The Comforting Cloud

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Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Bertrand Russell

http://www.smh.com.au/national/cross-off-the-drugs-into-binge-drinking-20090508-axzx.html

While the driving forces behind Kings Cross's safe injecting room were this week celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Wayside Chapel's original "act of civil disobedience" in setting up its tolerance room, the area's new scourge was identified by police, the City of Sydney Council, and residents. The drug doing the damage is the legal one: alcohol.

The face of Kings Cross has changed momentously in 10 years. Tourists have been replaced by thousands of middle-class residents occupying what were once the Top of the Town, the Hyatt, the Sebel, the Rex, the Gazebo, the Chevron and the Commodore hotels. But the Cross's increasing density as an "entertainment district", with new bars open to 3am and 6am, has collided with that demographic change. On Darlinghurst Road, the old Westpac Bank is now the Sugarmill; the old Hungry Jack's is the Elk; the old Commonwealth Bank is Madam de Biers. On Bayswater Road, the Mansions Hotel, Hugo's Lounge and other bars generate such late-night crowds that buses cannot use the road.

A City of Sydney study found that alcohol-related crime had soared due to an increase in late-night licensed premises. Licensing officers and council rangers were overstretched and extra police numbers were not sustainable, said the acting commander of Kings Cross police, Darren Schott: "There is a direct correlation between the density of alcohol establishments and the level of crime."

A former Wayside pastor, the Reverend Ray Richmond, said drug use paled beside "the more destructive and pervasive alcohol problem".

Local residents are saying the Cross is the worst it has ever been. Cath Lyons, who has lived in the area since the 1950s, said: "It's much worse than when the Americans were here in the 1960s, and the worst I've known it, due to the alcohol. It used to be that the worst that would happen to you walking through the Cross was that someone would pinch your bum. Now you're scared someone will push a broken bottle into your face."

Malcolm Knox.

And then there was none. That's what we found in the haunted wood. That's what we found, too terrified to move off the couch. How very blank the walls had become. How very frenetic was the world that awaited. Major reforms. Major projects. There was nothing he needed more than voice recognition software. Come what may, come the cruel tides. He could hear the echo chamber so vast. So many times he should have just gone out. She was a nightmare. He continued to dance on a high wire. It soon gave way to a narrow path, with steep valleys and cliffs on either side. Oh how absolutely gorgeous those days had been. It had all meant to lead to something. Where it led was the distant past. Where it led was abnegation, a body for sale. Rent boy. Pay the price. And so he had wandered into old age utterly unprepared; as for so many others. He was cross at the divides.

Why did that girl look so sad, that day in the labyrinths of Istanbul? Why did he always regret not tipping the Aia more? Why did he know she could be beaten as a result? Why did he still hear that boy being beaten mercilessly in the slums of Calcutta, and no one intervening? IN ossified time, there was a time to stop, to shift focus; to do what should have been done long ago. He was compromised but willing. Soft tissue would always give way. Once again he expounded on his theory of humans being like dogs, if you're vulnerable they attack. Just see how people behave differently if you're limping from a sore foot. He was shocked at the indifference so often displayed. He paid to be cared for. He spent a month in the bars of Berlin once, and even that was a presage to something greater, he knew not what. Couldn't we be sure of answer? Couldn't we be assured it would all end well.

So that was it. One project morphed into another and he decided to end it. He wasn't going to be reassured by anything now. There was no denying things had grown seriously weird. Liquid creatures danced just on the periphery of his vision, but he could never catch them straight on. All of a time, all of a wine, things were different then. Could any stir be more complete? How ghostly would that be, living in a car by the river bank? She was completely undone, scrambled, lost, homeless. The dance floor had become the mean floor. We weren't ready to be resurrected yet. The offers had been there, spiritual tunnels into other worlds, but he hadn't chosen to take any of them. Why? He just didn't want to; here in the prosaic. Safe. Warm. Subtle. There was no one left to argue.

This was why, in those late night conversations, he became increasingly amazed at the colourful stories that came rolling out. There in that derelict house? How did you get here, how did your life get to this? He was looking at his friend, at the bottle of wine on the messy table, at the shadows and graffiti sprawling across the crumbling plaster, The drunken queen, the right wing vigilante, none of these were enough. He had to play the Ordinary Joe. That was the only thing he was good at, playing the part. The real Edward had left long ago, too disappointed at the wasted opportunities of a half-lived life to bear the remorse a moment longer. Oh come now, please be near. Please embrace the ordinary heart. Please endure for the sake of others. Please lie down and remember lost love. Because nothing will make a difference now. Nothing. She couldn't begin to feel more disassociated than she already was.

