DAYS VOLUME FIVE

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

THE AWAKENING

There would have to be an adjustment in lifestyle, someone said, and he just sighed. Good enough would never be good enough. There was no use trying to please anyone anymore, jumping at shadows. He had forgotten, or had it beaten out of him, that he had the capacity to turn things around. Like many humans, their abilities were leached from them, battered into some kind of conformity.

But in Australia a funny thing had happened on the way to the Apocalypse.

The change of Prime Minister from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull had switched the mood remarkably quickly; and a tone of optimism, or acceptance, was back. No longer groaning under the lash of rigorous rectitude, people were no longer ashamed to be who they were. They weren't the most sophisticated creatures on Earth. They weren't the best informed, or the best looking. But they could laugh with a certain ease that had been lacking; and so it was, led from the top, a simple change in terminology, emphasis, personality, and the country changed with it.

Labor had been having a good old go at Turnbull's wealth, which was ridiculous, because all he had done was achieve what many Australians would like to achieve, a harbour view, sweeping lawns, a stable family, position, wealth.

And those pointing the finger, the Labor politicians, were in the top 1% of income earners in the country. It was truly ridiculous, and backfired as it should.

"I look forward to the day when you're Prime Minister," he had once said to Malcolm, at a function in Woollahra for John Olsen, regarded by some as Australia's best artist. Olsen's son owned a swanky gallery in the upmarket Sydney suburb. Queen Street, Woollahra.

"Not much chance of that, John," had come the reply.

Well none of it mattered. Malcolm had finally achieved his destiny. And what many viewed as a ghastly trio, Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, Kevin Andrews, had been promptly relegated to history.

Largely, it would have to be said, unlamented.

It had all, in retrospect, happened very quickly.

He could hear them high up, the elated passenger, the excitement, and even the pilot, seasoned as he was, was in a buoyant mood. Everything is flowing in the right direction; you are where you're meant to be; would you stop thinking about things that should never be public? Knock him from his perch, someone thought, but the tide had turned.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/10/16/wile-e-coyote-moment/

Nevertheless, Labor clearly hoped the nation’s millionaire PM would be the most prospective sitting duck this week, as it tried for the third time in recent political history to use the politics of envy to its advantage.

Class warfare didn’t work for either former Labor leader Mark Latham or Treasurer Wayne Swan, yet this didn’t deter former Sussex Street bovver-boy Sam Dastyari who tried the tactic again this week.

Senator Dastyari led a smear campaign against the PM, ostensibly about Mr Turnbull’s investments having a connection to the Cayman Islands tax haven, but actually hoping to foment voter resentment over the PM’s wealth.

The PM finally belled this cat after Labor insisted on devoting much of the week’s question time to the matter, suggesting if Mr Shorten wished to wear a sandwich board telling voters that “Mr Turnbull has a lot of money”, he should feel free to do so, although “I think people know that”.

Monday, 19 October 2015

BLACK SWANS

The impact of the Highly Improbable seemed about right.

"You are under my protection," the old man said, author of Abduction to the Ninth Planet.

And that was when he relaxed; and did the work he had to do.

But it was after that, after he had finished, that nothing made sense and he was more lost than ever.

There should have been a direction, an easy path, but instead he just regretted the loss of a base, the confusion he felt at so many things, the torment that would not let go. But most of all the loss of a base; a home.

"They were the military, we're here to clean up their mess," said one.

But they always reported back, and he didn't trust anyone, and so he just went into hiding; being something he was not, someone who was not, and walked the beach.

In Vietnam he broke into a heat prickling rash.

In Australia they had gone quiet, there was no more pursuit, or minimal pursuit. A problem shared is a problem halved, a problem recognised is a problem resolved. He didn't know about that. But he knew there were swirling days of discontent.

And everything would come out reaching. And the quiet walks churned inside him. And the black swans, protective spirits of old, were barely present. And the ache had set in all over again. And there was no solution. It was impossible to clean up the past, and he could not reorient to the future.

And so he just kept going. Follow the path, persevere, they said, but he couldn't see the path and his heart sank further with every passing day. It was a ridiculous torment. As if bright cheer was not just around the corner; as if a myriad of solutions did not present themselves at every turn.

