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Like love affairs, bars depend on a delicate mix of timing, chemistry, lighting, luck and--maybe above all--generosity. From the start Steve declared that no one at Dickens would feel slighted. His burgers would be three-inch souffl_s of filet mignon, his closing time would be negotiable, no matter what the law said, and his bartenders would give an extra--extra--long pour. A standard drink at Dickens would be a double anywhere else. A double would leave you cross-eyed. A triple would “cream your spinach,” according to my mother's younger brother, my Uncle Charlie, the first bartender Steve ever hired.

A true son of Manhasset, Steve believed in booze. Everything he was, he owed to booze. His father, a Heineken distributor, died and left Steve a small fortune when he was young. Steve's daughter was named Brandy, his speedboat was named Dipsomania, and his face, after years of homeric drinking, was that telltale shade of scarlet. He saw himself as a Pied Piper of Alcohol, and the pie-eyed residents of Manhasset saw him that way, too. Through the years he developed a fanatic following, a legion of devotees. A Cult of Steve.

J.R. Moehringer. The Tender Bar.

Oh well, he could hear the drumbeat, the single throb of inspiration, and at the same time the frozen moments of peak experiences like sentinels across the days. High in the Himalayas, those strange rare grey green flowering plants at the cusp of the glacier, high in the mountains, almost inaccessible. And it seemed then, oh how profound were these strings of thought, that the most beautiful things in life were all inaccessible, as if you had to strive to see them. But the modern world had undone all these theories. The greatest art galleries in the world were a mouse click away, the deepest thinkers, the most interesting philosophers. He could see what was happening and didn't understand. The one step forward and two steps backward almost killed him. Now was the time to be quiet, humble, to forget his own eccentricity and flamboyance and to knuckle down. For all was a saving grace.

Those bars he had loved so much vanished as nothing but the sodden reminiscences of an aging alcoholic, fantasising about his youth. Almost all was lost, so much time wasted. They sat in circles, exploring the deep. For all the ancient story telling of the villages of old was gone from this modern place, where boasting was common place and everything was sad, wicked, awry. He was trying his best to be someone else. The fingers of past lives kept reaching out to him, now that it was approaching time to disengage, or to at least plan the disengagement. This body would not last. He knew that. But before that ancient process began, before he sought wisdom at the end of this physical life, he had to think clearly; he had to take a reconnaissance mission through his own past. The ultimate self obsession. The only path to rescue. The only way to understand those beautiful bars, the profound importance he had placed in them, the fleeting friends he had thought he had made.

We were lost, dancing on a pin, and if he needed to get in touch with his inner drunken old queen, the crotchety old right winger, the cringing child, the accomplished intellectual, then he needed to abandon all relationship with the present. There was much to do and little time to do it in. Shafts of spring sunlight shone through the dark forest. The manic rustling of the trees throughout his childhood vanished. And he faced one simple truth: he was alone. His life was pointless. All the records, all the writing in the world would get him nowhere. There was no salvation on the physical plain. If you ask for forgiveness perhaps you could forgive yourself. If that made sense. He needed to escape the dudgeon which had enslaved him for decades. The prison of self; of past concepts, of dying, degraded, outdated belief systems. The bush fire was burning on the outskirts of the city, and he was there, always there, reporter's pad in hand, skirting the charcoaled remains of buildings, the stick like drama of the burnt trees, the flattened, scorched earth.

But not this year. He was no longer a general reporter, having been shuffled on into an editorial role. He had always believed the word was his only destiny, his only justification and only worthwhile activity. The fingers splaying across the keyboard had been his only destiny. To observe. To record. To maintain laughter in the face of almost certain defeat. To find beauty and dignity in the tragedy of others. "If you see me coming you're having the worst day of your life," he would joke. But now the joke meant nothing. He had seen so many come and go. Ruthless frames, ruthless institutions, history itself a cruel, thankless master. The children had provided rationale, he had to maintain a roof over their heads. He had to keep getting up and going to work. It had not been like that in the beginning, and when he wandered into the Sydney Morning Herald in the mid 1980s it had all been part of a drunken see saw, a desire to create, a fascination for the published word.

Published being the operative word; for so much of what he had written had never seen the light of day. Those curling sheets stuck on old, unpainted terrace walls. His friend the prostitute came by to see him, there in that beautiful apartment overlooking Woolloomoolloo. It was all about drugs with her, the coming, the going, the work itself; everything was about getting enough money to maintain her massive habit. And so it was that her thunderous thighs plunged together, and the ethnic gentlemen came in a quick, excited splat, and they were out the door and the next one on the way in within minutes. The security was poor, there on Riley Street, in that notorious little huddle of small, dilapidated terraces, and so often, at a terribly loose end, he would wander down from the warehouse where he was trying to eke out a living as a freelance journalist and hung in the doorway while she went upstairs. Why did he think such a squalid thing would be a memory worth saving? Why was he drawn to the world's red light districts, when he never partook?

