Time In The Sun

*

Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations, it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.

Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience and Reading

In all the clouded circumstance and in all his wanton days, in time warped and air breathed, in a tiny trickle of the infinite which crept across the corporate carpets, which made him everything he had wanted to be. We were wounded, there wasn't any doubting that. He was shattered and yet strangely optimistic all at once. As if the worst had been avoided. He was a shallow imitation of his former self. All that depth, all those networks, had vanished in a lonely swamp and all he could think about was how quickly he could escape. From the fatal, final hurts, from the open spaces between buildings, from the apocalyptic breezes which fanned all their denials, from the most grandiose failures to the most intimate clinches, he was so sorry.

His weary tone had come back to haunt him. It was in every bone and had become part of every breath. The triumphs had been so oblique, the children so beautiful in the afternoon light. He wasn't shocked. He couldn't afford to be. The flashes of the future were pressing. They were all drowning in information, entertainment. Fads spread quicker than a sci fi virus. And so it was that now, when there was always a voice in the background, he could come shivering through the dark places, he could maintain a fulsome glare, he could laugh when he wanted to, and he literaly wept as reached out his hand to touch her. Things had changed profoundly. The weather was cold and he was frozen inside. He shouldn't have been shocked.

The threads, and that was all they were, came together slowly. He had to give a speech and he was terrified. He bought into life's most controversial areas, because no one dared to speak out. Everyone was afraid. Who would have thought, way back there in the golden sixties, in the mud and the parties and the uber-consciousness, no one would have thought that 50 years later squads of goons with dogs would be roaming the streets, arresting and harrassing people for their drugs of choice. That the thought police would monitor every deviation. That the pack mentality of the left would squash any debate. That the hypocrites teaching diversity and tolerance would flatten the culture into a terrified an colourless place.

These were the bizarre days, when communism and conservatism had united to destroy all colour and movement. When clouds shattered early and the skies were full of movement; colour, red lightning. The orange dust that settled across the land showed just how traumatic the recent cataclysm had been. Caught on open ground, he had still not found safety. His head ran around in vicious circles; but all was considered free and fair. He would find his love and eke out a living; but in each moment, in each final hour, in the treacherous passing of what once resembled hope, he knew there wasn't a resource which could save him. He knew betrayal was at the heart of every human relationship. He knew to trust no one.

Which made it so strange to find himself in love again, out here hidden in the city's garbage dump, away from her, away from everyone, hidden, watching with fascination and intense concern every movement of the hens; for they were the most precious things they owned. There had been a long debate about whether they should let them sit on the eggs; or whether, because they were starving, they should eat them now. They were both thin, and he was worried abotu the coming baby. The post apocalyptic world he had fantasised about for so long had finally arrived. He was shattered and yet now, equally determined. No reason to let time and disease and circumstance beat him now; not after all that had happened.

So he was born out of chaos, but also out of different, more primitive times. The air jelled into a grey mass; and often it was as if he was walking through liquid concrete. There wasn't time to be depressed any more; survival was the only thing which kept them going. He was sad, certainly, but there was no time for indulgence, nto now when the sky was weeping yellow rain and his late life partner was groaning inside, hungry, deformed from the rickets, groaning and laughing at the same time as they remembered the suburbs from which they came, the astonishing, casual luxury they had all taken for granted; now washed away.

He couldn't get dry but was determined to make their shack as warm and cosy as possible; and ranged wide looking for suitable blcoks of wood. He walked across an old world; pulled toys from out the mud, requested surveillance and found nothing but God. And so it was he smiled; as he knelt down to get inside the hut. He was going to make things better, for her, for the baby, for the future of mankind. She smiled back and he was once more shocked by the state of her teeth; and then realised there were no sentinals from the past to commune with; nothing but the two of them hiding in the city's garbage dump; sheltering from the storm. It wasn't even cruel, it was just the unthinking brutality of nature itself. He threw another log on the fire; and chortled to himself with utter delight. They were going to survive.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/16/2572402.htm?section=australia

While Prime Minister Kevin Rudd might be happy to let speculation of an early election continue, time is running out for his government to set up a trigger needed for a double dissolution poll.

