It's time to get to know PM Kev

HOWARD'S gone, Maxine triumphed and McLeod's Daughters has been axed. Life just doesn't get sweeter than this. Unless of course, George Bush chokes on his own foot.

But how about Julia Gillard? Hands up who wants to be president of the Julia Gillard fan club? I can't look at that woman without wanting to burst into tears and give her a hug. Everyone's making a big deal about her being the first female deputy PM. I think it's far more significant that she's in such a powerful position despite the fact she has red hair, because everyone knows that people with red hair don't have souls. On Saturday night I was hoping Julia would say: "This is a victory for redheads, 'rangas and carrot tops everywhere."

So the question is "Who are we going to hate now?" If only Tony Abbott became Liberal leader. I can't really hate Malcolm Turnbull yet, I just like laughing at him in the same way I would laugh at a dog with a bucket on its head.

Highlights of the evening? Kerry O'Brien making the gaffe about "a swing to the ABC" in Bennelong. And Kerry's inability to repress his jubilation when it looked as if the Max Factor was going to make it over the line. And Julia, when they cut back to her after Rudd gushed about what a great deputy she was going to be. Such a disciplined, restrained woman so overwhelmed with emotion that the tears just welled. What a moment! And could Maxine's smile be any wider? Her joy seemed not about her but about bigger things. Justice, the people, fairness. Maxine and Julia were the luminous bridesmaids who may one day be the brides.

On Sunday morning I woke and felt like a woman in love. I felt buzzy and post-coital. Do you reckon Kev got lucky? It was a full moon that night. I bet there are going to be a swag of election babies born in August — all with the middle name Kevin. I'm beside myself that I'll be living in an Australia with a prime minister called Kev. If only we had a deputy called Narelle.

Despite drinking my body weight in tart fuel (cosmopolitan in a can) on Saturday night and only having five hours' sleep, I did a victory lap around the People's Republic of Moreland in my KEVIN07 T-shirt on Saturday morning. It was delicious. Horns beeped and people gave my T-shirt the thumbs up. A large section of Lygon Street was closed off for tramline work. As I ran past a group of 30 workmen, they downed their tools and applauded. It was a beautiful moment. I could have run for hours on an empty belly, a clear head and a heart just bursting.

I recalled the day after Howard won in 1996 going for a walk in the morning and thinking to myself: "Who are these people I am sharing my country with?" It's been a long 11½ years.

My mate Caitlin (who wore her Kevin 07 T-shirt all Saturday and slept in it that night) sent me an email on Sunday morning saying: "I feel like hiring a signwriter to paint the sky with 'John Howard, the people have spoken, now rack off!' "

I have to admit thinking last week that if Howard lost (did that really happen or was I dreaming?) I would drive up to Bennelong with a bunch of garlic and a stake to finish him off. But now he's been decimated I don't feel like that. I actually feel a bit sorry for him. I don't understand it either.

It's similar to bitter people who vow to take revenge on people from their past when they become successful.

But when they make it, they are so full of magnanimous love for all mankind all they can do is glow.

Is the election result just swapping one bunch of accountants and lawyers for another bunch of accountants and lawyers? Howard's gone but who is Rudd? A robot who goes to church? Or a passionate man with vision in the body of a diplomat?

Saturday night felt like 10 new year's eves. I feel as if I've started dating another man after being in an abusive relationship for 11 years. But who is this other man? It's as if we've had an intoxicating kiss in the kitchen but still haven't made it to the bedroom. Who knows what he's like between the sheets. Is he really conservative or is he into kinky stuff and toys? Will he be sweet and shower me with kisses or will he be unreachable and aloof but behind closed doors like it rough. Who cares? Ding-dong the witch is dead, the fat lady has sung and it was time after all. But time for what?

Catherine Deveny
The Age, November 28, 2007
Original at http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/11/27/1196036889510.html

Vale Bernie Banton

Asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton has died aged 61.

Banton was the public face of the campaign to win justice for victims of asbestos manufacturer James Hardie.

He rose to national prominence during the NSW Special Commission into James Hardie as a passionate advocate for victims and their families.

The Jackson report found that management at James Hardie had transferred asbestos liabilities from their parent company to under-funded subsidiaries, in an attempt to limit the future compensation claims of asbestos victims.

Following the release of the report in 2004, then Premier Bob Carr appointed Banton and ACTU Secretary Greg Combet to negotiate a settlement with the building products manufacturer.

It was a long and gruelling task that took nearly three years to finalise. The end result is a $4 billion fund to operate over forty years to provide compensation to asbestos victims and their families.

