You’d think there’d be millions of songs about mothers; until you thought again, and remembered that most songs are about lovers. Even the weather is a much easier topic for a song than mothers. How I got onto song themes was by listening to Bob Dylan’s first radio program on XM Satellite, driving up from the south coast late Sunday afternoon.
Author Archive for cs
Michael Sexton from NSW has kicked off in the six day test match between the All-States and the Feds that began in Canberra today. The PSA is talking up the All-States’ book, as is Qld IR Minister Barton. Also from the sidelines, Bomber Beazer hopes the referees will adjudicate fairly, but has raised the spectre of further mean and tricky moves from the opposing captain of rodent-like appearance, even in the event of a famous All-States’ victory. It’s very early days, of course, but go the All-States; go you good things!
Update: Rodent-appointed Referee Haynes has shown early signs of getting stroppy with the All-States team, provoking dark off-field rumblings from Coaches Beattie and Carpenter.
… you’ve nothing to lose, but free laughs. Follow Tim’s campaign to get righties to use the ChickenHawk as an emblem and call themselves the Fighting 101st Keyboardists. Will RWDB’s embrace their inner ChickenHawk? As the nation waits, the RWDB’s are yuking the story right up, as usual. Laughs aplenty, care of the funny side of politics. C’mon humourless lefties; loosen up sobersides. Join your RWDB brothers and sisters in their heady, gay, frivolity. You gotta just love their uniform. If chickens go cluck, what does a duck that you pluck? Would a plastic ChickenHawk be more popular? Why exactly do Chickenhawks wear open-toed sandals? RWDB funsters explain their bird fetish. A plastic bird speaks out. The turkey found innocent, after all: startling new evidence. All this and more …
He’s been released, and a spokesman for the band said he’s fine.
Codicil: And blow me down but this makes 100 posts at LP for me! And how nice, to reach the ton with a happy one! *waves bat in air* More congrats - in fact, double any congrats, if congrats were to be in order for the dubious honour of achieving chattering class milestones - to Kim, who I notice has just brought up her LP double-century!! *Kim waves in air whatever it is that lefty arty self-identifying lesbian identified bisexuals wave in the air on such occasions, if indeed they wave anything at all*
Is there anything more cynical than a politician seeking to score political points on a sensitive issue by accusing another politician of seeking to score political points on a sensitive issue? OK, yes: any politician in the Howard government calling on anyone to apologise for anything.
In the meantime, I heard Greg Combet address the issue itself on the radio this morning: here’s the link, and the guts are over the fold:
One of the world’s greatest economists, John Kenneth Galbraith, has died. He was one of the greatest in my view, not due to his achievements within the discipline, but because his books were readable outside of it, most notably The Affluent Society & The New Industrial Society.
The Howard government: file under “getting the simple, easy, basic, decent, straightforward things right“.
The author of the popular Sydney blog, The Daily Flute, has quit. As we know, you have to be careful about blog-resignations, for they frequently aren’t. Yet this move looks a tad definite. A pal of mine, Flutey had a classically successful blogging career. His no bollocks approach cut through, not only to many readers, but also to regular publication in the New Matilda and the Sydney Morning Herald, and appearances on television. And now he’s gone, and the Oz blogosphere is appreciably less than what it was. This is inevitable in a medium where the obvious challenges can readily exhaust. Still, it’s curious how you become attached to blog-personalities, and I trust we’ll find the ‘tester in comments, from time to time.
Elsewhere: On a more cheery note, longtime leading Oz blogger, Tim Dunlop, has finally mended the Road to Surfdom. Pop over and check out the striking new black and gold colour scheme and sundry blog mod cons.
Still buzzing from Tuesday night with the Stones and hungry for more live music, I popped along to the Basement on Wednesday to catch the French-Canadian artist, Daniel Lanois. No mainstream media outlet, it seems, has seen fit to review Dan’s gigs, so here’s a link to his own site. I’m not very familiar with the guy’s music, yet he’s one of the world’s most esteemed producers, with credits that run from U2 (the landmark Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby), through to Emmylou Harris (the classic Wrecking Ball), and on to Bobby Dylan himself (Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind).
Let me introduce him to you through Dylan. It was Bono who, late one night, after a case of Guinness, rang Dan and put Bob on the phone (”Who’s that on the phone at this hour?”, I imagine Dan yelling to his partner from the bedroom, “It’s bloody Bono; he wants you to have a chat to Bob Dylan; they’re both as pissed as newts; will I tell him to ring back in the morning?”). They agreed to get together, and the story of them recording Oh Mercy is perhaps the most gripping part of Dylan’s Chronicles. Here is Dylan, describing their first meeting, in a New Orleans courtyard:
When I hear the drummer,
Get me in the groove.