Mr Rudd's veiled threat was designed to put pressure on the Opposition to pass the Budget, but Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has not baulked, announcing that if Mr Rudd wants to call an election, he will be ready.

The threat of an early election tends to concentrate the minds of backbenchers on their own political survival.

But prime ministers very rarely let this particular sword of Damocles fall. The last double dissolution was more than 20 years ago.

Even if he decides he wants to go early, Mr Rudd does not yet have a double dissolution trigger.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25488833-29277,00.html

Johns pulls in big ratings for Nine
AAP
May 15, 2009 06:43pm

SUSPENDED television personality Matthew Johns has delivered the Nine Network a win in ratings on his way out the door.

Johns was today stood down indefinitely from his on-air commitments with the network, more than a week after he was outed as a participant in a 2002 group sex incident involving a 19-year-old woman in New Zealand.

At the time, Johns was playing for the Cronulla Sharks, and the ABC's Four Corners revealed other Sharks players were also involved.

After being stood down by Nine, Johns and his wife Trish recorded an interview with Tracy Grimshaw, aired on A Current Affair (ACA) on Wednesday night.

Johns, who struggled with his emotions during a grilling lasting more than 20 minutes, used the interview to apologise to the woman at the centre of the incident, but said she was a "willing participant''.

His wife said she was "horrified and disgusted'' by his actions, but that his greatest crime was infidelity.

The frank interview attracted 1.372 million viewers for the show, above rival Seven Network program Today Tonight's 1.356 million viewers.

The ratings reflected a huge boost on ACA audience figures of the previous Wednesday, when just 1.094 million tuned in.

The show was the fourth most popular program across all timeslots on Wednesday, after Thank God You're Here, Seven News and Spicks and Specks.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2569625.htm

MARK COLVIN: The Federal Treasurer had his moment in the spotlight last night as he delivered his second Budget.

But today he's had to share the attention with an Opposition determined to portray the Government as economically irresponsible.

The Government has defended the strategy, including the Treasury's predictions of a return to growth at over four per cent in three years' time.

The Coalition has criticised the high deficits in the years ahead, and the mountain of debt.

But it's not yet saying whether it's prepared to back the Budget's spending cuts.

Chief political correspondent, Lyndal Curtis, reports.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The day after the night before and the Prime Minister is up for the fight.

KEVIN RUDD: The Government welcomes the debate on debt and deficit.

LYNDAL CURTIS: His Treasurer didn't seem so keen last night, not mentioning the $58 billion deficit once in speech. An omission the Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull was happy to highlight.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: So horrifying is that deficit that the Treasurer last night could not bring himself to utter the words.

LYNDAL CURTIS: But two can play the game of ignoring inconvenient truths. The shadow treasurer Joe Hockey put together a video attacking Labor for racking up deficits and debt last night.

JOE HOCKEY: Labor has lost control of Australia's public finances. We have gone from record surpluses to record deficits in record speed. Labor has combined…

LYNDAL CURTIS: But not once in the five-and-a-half minutes of voice over and graphs did he mention the global financial crisis or any role the world recession may have played in Australia's economic circumstances.

But the global downturn and how fast Australia can recover from the impact of it was very much at the heart of today's debate about the Budget forecasts and assumptions.

The Budget assumes economic growth will strengthen to four-and-a-half per cent in the two years from July 2011. It's a change in how Treasury assumes growth based on the experience of recovery from the recession in the '80s and '90s.

Some say that's optimistic and Malcolm Turnbull's in that camp.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: There is enormous scepticism about these growth forecasts; the idea that we would suddenly snap out of this downturn into seven years of above trend growth at four-and-a-half per cent per annum.

LYNDAL CURTIS: The Prime Minister, though, has faith in the forecasters.

KEVIN RUDD: These Treasury advisers are independent hard-headed individuals who have advised independently the previous Australian government as well.

There are a handful of potential triggers that have been rejected once by the Senate, but they are not a stellar line up: mainly the ill-fated FuelWatch legislation and the horse disease levy response bills.