Who cares what I should do.

Dibden (and Towart) are right. We aren't that much further along the modernist goat track. Are we just adding to the background static? Will all this pop eat it itself? We carry on as if there's a million William Cobbett's changing the world, but it's just so much graffiti on the walls of a Pompeii knock shop. If we're not careful, one day someone will be cleaning the Internet and it will go off.

Not For Publication I

From the cleaning out the email inbox department: Despite most journalists disdain for such an amateur hour section, Letters To The Editor are very well read and very popular amongst readers (how unusual for journalists to have disdain for something that interests readers?). There is a perennial Sydney Morning Herald letter writer called Rosemary O'Brien - famous and marked by her caustic wit, narrow mind and malapropisms par excellence. Rose is one of those people that just doesn't get modern society. One of those people, as ubiquitous as fibro, who think they're above the hoi-polloi and have a withering, destructive and somewhat small view of their fellow human beings. In short she's a dumb as dogshit conservative jack-ass! I wrote the Herald in December following her commenting on her fear that myths develop from people not being reminded of peoples true characters. I replied:

-----Original Message----- From: Methuselah Sent: Wednesday, 12 December 2007 12:46 AM To: SMH Letters Mail Subject: Letter to Ed Don't worry Rosemary O'Brien (Letters, December 12), as someone who has been reading your mendacious tosh for years, I'll take great satisfaction in reminding people of it for decades to come - just so any myths don't get out of hand.

And I received this reply

Hi Methuselah

Even though this wins my unofficial Letter of the Week award, I don't
want to encourage a general slanging match between and about
correspondents (especially Rosemary O'Brien) so I'm afraid I won't be
publishing it. But thanks a lot for sending it.

Letters co-editor

The Quiet American

The quadrennial popularity contests that are the US Presidential Primaries are being inflicted upon us again for the right to see who will take the reins of empire from Nero as Rome slowly burns. It should be a doddle for the Democrats after eight years of malfeasance under the most corrupt and incompetent Republican administration since, well, the last one. But the Democrats have an uncanny way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and this years fun could go the way of so many others in recent memory. Who'd a thunk that a wealthy trial lawyer could re-invent himself as a champion of the little guy? But that's exactly what the former junior senator from North Carolina, John Edwards, is doing. Edwards, but a blip on international consciousness, is probably best remembered as John Kerry's southern insurance policy in his ill-fated tilt in 2004. But Edwards has sniffed the wind and learnt fastest and best from the mid-term shellacking the GOP received in 2006 when voters turned out in droves and threw out them there Republican bums. Why? Because organised labor - the dreaded unions - outreligious-righted the religious right, by rocking (literally, if John Cougar Mellencamp is to be believed) out the vote on the first Tuesday in November and snatching control of Congress by turning those elections into a referendum on the minimum wage. Most of the dumb-as-a-box-of-hammers international media didn't get it, particularly our own wine soaked brand, reading it as a referendum on Iraq. Sure, Iraq was floating around in the background, but every credible exit poll had conflated Clinton's dictum, "it's the economy, stupid", into "it's the economy, you goddam corrupt sons'o'bitches!" Edwards got that message and has hopped into bed with organised labor faster than a sailor on shore leave into Madame Fifi's House Of Relaxation. It was telling that in Iowa he gave his final stump speech at a Steelworkers Union function in Ottumwa (which Australians probably know best as Radar O'Rielly's home town). The result is that he has come from nowhere to take second spot in Iowa and is holding up in New Hampshire. This pushed Clinton II into third spot, made the excellently named Barak Obama frontrunner and the whole Democrats nomination process a wide open free for all. Despite being all but ignored by the Mainstream Media he is saying things middle America wants to hear. He has a credible single payer health care plan and is running the most populist presidential campaign since Truman. It's not every day you hear a Presidential candidate saying stuff like "Unions made manufacturing jobs the foundation of our middle class, and they can do the same for our service economy." or "Union membership can be the difference between a poverty-wage job and middle-class security." but it's all there over on his website. But does he mean it? He's probably no Joe Hill, but his plan is to make it easier for service industry unions to organise, so obviously manufacturing would go the way of Betacam in a John Edwards America, which NAFTA is ensuring anyway. But it's the best deal working stiffs have been offered in Septicland since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. It is also dawning on Yanks like Euclidean geometry on a 14-year-old that the good ole land o' the free mightn't be quite ready to share that freedom with either a woman or what is politely referred to in progressive circles in this week's most powerful nation on earth as "a man of colour". And sitting next to that elephant in the room is another elephant - Iraq - as this excellent piece by Scott Ritter explains. Remember Scott Ritter? He was the UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq who suggested to the Bush Administration that they might wanna just hold on a cotton pickin' minute here, before Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and all those other Loonies pushed him out the door. He seeked Weapons Of Mass Destruction here, he seeked Weapons Of Mass Destruction there, the length and breadth of Iraq, before coming up with nada; which was not what his betters in the Pentagon wanted to hear. And, as he points out, there isn't a single candidate in the whole goddam shooting match who has the vaguest clue about what to do with that stinking fish. Especially the Republicans - for whom the "surge" in Iraq is working. Thank the Lord and pass the sauce that the Nutjob Huckabee won Iowa - the man's unelectable. Scarier though is Rudy Giuliani, who is electable, and who will run a tarred and feathered Ms Hillary or Obama out of town on an iron rail - and take US foreign policy to the solarium for a few years. It shall be an interesting election, but it will be fought on domestic issues. This 'sub-prime mortgage' BS is just code for easy credit - too easy credit - but they can't call it a credit card crisis (which is what it is) or US consumerism will gridlock into a depression that will make the Thirties look like the Fifties, all on the back of what economists call 'sentiment' and what the rest of us call blind crazed mass hysteria. The US economy is going to hell in a handbasket and there isn't really much the Yanks can do except drown in cholesterol and exhaust fumes - and learn Mandarin. Someone who knows Rudy Giuliani all too well put it nicely a few years back:

