Thursday, November 29, 2007

Monday, November 26, 2007

One final spray

on our recently-deposed, unlamented, inglorious Prime Minister.
"In The Sun-Herald on November 18, John Howard nominated the putting asunder of political correctness and the celebration of our Anglo-Celtic past as the pinnacle of his social, indeed national, achievement. He was nominating as a virtue political incorrectness of a kind that gave some the right to speak and behave towards others in terms disparaging of their colour, religion, class or social standing. In a country of immigrants, such a view emanating from the Prime Minister is social poison."

"The defeated Liberal leader appealed to a meaner side of the national character which is not generous: an Australia that defied the world on climate change, and sought refuge from its own history on race and the rights of its indigenous people. At its worst the Howard government represented a distasteful reaction to modernity, and its repeated exploitation of this to achieve electoral success offered an unhealthy example to the political right around the world. That is why Mr Howard's defeat has a significance that runs beyond Australia. The politics of progress beat the politics of retreat."

"Mr Howard, who almost certainly has lost his seat of Bennelong, said nothing publicly yesterday. His only duty was a private function for staff at Kirribilli House. As the Liberals drowned their sorrows on Saturday night, one former senior Liberal adviser blamed the result on "the fucking Chinese", an apparent reference to Asian voters in Bennelong turning against Mr Howard."

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Saturday, November 24, 2007

I remember when I was young......

elections used to be between the socialist left & the conservative right, between the revolutionaries & the reactionaries. But today, where it's election day in Australia, it's between what CNN quite correctly describes as the centre-left & the centre-right. The respective political party leaders tend almost to morph into the same person, it's been a me-too election, nobody wishing to offend that central self-centred majority of voters on whom both sides depend.

However, I'm glad the centre-left have emerged victorious. There is a chance that they may change the direction of this country. They've promised to withdraw from Iraq (but not Afghanistan); they've promised to ratify the Kyoto protocols on climate change; hopefully the treatment of the indigenous inhabitants, the traditional owners of this land, will improve; hopefully the gap between the haves & have-nots will halt its growth & even begin to reverse. I hope.

& I hope that maybe now Australia will become a republic.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Pissed-off internectivity issues hay(na)ku

Waited
a week.
Received new disk.

Right platform but
for the
wrong

modem.
Now I’ll
have to wait

another week. Fuck-
wits. Fuck-
wits2.

4.
10. 100.
1000. 10000. .

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Genji Monogatari IX

Confirm is periodic, historic
drama loh! Especially about
the different Dynasties. I went
to see Deep Purple with both
hands curled around a stick of
flame-tempered hardwood
or maybe it was the silent
u in biscuit. There's confirm.
No doubt about the history, its
unmistakable grace & mastery
of brilliant color, the syntax
may leave a little to be desired,
should allow rich, expressive
statements in contrast to
the previous constructions.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Today the
postman brought
me an enquiry
from Schade &
Freud(e)
wondering how
my ego was
now it's been
downgraded
from super-
model status.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Genji Monogatari VIII: The Broom Tree

Sometimes he guessed
correctly, sometimes
not; but he preferred
to do such things him-
self rather than call in
the others who were
paid to do the tasks. A
way of adding drama,
of turning emails into
fortune cookies, to make
an inside verse out of the
imagined message. He spent
little time with his bride.

This is justice?

An appeal court in Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of lashes and added a jail sentence as punishment for a woman who was gang-raped.

According to the Arab News newspaper, the 19-year-old woman, who is from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority, was gang-raped 14 times in an attack in an eastern province a year-and-a-half ago.

The young woman, who is married, said she had met with a male acquaintance who had promised to give her back an old photograph of herself. After she met her acquaintance in his car in Qatif, a gang of seven men then attacked and raped both of them.

Seven men from the majority Sunni community were convicted of kidnapping—apparently because prosecutors could not prove rape—and sentenced to prison terms ranging from just under a year to five years. The judges reportedly ignored evidence from a mobile phone video in which the attackers recorded the assault.

But the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man. The male victim was also given 90 lashes as punishment.

On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence.

The rapists also had their prison terms doubled. But the sentences are still low considering they could have faced the death penalty.

The Arab News quoted an official as saying the judges had decided to punish the girl for trying to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.