When I hear the guitar,
Makes me wanna move.
Can you feel the magic,
Floatin’ in the air?
Can you feel the magic?
Oh, yeah.
Nearly time to start getting ready.
Update: The Stones are in great form. Reviews are varied, depending not on how folks received the band, but on the stadium. Our seats were in front, yet almost as far back as possible. The sound was good and, although the binoculars were in demand, I was pretty happy … until they got to “Miss You” and the stage began to move. The centre of the main stage was, it turned out, perched on a truck, which drove into the centre of the stadium, as the band played on, where it joined a couple of fixed wings to create another decently sized smaller stage. This was too much for me and one of my mates, and we made a break to hunt out better spots. By the time we had luckily managed to upgrade to the half-way point (and probably a couple of hundred bucks), the truck was driving back, the Stones were driving “Honky Tonk Woman”, and everything was about perfect. As I said in comments, the highlight - perhaps influenced by said strategic seat upgrade - was “Paint It, Black” and “Sympathy” (set list here). An historical perspective? The 60,000 Olympic Stadium is a dud compared to the 20,000 Sydney Superdome, but the band is utterly undiminished. In fact, Keith and Ronnie were probably in the best form I’ve ever caught them, ripping at will and weaving all over the place. Even Keith’s vocals, sometimes raspingly forgettable, were strong. Charlie was a rock. Lisa Fischer was treat. Jagger was Jagger. I’m still buzzing. You can’t beat these guys: their song catalogue, their muscianship, their experience, their production resources. Long may they live, for we’ll never see their like again.
Channel 7 reminds me of following the NSW Waratahs. You start to think they can finally do it - you know, give the top-rating Channel 9 a full-blooded beating. Then, inexplicably, like the Tahs when they get to the top of the table, they drop the bloomin’ ball.
I’m conflicted about why I want Channel 9 to be raked at the bottom of the TV rating ruck. Is it tall poppy syndrome? Is it because Packer ruined much of the aesthetic of cricket? Is it because Ray, Mike, Tracy and all the rest of the 9 crew are such confected phonies? Is it because even a deadshit like tim blair can get a feed at the bottom of the Packer food-chain?
The great and glorious Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a bill yesterday that may be the beginning of the end of one of the biggest blots on the claim by the United States to be a civilised nation. I’m talking about the fact that, despite spending far more on healthcare than any other nation on earth, some 43 million US citizens still have no health insurance. According to the NYT, (GOP) Governor Romney will sign the complex bill that was passed overwhelmingly yesterday by the (Dem) legislature, the effect of which will be to leave less than 1 percent of the state’s population without coverage - making Massachusetts the first US state to achieve nigh-universal coverage. I love the smell of progress in the evening.
Congrats to the reinstated workers and the trade union movement for a successful media campaign. But what happened? My guess is that the employer stuffed up the process, such that the government intervened to head off the risk that the first case would fail. Brad Norington suggests the opposite, i.e. that the government intervened to head off the risk that the sacking would be upheld, which would have confirmed that the floodgates had opened. This implies that the firm was persuaded to reverse on a political basis. Yep, it’s as clear as mud.
Mark is soliciting bloggers for a survey on their motivations, a subject on which I essayed a long time ago, in a way that still holds, for me at least.
My essay is too long to read again. Do you find that your attachment to your writing goes through phases? Once my writing lifts off, I can hardly put it down, and it moves every time I go to it, and I feel possessed by it, until eventually it settles, and I can read it without wishing to change anything, and then it hardens, and then it goes away from me completely, and I never want to see it again.
When I’m forced to go back, sometimes I cringe at this, or am delighted by that, but always I must be forced. I think this aversion is because, on the one hand, I imagine I internalise past pieces, and don’t need to go back unless I’m chasing detail; on the other, to a deeper extent than a reader, I don’t just go back to the writing. I also automatically go back to the time when I wrote, which is a bigger deal - like looking at family photographs, which I also do only rarely.
But I digress. The question I’m trying to answer is: what’s my motivation for commenting, and occasionally blogging, post-running my own blog?
Cole has asked for sworn statements from the Foreign Affairs Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. Once the statements arrive, the assisting Mr Agius or any of the 30 lawyers representing parties can apply to cross-examine the ministers. All tonight’s news reports have concluded that this will happen. As noted last night, Jack’s defence against the terms of reference cover-up charge - that is, ‘Cole is free to find the government guilty’ - struck me as a touch rash. Effectively, Jack boxed Cole in (after Cole had offered up a poor defence in any event, according to Ken Parish).
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