“Bernie has been there every day and has lent to this entire process a decency and humanity that was sorely needed,” Combet said once the job was completed.

CPSU National Secretary Stephen Jones, who formed part of the ACTU legal team supporting the negotiators paid tribute to the indefatigable campaigner.

“Bernie Banton was a great Australian, and a great friend. I miss him very much. The only good thing to say is that he is no longer suffering and his legacy will live on for all asbestos victims.”

As Vice President of the Asbestos Diseases Federation of Australia since 2002, Banton was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2005 for services to the community.

Born 1946, Bernie Banton had worked at the James Hardie factor in Camellia from 1968 to 1974 and subsequently diagnosed with an asbestos related pleural disease in 2000.

In August he was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, an aggressive form of stomach cancer.

He passed away at home early in the morning, surrounded by wife Karen and family.


Bernie Banton's family have accepted the NSW Governments offer of a state funeral. If you would like to leave a message of condolence here, we will pass it on to Karen and the family.

Last gasp

Another ordinary punting performance on Melbourne Cup day threatened to slide into the truly dire yesterday. As scripted, it came down to the last race.

Firstly, apologies for the lack of news from Grafton. Some computer difficulties have hampered regular reporting from the northern rivers front. More to come.

Back to the race that stops a nation.

After a week here campaigning, the running of The Cup gave us an opportunity to have a break, bet and a beer.

There had been some idle talk of handing out a YRAW mock sweep but the potential for some negative blow back put paid to those plans.

Just as the mainstream political campaign pauses to watch the nags go round at Flemington, so must we.

Andy and I agreed to kick in $50 each and take advantage of a combined betting pool. Detailed study of the form commenced and I phoned up good mate Jim Marr to get the good oil.

Both favourites Master O’Reilly and Purple Moon were rated as genuine chances. Jimmy also liked Princess Coup and Maybe Better, with Irish stayer Mahler getting a mention.

Ironically, the horse that generated the most discussion (in dismissing its chances) was the eventual winner Efficient, which had disappointed everyone so far this spring.

Later at the hotel across the road from the apartment, we set up shop in the front bar and jumped into the fifth race, armed with Jimmy’s ratings and our own meagre punting knowledge.

By the end of the sixth, we were thirty dollars down and threw everything into the big one with a spread of bets.

But the scratching of Maybe Better earlier in the day had thrown our plans into disarray.

Besides a couple of small bets to win on the two faves, we looked to the William’s trained Zipping with a solid each way.

Right stable, wrong horse.

Otherwise we boxed a few Trifectas and looked for the roughy in NZ’s Sculptor.

Right country, wrong horse.

Come three-fifteen and we were sunk. Not a sausage.

Take nothing away from Efficient. A brilliant ride, hitting the line strongly to power past Purple Moon. Truly memorable.

The eighth gave us our last chance to pull something out of the fire. But the racing gods were not smiling on us.

Andy departed. Feeling drunk and increasingly maudlin, I ignored the ninth and looked to the last race of the day and Jimmy’s ratings.

In a reckless act, I backed El Pauji to win with $40 of my own cash and settled in to watch the devastation.

By the time Race Ten approached, the odds on El Pauji had shortened considerably. It ended up winning comfortably and I trousered 250 pieces of the folding stuff.

It was a late and lucky escape to what could have been a worse than usual Cup bath.

Classic Journalism

In the media section of today's Australian, Tom Krause laments the demise of 'classic journalism' in a profile of veteran journalist Jimmy Breslin.

Krause reckons there's too much internet based research at the expense of getting out on the street and talking to ordinary folk - and this has a direct impact on the quality of today's writing.

He cites Breslin's 1963 piece for the New York Herald Tribune, covering the funeral of President Kennedy, as an example of a "well-chiselled columns" that "leave you weeping or laughing at the end."

Here is Breslin's piece and it lives up to the hype. And sorry Tom, I found it using Google.

Enjoy.

>>>

Digging JFK Grave Was His Honor
Jimmy Breslin
New York Herald Tribune, November 1963.

Washington -- Clifton Pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on Sunday, so when he woke up at 9 a.m., in his three-room apartment on Corcoran Street, he put on khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. His wife, Hettie, made bacon and eggs for him. Pollard was in the middle of eating them when he received the phone call he had been expecting. It was from Mazo Kawalchik, who is the foreman of the gravediggers at Arlington National Cemetery, which is where Pollard works for a living. "Polly, could you please be here by eleven o'clock this morning?" Kawalchik asked. "I guess you know what it's for." Pollard did. He hung up the phone, finished breakfast, and left his apartment so he could spend Sunday digging a grave for John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

When Pollard got to the row of yellow wooden garages where the cemetery equipment is stored, Kawalchik and John Metzler, the cemetery superintendent, were waiting for him. "Sorry to pull you out like this on a Sunday," Metzler said. "Oh, don't say that," Pollard said. "Why, it's an honor for me to be here." Pollard got behind the wheel of a machine called a reverse hoe. Gravedigging is not done with men and shovels at Arlington. The reverse hoe is a green machine with a yellow bucket that scoops the earth toward the operator, not away from it as a crane does. At the bottom of the hill in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Pollard started the digging.

