The Treachery of Images
"News is something that happens in front of a journalist."
Anon.
"Those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter."
Anon.
"Journalism: a young man's sandpit and an old man's quicksand."
Anon Rpt.
This is a picture of the cafe I go to most mornings, A Little On The Side. One of my last remaining addictions is a coffee in the morning; down from the 15 cups a day I used to drink. I'm 55 now and everything has slowed down, including my coffee intake. I always thought when the torment of youth and the struggles of life were through, you would enter some golden paradise of calm, tranquility, wisdom. Instead, all that happens is you get old. So I'm well known at A Little On The Side as the bloke that comes down there for his one real cup of coffee each morning; the rest of the day being decaf. Decaf, how f'n pathetic. But that's what it's all come down to.
Fifteen a day! The doctor repeated in astonishment. That would be irritating a few things. How can you drink 15 a day? It's easy, I replied; I have three double shots before breakfast to wake me up and then I drink it all day, every day. Anyone who doesn't think caffeine is a mood altering chemical just doesn't drink enough of it.
There are considerations, there are deep treacheries; and the sad and normal dross of days and the dreary routines of daily journalism; it's all there. Back down in the public foyer of the stock exchange; interviewing investors; dodging those who just use the place as a shelter from the cold. One bloke has been there every day for 32 years; watching the numbers; and says at least it's kept him out of jail. Others are wealthy, living off their investments; and everything is calm; inside I regroup; wonder where to go; feel sadness that we have not single handedly been able to alter the universe; feel nothing but contempt and disgust for the Howard government and nothing but fear for the alternative; which we're likely to have in just a few months now. The country has turned; and Howard is likely to lose his own seat in the landslide. But as Barry Humphrey's asks: Is Australia really ready for a Prime Minister called Kevin?
THE BIGGER STORY:
Wall Street wilts as investors flee risk
Posted 5 hours 10 minutes ago
Updated 5 hours 12 minutes ago
The Dow Jones industrial average shed 88 points minutes after the market opened [File photo].
The Dow Jones industrial average shed 88 points minutes after the market opened [File photo]. (Reuters: Brendan McDermid)
* Related Story: World leaders urge calm amid fresh market turmoil
* Related Story: Analyst unconcerned about falling Aussie dollar
* Related Story: US housing starts fall to 10-year low
* Related Story: Market sheds $21 billion
US stocks have dropped sharply as fears grew that deteriorating credit market conditions may deal a blow to economic expansion.
That is despite the US Federal Reserve injecting $6 billion into the banking system to ease a credit crunch and another glum report on the housing market.
The Dow Jones industrial average shed 88 points minutes after the market opened.
At 11.45pm AEST, the Australian dollar was trading at 79.03 US cents.
Iraq is an even bigger mess; and Australia is involved!! To our great shame.
BAGHDAD: More than 400 people were slaughtered in four suicide truck bomb attacks in northern Iraq targeting the ancient Yazidi religious sect, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Thursday.
"More than 400 people were killed and the toll is expected to rise," the ministry's director of operations, Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf, told a news agency.
He said more than two tonnes of explosives were packed into the four bombs that ripped through two villages in Nineveh province late Tuesday.
Entire families of Yazidis were wiped out after suicide bombers, which the US military said were from Al-Qaida, blew up the lorries full of explosives in the villages of Al-Qataniyah and Al-Adnaniyah.
Two days after the bombings, rescue teams of hundreds of soldiers, police and civilians were clawing through the devastation of flattened homes, some helping by hand to sift through the rubble looking for the dead.