Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
When the Thai economy was booming in the early 1990s, construction started on a 60km high-speed elevated train and motorway link from central Bangkok to the international airport at Don Mueang. However when the currency collapsed in 1997-98, work was abandoned.
These stained concrete fragments (pictured) are all that remains of the Bangkok Elevated Road and Train System (BERTS) or Hopewell project. They line the old diesel-fuelled railway through northern Bangkok like a modernist Stonehenge.
Even though there’s still 3 days of 2007 left, I’m way behind the pace. Most media outlets issued their 2007 in Review pieces well before Christmas. That means they missed such “minor” stories as the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Oops.
Still, I’m going to risk further irrelevance and ask what, for you, was the biggest event in Australia for 2007. Was it…?
Or something else? Please go to the website to vote, and add further suggestions in the comments.
Previous results: Yes, more people said Christmas was “too much effort” than any other single answer. However “a glorious celebration of Our Saviour’s birth” did score 24% in a late come-back.
[poll id=”16″]
John Howard, during his time as prime minister, talked a lot about the rule of law. If we are a nation of laws then those laws must, presumably, reflect what we believe about ourselves as a nation. As people. As human beings. As Australians.
Howard, quite correctly, sees a century of the rule of law as one of the great achievements of Australian federation. And yet, under his watch, fundamental legal principles were eroded. Laws made as part of the so-called War on Terror introduced imprisonment without trial, secret evidence, searches without warrant…
With these conflicting thoughts in mind, I opened the pages of Julian Burnside’s book Watching Brief: reflections on human rights, law, and justice while leaving Australia for the first time.
As dusk fell somewhere over the Timor Sea, I imagined the horror of traversing that ocean below in an over-crowded, leaky refugee boat only to be hauled off to a concentration camp a quarter of the world away. Meanwhile, I ordered another brandy and Mr Burnside provided me with a concise, clearly-written explanation of just why I’d been so angry with the Howard government, and so angry with a weak and ineffectual opposition for allowing it to happen.
A pair of purple women’s knickers lies discarded in a laneway in Enmore, Sydney. “There you go,” I say. “Give ’em a wash and you’re right!”
“Ewwww!” is the reply. But why? If the knickers are washed, then they’re clean. Can there possibly be anything worse on these “found” knickers that isn’t already in, say, a 3-year-old’s poo-filled pants — which likewise get washed and worn again? In with the rest of your washing, no less!
At first I thought this essay on lying language would be the usual stuff — war deaths called “collateral damage”, that sort of thing. It does start off that way, but takes a delicious turn mid-way.
A Christmas message in song from George W Bush, Leader of the Free World.
Hat tip to Peter Black.