What parties, what parties they were, generations ago, before the rich occupied all the best vantage points and an ancient wealth began to cloak the older, more established, more sought after suburbs. He was never going to be free of these concerns. And yet there was hope, plenty of it. He knew there were ways to recover. He had known for a long time. So he reached down to that dance floor, old before his time, rattled to the four winds, and picked up a cigarette butt, mistaking it for the things he had lost. And he knew then that he could reach no further into the chaos before full blown psychosis set in. So he went to the bar, because the bar always offered peace, the music behind him, the lights, a drag queen tottering in front of him, the girls getting ready for the show. Air kisses. Feathers. Arch camp and decamp. He wasn't going to find peace anywhere but at the bottom of a bourbon and coke; praying they didn't water it down. Too much money slipped through his fingers. He knew he had gone too far.

But it didn't matter then how off your lolly you were, you still got served; and soon enough he was nursing a bourbon and surveying the traffic, hoping for more. Well, anything at this point. Anyone who would understand. Anyone who was hot. Long before the doubts set in. Long before the world changed. He was going to San Francisco and he was going to feed the squirrels in the park, just as he had done as a kid. He was going to see a world transformed utterly, even in the time he had been alive. He was going to the Thai Islands, even though mansions now coated the bays where little huts once rented for five dollars a day. Google Docs is amazing, I'm surprised more people don't know about it, the doctor said. The technology, we agreed, two men in their fifties. All in our lifetime. Our kids lifetime. And so it was, in an unresolved flurry, that one story ended and another began.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/middleeast/11intel.html?hp

WASHINGTON — As Taliban militants push deeper into Pakistan’s settled areas, foreign operatives of Al Qaeda who had focused on plotting attacks against the West are seizing on the turmoil to sow chaos in Pakistan and strengthen the hand of the militant Islamist groups there, according to American and Pakistani intelligence officials.

One indication came April 19, when a truck parked inside a Qaeda compound in South Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas, erupted in a fireball when it was struck by a C.I.A. missile. American intelligence officials say that the truck had been loaded with high explosives, apparently to be used as a bomb, and that while its ultimate target remains unclear, the bomb would have been more devastating than the suicide bombing that killed more than 50 people at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September.

Al Qaeda’s leaders — a predominantly Arab group of Egyptians, Saudis and Yemenis, as well as other nationalities like Uzbeks — for years have nurtured ties to Pakistani militant groups like the Taliban operating in the mountains of Pakistan. The foreign operatives have historically set their sights on targets loftier than those selected by the local militant groups, aiming for spectacular attacks against the West, but they may see new opportunity in the recent violence.

Intelligence officials say the Taliban advances in Swat and Buner, which are closer to Islamabad than to the tribal areas, have already helped Al Qaeda in its recruiting efforts. The officials say the group’s recruiting campaign is currently aimed at young fighters across the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia who are less inclined to plan and carry out far-reaching global attacks and who have focused their energies on more immediate targets.

“They smell blood, and they are intoxicated by the idea of a jihadist takeover in Pakistan,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former analyst for the C.I.A. who recently led the Obama administration’s policy review of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/article.aspx?id=330865

Swan says huge deficit necessary
Updated: 12:46, Monday May 11, 2009

Australia's huge deficit is necessary because without a deficit there would have to be a huge increase in taxes or a massive cuts in services, the government says.

When Treasurer Wayne Swan hands down the 2009/10 budget on Tuesday it is expected to show a deficit of up to $70 billion and forecasts of a $200 billion drop tax revenue over the next four years.

Responding to criticism from federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull that the government was spending money recklessly and building up a huge mountain of debt, Mr Swan said there was no realistic alternative.

'The reason why the deficits are higher and will last for longer is because of the massive revenue write-downs that have come from the global recession,' he said.

'It's not a consequence of government spending and that's what the opposition hasn't recognised.

'If they were in government now, and they would claim that they wouldn't be running these deficits and the borrowing to go with them, they would have to massively slash existing government services or massively increase government taxes to make up for this lost revenue caused by the global recession.

'They, like the current government, would have to borrow, because the consequence of not doing that would be a savage attack on services or dramatic increases in taxes, which would make the recession deeper and longer.'
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2009/05/09/1241727662559.html

A MAN was left unconscious in a Sydney street after an argument with his drinking companions turned physical and he was kicked in the head and stomped on.

The victim and two other men were drinking together at a club in Kellett Street, Kings Cross, just before 4am yesterday when an argument broke out.

"The trio left the club and the dispute turned physical with two of the men assaulting the other, causing him to fall to the ground," police said in a statement.

"Another man joined in the attack and the victim was repeatedly kicked and punched to the head. One of the offenders also stomped on the victim's head.

"The offenders ran from the scene."

Police and ambulance officers were called to the club and found the man lying unconscious on the ground outside.

He was treated at the scene and regained consciousness before being taken by ambulance to St Vincent's Hospital.

Flynn.