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_mcWu1t32uPUF5qV762pyIpjQVAD99HKFD00

WASHINGTON — The measure of what humanity can accomplish is a size 9 1/2 bootprint. It belongs to Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. It will stay on the moon for millions of years with nothing to wipe it away, serving as an almost eternal testament to a can-do mankind.

Apollo 11 is the glimmering success that failures of society are contrasted against: "If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we ..."

What put man on the moon 40 years ago was an audacious and public effort that the world hasn't seen before or since. It required rocketry that hadn't been built, or even designed, in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy declared the challenge. It needed an advance in computerization that had not happened yet. NASA would have to learn how to dock separate spaceships, how to teach astronauts to walk in space, even how to keep them alive in space — all tasks so difficult experts weren't sure they were possible.

Forty years later, the moon landing is talked about as a generic human achievement, not an American one. But Apollo at the time was more about U.S. commitment and ingenuity.

Historian Douglas Brinkley called the Apollo program "the exemplary moment of America's we-can-do-anything attitude." After the moon landing, America got soft, he said, looking for the quick payoff of a lottery ticket instead of the sweat-equity of buckling down and doing something hard.

In years since, when America faces a challenge, leaders often look to the Apollo program for inspiration. In 1971, when President Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer, his staffers called it "a moon shot for cancer." Last year, then-candidate Barack Obama and former Vice President Al Gore proposed a massive effort to fight global warming, comparing it to Apollo 11. An environmentalists' project to tackle climate change and promote renewable energy took the name "Apollo Alliance."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/us/20iht-letter.html

WASHINGTON — Senator Lindsey Graham, the engaging South Carolina Republican, lectured the Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor last week that if he had made a comment like hers that a “wise Latina woman” often reaches better conclusions, it would have a been a career-ender.

The cable-news commentators concurred and the nominee, playing the create-no-waves confirmation game, expressed regret. Actually, her remark was rational and Mr. Graham’s analysis flawed.

Suppose, for example, he had said: “I would hope that a wise, white Southern male with the richness of growing up in South Carolina would more often than not be more sensitive on the issue of race relations than a white Northerner who hasn’t lived that life.” While some might have disagreed, most of his constituents would have agreed, and his future would be as bright as ever.

The Sotomayor hearings followed the now-predictable pattern of partisan-edged questions with evasive answers, where little is learned about either the jurist or the law. Almost none of the questions were unfair or even that tough; compared with earlier confirmation sessions, it was tame stuff.

What endures, however, is the spectacle of middle-aged, white Republicans lecturing the first Latin female nominee about the irrelevance of race, gender and life experiences for a judge. Even Mr. Graham, one of the more enlightened lawmakers — a strong immigration advocate and a thoroughly modern Republican — didn’t get it.

Others, especially the committee’s top-ranking Republican, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, were fixated not on Judge Sotomayor’s 17-year record on the federal bench — she would have the most extensive judicial background of any justice in the past 100 years — but on a few of her speeches suggesting she has been shaped by her experiences and ethnic heritage.

Instead of raising doubts about the nomination, the Sessions obsession only reinforced the picture of a narrow Republican Party uncomfortable with differences and resisting diversity.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-labor-loner-who-has-given-it-all-away-20090718-dp1z.html

The transformation of Peter Garrett from environmental activist to passive government minister is now complete, writes Kerry-Anne Walsh.

When Peter Garrett was wooed to the ALP by Mark Latham and a posse of clever strategists, it was an even bigger political coup than the snaffling of Cheryl Kernot from the Democrats.

The Midnight Oil frontman was seen as a rare vote-catching beast who could appeal to a number of demographics: first-time voters just tuning into his protest music, baby boomers who chanted his anti-anything songs, and conservationists who loved his take-no-prisoners approach when head of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Parachuted into the safe Labor seat of Kingsford Smith in Sydney, Garrett landed in Canberra at the 2004 election and has, in quietly dramatic fashion, been divesting himself ever since of his pre-Labor skin.

Approving the Four Mile uranium mine last week was the starkest example to date of the transformation of Garrett from anti-nuclear and environmental activist to passive government minister. It was an even bigger slap in the face to his past than giving the nod last year to a Tasmanian pulp mill.

It's doubtful starry-eyed rockers such as Silverchair's Daniel Johns would again think of scrawling "PG for PM" on the stage wall at the annual ARIA awards, as he did in 2006 when the Oils were inducted into the hall of fame.

It's hard to know whether Garrett slept well in the days leading up to the decision, announced on Wednesday, to allow the South Australian mine to proceed. It was, after all, only two years ago at Labor's national conference that he spoke passionately against expanding Labor's three-uranium-mines-only policy.

"I have always maintained and indeed committed myself to the notion that Australia should be nuclear-free - that our country is as far into nuclear activities as it ever should be," he spruiked. "I have long been opposed to uranium mining, and I remain opposed to it. I am unapologetic about this. In fact, I am proud of it."

He was on the losing side of the argument and his decision last week was a direct result of Labor agreeing at that conference to lift the ban on new mines.