Only Part Of It

*

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

The pain was insane. It shot off half his face and left him squirming in a freakish attempt to escape. He wasn't used to it, in the sense that it was different to any other pain he had experienced. Lost, lost, wasn't the half of it. He felt dismayed; as if the tiers of everything that had built up his life had suddenly vanished. The foundations had vanished. He knew he had been skating on thin ice; and now the pain had come to remind him what it was really all about. Survival. Not just of disasters, but of daily torment. The happy times were so brief; a flash of youthful beauty in the sun, and now this. He shrugged in defeat. He had been here before. Everything was beyond redemption; the dream was constant and recurring, he stepped through a door and there was nothing on the other side.

Nothing; and he was falling through a vast distance. Extremely unsettled. And the pain was extreme. He was always looking for Christmas, the instant hit, meaning, comfort, cosiness, settling instantly over everything, as he felt sometimes at dusk, God prickling in the midst. It was all about status. He decided not to play. So many big men strutted the stage. Shadows were always cast. He knew he would get better, one way or the other. Christmas came but once a year. Doggerel over the side of the ship, wisps of sound caught in the wind. The weather was appalling. They had to seek cover. They had been born the wrong class; and everything echoed in nasty waves. The storm was so intense; it rattled their cages. The lightning lit up the deck. He could see flashes of the other prisoners against the dark, wet deck.

Their convict heritage always meant there was greater suffering in the genes; in their historical memory. They were lucky to have survived at all. The lone journey had been his to make; and while he reached out to share the experience there were rarely takers; and never for long. Generations of children had survived on land; and the thread of consciousness, of suffering, tracked down through the stories of trapped souls. The deck was only part of it. The cage being bashed about on the deck by the wild seas was only part of it.

Equally savage had been the days out on the prairie. But at least they were dry. And the gruelling simplicity of their lives held a certain creaking majesty. Those same eyes looked out from entirely different circumstances. He had been shaped by different brutalities, swept up in history. He didn't know what he was talking about when they found him, blathering, blood soaked. He didn't expect to survive, much less find kindness; but the villagers nursed him back to life. Just as, later, in a different life, he would be nursed back to life by the kindness of strangers, the damp, camp, faded theatricality a bygone era; the 1920s, the 1930s, the buzzing of a fly in the corner of the room.

The story was so slow in arriving there were times when he thought it would never arrive; but at times he told old ones with amazing hilarity. The time when he bribed Suzy into having the baby, and she was born overseas. She had wanted it to be born amongst the child loving family oriented people of Greece, but when we got there other expats looked at us in astonishment: don't you know how bad the hospitals are here? So they fled Athens and went to Crete; and there on the first night the wind whipped up off the harbour. They were the only guests in the middle of winter in a giant white hotel which curved around the edge of the bay. The wind never stopped. It was freezing cold. She was increasingly pregnant and they didn't know what to do.

They went out to a restaurant; anything to cheer themselves up. Their the local English speaking population told them that the hospitals in Crete were even worse than the ones in Athens; and they were clearly mad. They got back to the hotel. Their one year old, Sam, threw up moussaka and milk all over the double bed. And just at that moment, the glass of the window blew in, smashing glass all over the room and leaving it open to the elements. They had to go looking to find someone to help them. It was that moment, when the giant glass window blew in the dark wind whipped scene from outside, that he knew for certain he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that everything had gone wrong with their dreams.

And so it was that he, who rarely preyed except in desperation, found himself at the Greek Orthodox Church the next morning going: dear God, help me, I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time and I don't know what to do. And so he rang an old friend who had been part of his misspent youth; and she listened with astonishment as he told them the tale of how he came to be in Crete with a pregnant woman and a one-year-old boy. And so it was that they flew to Manchester, Suzy heavily wrapped in winter coats to conceal her pregnancy, and Henrietta was born on yet another wild, wet and windy night; and as they sat around telling these stories in Redfern in 2009; and talked of unrequited love and the cruelty of lovers, humans are like dogs, if you're vulnerable they attack, his piece of wisdom; and as always they could hear the fighting in the street outside; come here slut, you ripped me off, you...

