Times At A Lost

*

Hard eyed girls served him drinks in the girly bars, their hands massaging him like black moths. He didn't like any of it. The boys were out for a drink. It was their world. Naked appetites. Things not seen. Rooms. Places above the stairs. Levels of desperation. Hard, black eyes which never smiled. All was a farce. All was different. Beyond this point there will be no memory. He was shadowed by something he could not see. He was walking hand in hand with someone who simply wasn't there. He courted psychosis and let it die away, like an ancient breed. The world had become a very complicated place.

He was skipping across fate lines because there was no choice. There were shadows everywhere, in the pot holed streets. Wealth cut swaves through the indigenous poor. Surely there were more important things than drunken westerners stumbling into bars, begging to be fleeced. There were other ways of being. Other paths. He was shot through with envy and happy to be alive; fragile, questing. There weren't any simple solutions. He shadowed everywhere, the paths of others, ignoble professions. Aqui estoy, he said in Spanish, here I am, such a talented man in such a degrading occupation. And yet it had once seemed such a noble occupation, the only one. Telling other people's stories.

Now the stories had burnt to cinders and he had moved on. Spiders moved across pages and rewrote words. Things shifted fundamentally. If there was a beginning there had to be an end. But in the great silence at the end of time who was to know what was real and what was not. He was heading down to Sihanoukville soon; down to the beach, to be quiet, to gather all the different threads that had brought him to this strange place. The gardens might be manicured, but beyond the walls life was harsh. He looked out and beyond, and could not see. There was no solution. There was no way forward. He could be free. He could be safe. He could be anything he chose to be.

The crowded Sky Train sped across the darkened lots and the snarling traffic far beneath. He had entered another realm. The future was always going to be another country. He didn't want, much, to be calm about anything. His stomach was lead and chaos; and all things had come down to this. There was no way out. He would soon enter another realm. Become a different person. It was possible to ceaselessly reinvent. Shadows stopped at the fringe of everything. Maybe there was a light after all. Were any of these stories worth telling. The newspapers were full of amazing tales; every last one of them a world within a world. It wasn't too late.

Things were closing in. The alternatives were closing down. His lungs gasped at the slightest exercises. He danced, briefly, on the floor of the bar, All the Single Ladies, All the Single Ladies, Beyonce. My kids like this song, he said, how pathetic is that. The girls joined in, because they were paid to join in. Anything to humour the Westerners. The big tipping westerners. They clapped, but they didn't even really know what they were clapping to; the rhythms complex and alien to their ear. But anything to please. Mister, mister. All was lost. He finished dancing and sat back on the bar stool; surrounded, as always, by the black moths patting at his flesh; money talks, only money talks. Soon, he would just have to escape.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61R03720100228

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's Labor government has lost the lead it has held over the conservative opposition since coming to power in 2007, a poll published Sunday showed.

The Taverner poll, published in Sydney's Sun-Herald newspaper, showed Labor and the conservative coalition running equal at 50-50, once other parties were eliminated under Australia's system of transferable voting.

However, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd remained the preferred prime minister, with 53 percent saying he was the better choice for the job, compared to 40 percent for opposition leader Tony Abbott. An election is expected by the end of the year.

The poll of 609 voters was conducted in New South Wales state Wednesday and Thursday nights, as Rudd's government was struggling with the fallout from a controversial home insulation scheme linked to several deaths.

Friday, Rudd demoted the man in charge of the scheme, Environment Minister Peter Garrett, handing responsibility for it to other ministers.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/peter-garrett-barefoot-and-broken-after-demotion/story-e6frf7jo-1225835104165

A DEJECTED Peter Garrett yesterday insisted he would stay on in politics, despite being demoted for his role in the $2.5 billion home insulation fiasco.

The Environment Minister was photographed outside his Randwick home in Sydney, looking miserable, barefoot and dressed down in tracksuit pants and a grey T-shirt.

Stepping outside his house to give his dog Woody a quick comfort stop, a polite Mr Garrett declined to answer any questions about the bungled insulation project or how he felt about his demotion.

But his spokesman said he fully intended to contest the next election in his seat of Kingsford Smith.

"The Minister fully intends both on continuing to represent Kingsford Smith and serving in the Cabinet as the Minister (for) Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts," the spokesman said.

But some of his caucus colleagues say Mr Garrett - a former rock star who fronted the hugely successful Midnight Oil - is privately considering an exit from politics.

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Caucus sources were putting it about last week that Mr Garrett had discussed the option of not standing again with close friends.

They said Mr Garrett's wife in particular was pushing for him to get out as she grew increasingly appalled at the humiliating treatment being meted out to him.

Recruited by former Labor leader Mark Latham as a star candidate in the 2004 federal election, Mr Garrett has always struggled with the impossible task of melding mainstream political reality with the strong conservation and human rights views he espoused as lead singer of the Oils.

He was named Environment Minister - but did not have responsibility for the headline-grabbing area of climate change, which was given to Penny Wong.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Friday stripped him of further responsibility following revelations that Mr Garrett had been warned at least 19 times about the risks of defective and dangerous work emerging within the home insulation scheme - linked to a spate of house fires and the deaths of four young installers.

Some of his caucus colleagues say he should resign for the good of the Government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/asia/28thailand.html

BANGKOK (AP) — The former determination after a court ordered the seizure of $1.4 billion of his assets.

But analysts and editorials speculated that the Supreme Court’s decision not to seize all $2.3 billion of Mr. Thaksin’s frozen assets would at least temporarily ease political conflicts that have plagued the country for the past four years.

The court ruled Friday that Mr. Thaksin, who made a fortune in telecommunications, abused his power to enrich himself and his family while in office.

In a statement issued Saturday, Mr. Thaksin, who is in self-imposed exile in Dubai, said the ruling would not stop him from trying to lead a nonviolent struggle against the government.

In possible fallout from the court’s decision, a small explosive shattered the glass doors of a branch of Bangkok Bank in the Thai capital on Saturday night, but it caused no casualties.

No one claimed responsibility, but the bank has been the target of protests by Mr. Thaksin’s supporters, who associate it with figures they blame for Mr. Thaksin’s ouster in a military coup in 2006.

The Bangkok Post said Saturday in an editorial that “now that the issue of Thaksin’s billions has been legally settled, it is time to give the wounds a chance to heal.”