Leaves covered the grass. When the yellow teeth of the reverse hoe first bit into the ground, the leaves made a threshing sound which could be heard above the motor of the machine. When the bucket came up with its first scoop of dirt, Metzler, the cemetery superintendent, walked over and looked at it. "That's nice soil," Metzler said. "I'd like to save a little of it," Pollard said. "The machine made some tracks in the grass over here and I'd like to sort of fill them in and get some good grass growing there, I'd like to have everything, you know, nice."

James Winners, another gravedigger, nodded. He said he would fill a couple of carts with this extra-good soil and take it back to the garage and grow good turf on it. "He was a good man," Pollard said. "Yes, he was," Metzler said. "Now they're going to come and put him right here in this grave I'm making up," Pollard said. "You know, it's an honor just for me to do this."

Pollard is 42. He is a slim man with a mustache who was born in Pittsburgh and served as a private in the 352nd Engineers battalion in Burma in World War II. He is an equipment operator, grade 10, which means he gets $3.01 an hour. One of the last to serve John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was the thirty-fifth President of this country, was a working man who earns $3.01 an hour and said it was an honor to dig the grave.

Yesterday morning, at 11:15, Jacqueline Kennedy started toward the grave. She came out from under the north portico of the White House and slowly followed the body of her husband, which was in a flag-covered coffin that was strapped with two black leather belts to a black caisson that had polished brass axles. She walked straight and her head was high. She walked down the bluestone and blacktop driveway and through shadows thrown by the branches of seven leafless oak trees. She walked slowly past the sailors who held up flags of the states of this country. She walked past silent people who strained to see her and then, seeing her, dropped their heads and put their hands over their eyes. She walked out the northwest gate and into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. She walked with tight steps and her head was high and she followed the body of her murdered husband through the streets of Washington.

Everybody watched her while she walked. She is the mother of two fatherless children and she was walking into the history of this country because she was showing everybody who felt old and helpless and without hope that she had this terrible strength that everybody needed so badly. Even though they had killed her husband and his blood ran onto her lap while he died, she could walk through the streets and to his grave and help us all while she walked.

There was mass, and then the procession to Arlington. When she came up to the grave at the cemetery, the casket already was in place. It was set between brass railings and it was ready to be lowered into the ground. This must be the worst time of all, when a woman sees the coffin with her husband inside and it is in place to be buried under the earth. Now she knows that it is forever. Now there is nothing. There is no casket to kiss or hold with your hands. Nothing material to cling to. But she walked up to the burial area and stood in front of a row of six green-covered chairs and she started to sit down, but then she got up quickly and stood straight because she was not going to sit down until the man directing the funeral told her what seat he wanted her to take.

The ceremonies began, with jet planes roaring overhead and leaves falling from the sky. On this hill behind the coffin, people prayed aloud. They were cameramen and writers and soldiers and Secret Service men and they were saying prayers out loud and choking. In front of the grave, Lyndon Johnson kept his head turned to his right. He is president and he had to remain composed. It was better that he did not look at the casket and grave of John Fitzgerald Kennedy too often. Then it was over and black limousines rushed under the cemetery trees and out onto the boulevard toward the White House. "What time is it?" a man standing on the hill was asked. He looked at his watch. "Twenty minutes past three," he said.

Clifton Pollard wasn't at the funeral. He was over behind the hill, digging graves for $3.01 an hour in another section of the cemetery. He didn't know who the graves were for. He was just digging them and then covering them with boards. "They'll be used," he said. "We just don't know when. I tried to go over to see the grave," he said. "But it was so crowded a soldier told me I couldn't get through. So I just stayed here and worked, sir. But I'll get over there later a little bit. Just sort of look around and see how it is, you know. Like I told you, it's an honor."

That old chestnut

Some days you get caned straight up and down and nothing you can do can change it.

I'm not bitter or upset anymore. Really.

I'd like to say such days are gone - but that would be well off the mark.

I wish I could put it down to attempting some enterprising play that failed to pay off. Or chancing my arm on a speculative sortie that might have paid big dividends.