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/05/2535315.htm

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced a deal with banks that would allow jobless Australians to delay mortgage repayments.

Just 12 hours after returning from the G20 summit in London, Mr Rudd gave details of the plan at Narre Warren, in Melbourne's south-east, where unemployment rose by 15 per cent in January.

Under the plan people who lose their jobs will be able to postpone mortgage repayments for up to a year.

They can also be eligible for concessions on other debts such as car loans and could apply to have repayment periods extended.

Mr Rudd says it will ease the burden on families coming to terms with sudden unemployment.

"The Government's purpose in its negotiations with the banks has been clear: to ask the banks to provide maximum flexibility for borrowers suffering temporary hardship through forced unemployment," he said.

Australia's four major banks have agreed to the deal but still have the power to reject the mortgage postponements for some borrowers if they consider it is a financial risk.

The Prime Minister thanked the banks for agreeing to provide relief, saying the economic slowdown is making it hard for many families.

"I'd like to thank publicly the banks for the goodwill they've demonstrated so far in this area," he said.

"Of course, these options won't be appropriate in every case, and banks will make their assessment on the borrowers ability to meet new contractural obligations in the long term."

Mr Rudd has also announced a $650 million jobs fund for seven areas hardest hit by unemployment, including south-east Melbourne, south-western Sydney and Ipswich in Queensland.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/05/2535252.htm

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says Labor's deception over Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's mid-air meltdown is worse than the actual incident itself.

Mr Rudd has publicly apologised for verbally abusing a flight attendant and reducing her to tears on a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flight in a row over food earlier this year.

However News Limited has reported that Mr Rudd's media adviser, Lachlan Harris, initially denied the incident happened when first asked about it.

Mr Hockey has told Channel 10 Mr Rudd's delayed admission shows he only tells the truth when he has to.

"What was more alarming out of that entire incident, not just going off the handle at the RAAF staff, but the fact that his office was lying to the Australian people about what actually happened," he said.

"This illustrates a pattern of behaviour out of his office that they are prepared to mislead the Australian people as to the truth of the matter."

Mr Rudd was forced to answer questions over the incident during a media conference after the G20 meeting in London about his outburst.

The outburst reportedly happened after he was unable to get a special non-red meat meal.

Mr Rudd said he had a "discussion" with an attendant about food but later apologised during the flight.

"Prime ministers make mistakes. I've made mistakes, I'm sure that's one of them."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10210215-71.html

You might be forgiven for thinking this is Mob Week in Britain.

Protesters have twittered to organize themselves into groups that storm banks and protest the G20 Summit. But things have gone way beyond that.

A poor, innocent Google Street View driver was merely doing his duty in the village of Broughton, Buckinghamshire, England. Broughton is a posh village, a little on the snooty side.

But when Paul Jacobs spotted the Googlie snooper rolling down his street, the village became positively snotty. He rushed around to other people's homes to tell them to come outside and help him thwart the evil eye.

Yes, the Google Street View car was surrounded by the bulging jowls of the bourgeoisie.

"I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime," Jacobs told the Daily Mail.

Broughton, you see, has already endured three burglaries in the last six weeks. And residents believe displaying the full contours of their streets to the world can only reveal the weaker parts of their homes' ramparts.

Jacobs, an executive with a global entertainment company, is a multi-tasker. Not only did he stop the car and get a support group together, but he also found time to call the police. By the time officers arrived, the Street View car had fled the scene.

Unfortunately, a Google representative did not exactly make the situation any more friendly: "Householders are entitled to request their property is removed from the site, but only after the picture has appeared."

This does sound so sadly like: "We are gods and you may plead your case to us at the appropriate time on knees bent to at least a 90-degree angle."

Given Street View's somewhat sketchy record in terms of people-sensitivity, might not Google have issued a somewhat more understanding communique?

I live in hope. It's just down the road from Broughton. Emotionally speaking.