The victim's lawyer was suspended from the case, has had his licence to work confiscated, and faces a disciplinary session.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

A balcony is in the dark.       A man is sharpening a razor by the balcony. The man looks at the sky through the window-panes and sees ...       A fleecy cloud moving toward the full moon.       Then a young woman's head, her eyes wide open. A razor blade moves toward one of the eyes.       The fleecy cloud passes across the face of the moon.       Then the razor blade passes through the young woman's eye, slicing it in two.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

an asshole of a day

Am writing this in an ergonomically unsound corner of the main downstairs rooms. To use the mouse I have to reach almost behind myself, the room lights are at the back of me & cast a shadow which blocks the keyboard, I've a small table lamp that is resting on my right shoulder & giving me sunburn, the screen's at the end of my nose.

Why am I suffering so? Because I had to go back on the old pc & this was the only place I could put it. It's been playing up for a little while, too much on it I suppose, & then the anti-virus software froze which meant that scans couldn't be carried out when you opened Word & any document inside it which meant that I couldn't get into it to finish off the remaining three books of this round, plus a book review for Eileen which is, conservatively, six months past promise date. Managed to get everything onto a memory stick, all 2.8 gig of it, so there's nothing lost, but nothing new.

So I took the day off work to put together the new beast I'd received recently - ah, birthdays - got it set up where the old one was, loaded Office, transferred all the Word files safely, went to set up the Internet connection &, as they say, shit happened. We've got one of those home wi-fi things, where you can run a number of machines from anywhere in the house at the same time. We've stuck the software on at least three machines with no trouble. But the new one has Vista, & that means the cd with the program on is apparently out of date. So I had to put the bits & pieces of this machine back together again in the only available space so I could download the update plus see if there was anything in the bowels of it that might help me set up the other. Transferred the files via stick to the other machine, tried to install again, got the occasional blue light to say it was alive, machine tells me there's a network that's got a strong signal but it's an unnamed network & requires a name & it doesn't like the ones I've been giving. Mind you, I started with "Fred", now it's up to "fucking asshole".

I've been trying for 12 hours now, & that's enough for one day. Will see if I can get a cd tomorrow rather than try & point the installer to places on the pc. If I can't get it going, then I'm buying an axe. If I can find a compatible one.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

when beauty is only foreskin deep

Had somebody asked me if I'd ever had cosmetic surgery, until today the answer would have been a definite no.

Then I read this news item:
"Cosmetic surgical procedures have been banned in South Australian public hospitals. Health Minister John Hill says it will free up hospital beds and operating theatres for other patients.....the ban includes liposuction, facelifts and circumcision of boys."
Oy vey!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Uttered in passing during forlorn fornication between Claudia and Sandro, l'avventura is also impertinent Italian parlance for the serial sexual adventures of one-night stands, the terra incognito of strangers feigning intimacy as they try to find love without moral compasses.

today's oxymoron

scientific whaling

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Saturday, November 10, 2007

This town is so small that private conversation outside one's immediate family soon becomes public knowledge. I no longer speak to people, not even to give strangers directions when they ask. I am offended they take me for a local.

Currently

The AC/DC cover
band blasting up
the driveway
from the Rugby Club
at the bottom of the
hill does not swing
in either direction.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Issue seven of Otoliths is now online

Issue seven of Otoliths has just gone live. It's as eclectic as ever, but that means there's something there for everybody. Lined up in this issue are Sheila E. Murphy, Nico Vassilakis, Anny Ballardini, Vernon Frazer, Matina L. Stamatakis, Geof Huth, Matt Hetherington, derek beaulieu, Andrew Taylor, Nigel Long, Marko Niemi, Michael Steven, Anne Heide, Mark Prejsnar, Márton Koppány, Jim Leftwich, Catherine Daly, Bill Drennan, Julian Jason Haladyn, Alexander Jorgensen, Jeff Harrison, Paul Siegell, Robert Gauldie, Martin Edmond, Raymond Farr, John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett & Friends, Andrew Topel & John M. Bennett, Andrew Topel, Mark Cunningham, Jeff Crouch, Randall Brock, Eileen R. Tabios, Jordan Stempleman, Daniel f. Bradley, Lars Palm, harry k stammer, Karri Kokko, Katrinka Moore, Tom Hibbard, dan raphael & David-Baptiste Chirot. It's what Hieronymous Bosch dreamt about, a Garden of Earthly Delights.