Its like what my painter friend Donald said to me Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done

Have a nice day!

Tool Of The Week: There Is No I In Iemma

Tool Of The Week Maurice Iemma is now making Barry Unsworth look like David Beckham.

Unsworth, of course, was the laughable log swept away by the Greiner landslide in 1988, when the ALP received swings against it of up to 25%.

On a positive note, Iemma is doing a spectacular job in filling the void left by the hopeless incompetence of the late Howard administration.

Just when we were thinking we’d miss the bumbling keystone cops performance of Julie Bishop, Kevin Andrews, Philip Ruddock and Tony Abbott, along comes the star team of Joe Tripodi, Reba Meagher, John Hurtzhisgoats and Michael “Doctor Evil” Costa.

And, as the Omo commercial says, just look at the results!

People dropping foetuses in hospital toilets, ships getting the OK to park on beaches, cops with a vague understanding of the rule of law and the state’s electricity network put on eBay for the highest bidder to snap up.

Which doesn’t even cover the sterling state of transport in a city gridlocked by pay-as-you-go freeways; trains that are dangerous, filthy and unreliable; buses that are overcrowded and even more unreliable and a ferry service that is about to be flogged off to the Pirates of Penzance.

The problem with Iemma is that he has too many number one priorities.

He inherited Job Creation as the “number one priority” of the Carr Government - itself a wilfully useless administration run by an egomaniacal weirdo who was half nerd, half spin-doctor android that left the mess we have inherited today.

Actually, you wouldn’t have thought that Iemma could have done any worse than Carr at first glance, but it’s a tribute to his incompetence that he has managed to wreak further damage and continue to lower public administration standards even further.

Of course the man who replaced public accountability with spin and schmoozing while the state went to hell in a handbasket had already run through education, police numbers and crime as various number one priorities in his time.

After the state election Morris Iemma was to make public transport a number one priority - the result being that public transport got infinitely worse, with a part of that number one priority - ferries - to be sold off.

Certainly selling something is a unique take on making it a priority - and extraordinary evidence of a complete absence of responsibility to not only the people who he is responsible to, the citizens of NSW, but even to his job, his legacy and himself.

By December 2007 he had narrowed down his number one priority to commuters. No doubt preparing to sell them somewhere - down the river no doubt - before too long.

The New Year dawned with a new number one priority - health. With Morris playing a straight man to the Jerry Lewis performance of the Turrumurra girl who doesn’t even like the area she represents, Reba Meagher the member for Cabramatta - who believes that politics is about getting power and, ahh, getting power and, ummm, power apparently.

The reality is that Maurice Iemma has taken public administration to a low not seen for a century.

We have to go back about a hundred years ago, to the days of Paddy Crick to find someone as willfully and incompetently corrupt as Iemma - and at least Paddy Crick got thrown out of parliament after urinating in the corner of the parliamentary chamber.

The reality is that Iemma’s real number one priority is the same it has been since the days in the eighties when he joined Young Labor. His number one priority has been his own personal self-aggrandizement, regardless of how far his abilities fall short of his responsibilities

Like his mates Reba Meagher and Joe Tripodi, little Maurice believed in nothing then, and he believes in nothing now.

He put on his furious face when Stephen Chaytor, the state member for Macquarie Fields, was accused of domestic violence, throwing Chaytor out of the party and saying he had a zero tolerance to domestic violence.

Curiously though when similar allegations were aimed at Blue Mountains MP Phil Koperberg all Iemma could do was mumble a press release. Some are obviously more equal than others.

Another shining example of the competence, consistency and intellectual gymnastics of the man who stands for nothing, does nothing and still manages to screw things up monumentally.

His latest brain explosion surrounds the rather novel idea that we will be better off if we lease off our power assets to people motivated purely by profit. It’s an extraordinarily feeble argument that we will expect people to do good when they are motivated by the most loathsome of motives. That a privatized power generator will somehow do all sorts of wonderful things despite the fact that it has been a screaming disaster in every single jurisdiction where power privatization has been implemented.

The cleverest and most decent thing that Iemma could do is resign and get a job driving a courier van, which he may be ideally suited for - given that he appears to be motivated primarily by what the last journalist told him.

Then we can hand executive power over to the person who really runs NSW, the former front man for Adelaide band Cerveza Y Putas (Spanish for Beer And Wh*res), Daily Telegraph Editor David Pemberthy.