Disorder

*

How they lied on their return about the depths of the slimed tunnels they slid into, all festooned with rags and alive with voracious rats, littered and crushed underfoot with the small grey bones of children who had never drawn breath. The poisoned floodwater alcoves along the way alchemised by their long dead lodgers into a peaceful retreat from the city that both defied and drowned them.

Years would pass before this stagnant pool of road waste and overflowing sewerage systems was diverted into the system that fed the Trevally breeding off the north Bondi outlet.

The particular stink pipe that serviced that disgraceful outlet still stands on the Royal Bondi Golf Course today, and just beneath its reinforced bricks a weary track leads down to the infested water and ammoniac air of the old fishing platforms.

The Murk.

Twenty men of all languages would gather down there on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and in the midst of the piss-stinking mist that shrouded them they would cast their long lines into the strangely grey whitewater that bounded in and out off the cliff base down in that cold and shadowed gully, and a base kind of seawater broke against the cliffs there, one that had hidden beneath its surface so much discarded and fouled toilet paper that we all used razors to cut it away from our withdrawn lines.

One mile away to the south Bondi would greet the dawn like an overworked whore on a Sunday morning with dozens of French Letters littering her high water mark.

A litter of love, sluiced down the innumerable waste pipes from the Cross to Dover Heights and all laid out like greasy nipple headed balloons on the sand.

http://kurungabaa.net/2009/10/06/bondi-another-history/

He had already departed the earth, and ever since shuffling off the mortal coil had finally been able to relax. Departing his physical form was an extreme, non-sensical way to achieve inner-peace; but that was it. A grey ghost on the outer outer out-skirts of the group; a shadow flickering far off on the edge. It was only painful if there was something that could be hurt. Armour, hiding behind all those screens, ultimately hadn't worked; leading only to an atrophied creature who couldn't possibly survive in the harsh light of day, the vivid air, the cold splash of waster. And so it was that a former self, an elaborate construct buttressed by experienced and marinated in drugs and alcohol, had blossomed, survived and died, all in a matter of what seemed like minutes.

And so what was left was an old man shuffling along the beach. His grey hair made him invisible to the frolicking young things playing, posing and perving on the beach. There was a wide assortment of languages, as there was a wide assortment of good looks; the handsome Latins, the delicate Germanic blonds with their micro micro bikinis and curves to set any man alight; the fluid Italians, the dark French, the handsome Asian criminals and Lebanese gangsters and tubby little Indian families; all of them crushed together on the expansive bit of sand; the vivid water, the vivid sky. He wasn't himself anymore; and so none of it mattered. He could finally relax. The torture was over.

The boys played at boxing each other in the cul de sac outside. His desire for oblivion came mounting in waves; and each day that he didn't fulfil his destiny, to die as a street alcoholic, was another day when another person had the opportunity to take over. When another day, crisp and clear and clean, could be born all anew, without the angst, the anger, the suffering, the liquid depression and profound despair. A pimply boy crumpled in the back of the tiny plane, mortally embarrassed, the anger of his father filling the cockpit. All below, the world passing beneath them; others went about their enviable lives and he could only look on in envy; in hope that one day their lives would be his, that there was a way out, that we were blessed.

Those were the days when the beat of the Rolling Stones was derided as the devil's music, when bikinis, far less micro than they were today, signalled the end time. It was this fear, that all was about to end, that had permeated every waking moment and populated his dreams. Now his aging mother was falling out of bed, leaping from cliffs in her dreams as she struggled to escape the dying throws. There was always evil afoot. There was always disaster about to overtake. This had transmogrified into the very fabric of things; so that objects were malignant and the very air wicked in its intent. He could have been saved; if only he had accepted a belief in God. Instead that terrible beating, when he had dared to say that he didn't believe in God and had been thoroughly thrashed as a result, backfired.

Now he believed in nothing. All the talk of the Higher Power, these ridiculous constructs people surrendered to and then communed with, these powerful, but entirely artificially invoked spiritual experiences, looked nothing more than absurd. He adopted his old defence, silence. He maintained a charming grace, cross legged, smiling, dazzling in his conversational breadth, but he didn't believe a word. There was so much bullshit. They didn't practice what they preached. They were as narcissistic, as self-centred, as greedy and unforgiving, as much a member of the pack mentality as anyone else. He had decided to leave the city, but ironically had found himself living in one of its nicest pockets, just as he was about to flee.

People drove around in cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, status symbols, or symbols of achievement, and he knew no one, no one. Further south, on the beaches of Shellharbour, total strangers nodded and smiled their good mornings. Here, they didn't even notice him. Because there was nothing worthwhile, nothing to be free of. The destiny, the path, the narrative thread, the story that was the person, all of it had disappeared. He couldn't write anymore, he couldn't sing anymore. He had become frozen and it made no difference. He went to the meetings and spoke to no one, never shared. He looked out the window at the vivid sky. He saw the skinny blonds littering the beach. And he cried out: make a difference, please make a difference. Please be there. Please be part of the village. And no one looked, no one noticed. Even the deranged, those living in their alcoves in the far corners of the cliffs, had been displaced; and not even their strange sympathies were there to give him strength, identity, purpose.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/08/2788571.htm

The leader of the Sea Shepherd says he still has not been contacted by Australian or New Zealand officials, despite one protester almost being killed in a clash with whalers on Wednesday.