He would pick up the phone. And do what had to be done.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/fairfax-ipsos-poll-malcolm-turnbull-puts-coalition-ahead-20151017-gkbt8y

The Coalition has surged to a commanding lead over Labor under the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull whose own personal ratings have soared to heights not seen since Kevin Rudd was at his zenith.

In a crushing poll for the Labor opposition, Mr Turnbull also beats Bill Shorten in every one of 10 positive character attributes, trouncing him in terms of trust, competency, strength and vision, and even taking away the Labor leader's long-held lead on social issues.

The Prime Minister is the first leader to best his rival lead in all 10 attributes since they were first tested 20 years ago.

The latest Fairfax/Ipsos poll, the first taken since Mr Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott a month ago, shows the Coalition leading Labor on a two-party-preferred basis by 53 per cent to 47 per cent. This is the largest lead the Coalition has held in the poll since it won the September 2013 election by the same margin.

Sunday, 18 October 2015

TO THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION

He hadn't made the most of his time in Hanoi. But something was telling him to start up the blog again, and so here it was. Once the book Terror in Australia was finished, he hadn't known what to do with himself, or quite why he was in Vietnam. Part of him had never expected to return; that he would fall promptly on his feet, find some job, a glorious house by the river; and never return.

But he was no networker, and so instead of making himself known, he had done everything he could to be invisible, contained within a single square block, abandoning even walks to the park; just going around and around, sleeping, despite his natural claustrophobia, in crowded dorms to avoid the marauding empaths, doing everything he could to suppress his natural abilities, to avoid detection. His kind had been hunted to the edge of extinction, not only on this planet, and he wasn't going to be found by anyone, no professional, military trained operatives, no one. He didn't care how mad such thoughts might make him appear.

"He would have been welcome," a voice said; and he promptly replied: "I didn't know who to trust."

The only image, the only shout out loud statement he had wanted to make at the time, was that before this species was even born, in a world of dinosaurs, they had survived as the tiniest of mammals; and that had required a high degree of avoidance.

They could laugh at him now. He didn't care.

And so instead of doing what was expected of him, what, perhaps, he should have done, he just became invisible. Glanced across rooftops; and could not take in what was happening inside the houses. It was the language for a start. Vietnamese bore little relationship to other languages that he either knew or had some familiarity with; and their way of thinking, at least in the North, was very different to what he was accustomed to.

And so he did what many people did in their own lives; found little snail tracks through a city, familiar pool tables, familiar situations. He didn't eat for several days; and the loss of his own place in the world, the loss of his home or what had passed for a home, despite the over-surveillance, meant that once again he was on the roam, disheveled, upset, angry at the fact that he had been so closely tail-gaited it amounted to bullying. Nothing was going to stop him. And nothing did. He did not respond well to bullying. He had not acquired the resistance he should have.

But there was no use crying about it not being fair, because it would never be fair. None of it mattered now. Everything was an evasion. There would be a new recourse, or no recourse, and that was simply that. Time passed all too quickly in such frail frames; and the next one was not yet ready.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/typhoon-koppu-makes-landfall-in-the-philippines/6863662

Typhoon Koppu has slammed into the main Philippines island of Luzon, killing at least one person and displacing more than 23,000 people, disaster agency officials say.

Key points

Typhoon Koppu strikes the Philippines killing at least one person and displacing 23,000 people
At least eight people have been reported missing as several villages are flooded
Koppu is moving slowly and is expected to linger over the island for three days

The category-four typhoon made landfall around 1:00am (4:00am AEDT) on Sunday near the town of Casiguran in Aurora province, where it remained near-stationary for seven hours and whipped the area with gusts of up to 210 kilometres per hour.

A teenager was crushed to death as the powerful typhoon tore down trees and houses and unleashed landslides and floods across a wide area of the Philippines, injuring at least four others.

At least eight people have been reported missing and rescue operations are underway in the rice-farming province of Nueva Ecija where rivers burst their banks and flooded several villages, regional authorities said.