PATHS NOT TAKEN
Courtesy Graffiti Freak deviantart.com
There were things that never happened, breaks in the day, hours or days gone missing. He didn't know who he was anymore. The voices finally backed off. They had given up. There was nothing of interest to be had here. It was an outrage what had happened and it was done. They could not come near him. He was finally safe. In the freaky break in the slip stream, he forgot to do things that were front and center of his life. What have you got planned for the day? Nothing. There was everything and he came out with the word nothing; because sledged from the side, he simply forgot everything. Thought he was in the same place a fortnight before. Thought things would still walk when he wouldn't, talk when they couldn't. That was a diseased form of consciousness. That was forgetfuness wrapped in hysteria wrapped in regret. And there was no explanation.
None at all for some of the things that happened; or in this case failed to happen. Blanks in the wall. A thorough, hangdog shame. A walk in the park. The desperate urgency of men, who came together so quickly, grappled and were gone. The Thais had ridiculed him, every aspect of him, with their spy cameras in his house, in his beadroom, in his bathroom, and the trauma, indeed the post traumatic stress that he sometimes continued to suffer, blurred the edges of the real, made black gaps as divinely represented as the white, caught sailors drunk with pants around their ankles, caught the shifting change of zippers, caught an infinite longing before it was all over. There was no root cause. Abstinence and absence; a long path. They had coralled him kindly enough; and that was that. They shrugged and walked away.
If he missed his followers, his pursuers, the drama, intensity, sense of meaning and full blown sense of absurdity that they imparted to his life; and he lived as dull and boring an existence as he possibly could; and forgot to do things, as if age had already defeated him, then at times in the scattering swamp there were voices of wisdom, and reason, and a land of cast offs and mouldering boots. Forests and swiftness. Men lurking. The place came alive at night. He crossed bridges he had never known existed. He made way for walkways of the soul that had never even been there when he had been born. They had risen up and applauded, but these taskforces were gone. Six days to an Australian election.
Kevin Rudd still looks as if he is "drifting", or is it diving headlong, into defeat.Â
HIs bluster and verbiage fall on increasingly barren ground.
For them, at least, the campaign had fallen apart.
For Tony Abbot, it's a matter of stick to the plan, remain calm and dignified at all times, steady as she goes.
Michael commented that he thought Abbott would make a better conservative Prime Minister than Howard. It fell into a different conversational camp. He hung his head.
He hadn't done something he had meant to do; and there was no explanation.
THE BIGGER STORY:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Delaying what had loomed as an imminent strike, President Barack Obama abruptly announced Saturday he will seek congressional approval before launching any military action meant to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons in an attack that killed hundreds.
With Navy ships on standby in the Mediterranean Sea ready to launch their cruise missiles, Obama said he had decided the United States should take military action and that he believes that as commander in chief, he has ‘‘the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization.’’
At the same time, he said, ‘‘I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course and our actions will be even more effective.’’ His remarks were televised live in the United States as well as on Syrian state television with translation.
Congress is scheduled to return from a summer vacation on Sept. 9, and in anticipation of the coming debate, Obama challenged lawmakers to consider ‘‘what message will we sent if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price.’’
LABOR is facing almost certain defeat next Saturday, with massive swings against the government confirmed in its strongholds of western Sydney, coastal NSW and Melbourne.
The highwater mark for Labor support in Victoria at the 2010 election under Julia Gillard has dropped and at least three, possibly four, Labor-held seats are likely to be lost around Melbourne.
In NSW, Labor faces a coastal wipeout, with five marginal seats - Dobell, Robertson, Kingsford-Smith, Page and Eden-Monaro - all held by margins of 5.2 per cent or less but facing a 6 per cent swing to the Coalition that would leave it represented mostly only around Wollongong and Newcastle.
In addition to the three ALP Victorian seats that are likely to fall and the five NSW coastal seats, there are up to 10 Labor seats at risk in western Sydney. Given the two independent seats of Lyne and New England are also going strongly to the Coalition, Tony Abbott could pick up 20 seats just in NSW and Victoria.