This morning Sea Shepherd's futuristic anti-whaling ship the Ady Gil sank as it was being towed.

Two days ago it was substantially damaged in a collision with Japanese whaling ship the Shonan Maru 2.

A spokesman for the New Zealand foreign minister, Murray McCully, says the protesters should have called his government themselves if they were in need of help.

Both the New Zealand and Australian governments have used the media to ask the protesters to show restraint, but Sea Shepherd captain Paul Watson says that is just not possible.

"We're not going to restrain ourselves from protecting these whales and we're not going to restrain ourselves from upholding international conservation law," he said.

"The Government has shown so much restraint over the years they have done absolutely nothing."

Sea Shepherd says it will continue to chase Japanese harpoon ships in the Southern Ocean.

http://www.yumasun.com/opinion/global-55341-warming-research.html

When I attended Southern Utah University, I started with the supposition that man's activities were causing the average temperatures of the globe to increase. I decided to research this in my science classes and the more I researched the claims and research by pro-global warming scientists, the more I became convinced that man's activities have nothing to do with climate change.

Now with the exposure of e-mails of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, I have been proven right.

Many of these e-mails show what I suspected years ago. I became convinced that people were falsifying data, or selecting data that supports the hypothesis (an unproven idea) of global warming, and ignoring data that does not support their position.

What makes this worse is that for at least 10 years, and perhaps as much as 48 years, the average global temperatures have decreased and the Climate Research Unit has been trying to dismiss this.

Their models (math equations) have said that by now the earth should be so hot that places like Yuma should be unlivable due to extreme heat. Florida would be under water due to ice caps melting. A mathematician in Canada has been asking to see the data and the equations these scientists use, but they refuse to release them. Ask yourself, "What are they trying to hide?"

One of the e-mails from the Climate Research Unit talks about the problem of the warming period of the Middle Ages. One of the statements by the Global Warming "experts" is that the earth is warmer now than it ever has been, particularly in man's history. The Middle Ages warm period lasted for several centuries about 1,000 years ago. The earth was a lot warmer then than it is now.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2010/20100107133452.aspx

Even popular liberals can come under fire from the media if they offer heretical views on global warming, which many in the media promote with near-religious fervor.

Rolling Stone magazine went after 17 global warming dissenters on Jan. 6, hyperbolically labeling them “The Climate Killers.” Topping the list was Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Obama supporter and media darling Warren Buffett.

The magazine criticized Buffett for “doing far more than bad-mouthing climate legislation – he’s literally banking on its failure” by adding 1.28 million shares of ExxonMobil to his books and acquiring a railroad that hauls coal.

Rolling Stone editor Eric Bates also told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Buffett “trashed climate change legislation calling it a huge tax saying it will cost jobs.”

That’s not even news, CBSNews.com reported in September that the Obama administration said cap and trade “would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year.” But Obama didn’t make the list of "Killers."

The Heritage Foundation estimated that capping carbon would act as an energy tax of nearly $2,000 on every American household. Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has said “it would destroy tens of millions of good-paying jobs.”

Also on the Rolling Stone list were a number of predictable targets for left-wing vitriol, from News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch and ExxonMobil’s Rex Tillerson to Sen. James Inhofe and retired physicist Fred Singer. Each person on the list was given a nasty moniker like “the Fake Protestor” or “The Know Nothing.”

http://ricksweblog.ebidz.biz/archives/299

Don’t kill us, enslave us or torture us. Don’t steal from us or unfairly tax us. Don’t tell us which god we must pray to or how we must speak or think. Don’t make us wards of the Nanny State. Let us be free to live our lives as we wish as long as we don’t hurt anyone.

“As for ‘global climate change,’ we don’t understand what all the fuss and fear is about. The climate is always changing. It’s perfectly natural. It’s not a crisis for my species or for humans. We’ve already survived two ice ages 100,000 years long and we’ll survive the next one, which, by the way, has already started.”

“Distinguished Senators, do my species a favor. Do not place us on your Endangered Species list — or any other list. If as lawmakers you feel you must do something positive to help us, follow Thomas Jefferson’s advice and concentrate on protecting our natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And then leave us alone.”

When Grandpa finished no one said a word. The room was completely still.

“Clap clap clap, clap, clap.”

It was Senator Specter. He liked Grandpa’s speech so much he was giving it a standing ovation. So were Senator Inhofe and Senator Franken, who were both weeping but for different reasons. So were 11 other senators on the committee and all the people in the room ­ everyone, except Senator Boxer.

As a dozen reporters stampeded over to interview Grandpa, Senator Boxer was already on her cell phone.

“Al,” she whimpered, “You thought ClimateGate was bad. I’ve got even worse news.”