I'd love to say that I'd reigned it in unassisted somehow.

It's not important anyway.

Truth is, I just peeled off the down the blindside and got duly collected.

There was nothing in it. Copped it sweet and that was that. But the hits just kept on coming. I got rocked and reeled all over the shop.

The coup de grâce was still to come.

It was the staggering realisation of one huge, fantastic, missed opportunity.

I burleighed for blame - no bites.

You end up looking inwards and so it came to pass. Relaxed in the end, a Ned Kelly moment.

Mercifully, it's easy to be philosophical when half cut.

Boo-hoo.

Frank Hyde

With another Rugby League season drawing to a close, the final whistle has sounded for one of the game’s icons.

Grand final week for 2007 kicked with the sad news that one of the code’s much loved fixtures, Frank Hyde, had slipped away at age 91.

A classy centre who strapped on the boots for Newtown, Balmain, North Sydney and New South Wales, only the Second World War denied him a Kangaroo's jersey.

An integral part of Balmain’s 1939 team that swept all comers, victory celebrations and a tilt at the national side came to an abrupt end the next day with the outbreak of hostilities with Germany.

Hyde returned to the Grand Final again in 1943 as Captain/Coach of North Sydney, only to taste defeat at the hands of his old club, Newtown.

Ironically some 64 years later, on the day before his death, the Bears qualified for this year’s reserve grade grand final by defeating Balmain Ryde-Eastwood 22-16.

However it was his post-playing career as a radio commentator which endeared him to generations of football fans, who tuned into his top-rating broadcasts on 2SM for over thirty years.

In the days before cosy commentary boxes with birds-eye views, Hyde's primitive broadcasting setup involved a card table and microphone at ground level on the sidelines of suburban grounds - in all weather.

A devout Catholic and product of the Great Depression, Hyde's politeness and generosity of spirit would desert him only when errant ball boys and match officials obscured his vision, earning a spirited on-air rebuke.

His catch cry of "It's long enough, it's high enough and it's straight between the posts" remains an enduring memory of his raspy-voiced commentary which included 33 consecutive grand finals.

Fame of a different sort came in the early 70’s, with a recording of Danny Boy, which broke into the top ten of the Sydney charts.

Visitors to Newtown’s Henson Park for the annual clash between the Blue Bags and North Sydney were often treated to a grandstand performance of the folk classic from the man himself, as the teams battled for possession of the Frank Hyde Shield.

Increasingly frail following a stroke and the loss of his wife Gaby earlier in the year, son Patrick confirmed that Frank “got on the bus” in the early hours of Monday morning, surrounded by family and friends.

“There's no question he was absolutely recognised as the doyen of radio commentary,” former ARL Chairman Ken ‘Arko’ Arthurson told ABC radio.

“In fact, I think his views on Rugby League was highly respected as anybody's that I've ever known.”

no lower form of life

The military rulers of Burma are a pretty nasty lot - brutal, cruel and after nearly thirty years of oppression, unchallenged.

But when it comes to real-life, walking, talking human turds, its hard to go past members of the advertising industry.

These shameless bottom-feeders make the junta in Rangoon look good.

Unfair? A little harsh? You be the judge…

As some of you might know, the monks in Myanmar have had enough.

Following on from heated clashes with the security forces over rising fuel prices (including an incident where the monks took some of the régime’s goons hostage), Buddha’s blokes are taking it to the streets.

In a land where public displays of dissent are about as rare as an Ad Exec with a conscience, the monks’ show of force is a serious challenge to a dictatorship bereft of popular support or moral legitimacy.

So the small but committed Burmese community put the call out for a public demonstration today in Sydney’s Martin Place. Just for a change, I decided tag along for a little lunchtime scream & shout.

You wouldn’t call me a fair-weather friend of the Free Burma movement – more like a rolled gold blow-in.

I’ve had a very little to do with this mob over the last decade; like many Australians the plight of the Burmese people has been way down the list, if not off the radar.

Sadly, the lack of international action over the decades suggests I’m not alone.

Despite my heroic guilt, I managed to drag myself into the belly of the beast, glittering towers of glass and steel shadowing hordes of surly looking lunchtime suits, glowering at the sunshine poking through.

Yet as I wandered up the plaza to greet the happy (but very) few, my path was blocked by a ‘protest’ of a very different kind.

Twenty-strong and bristling placards, they circled the square chanting their unintelligible epithets with some gusto. But even from a distance, something seemed amiss.

The detail held some clues. Impeccably turned out in a range of neat smart causal, these looked like no ordinary red-raggers. No combat fatigues or tired Guevara’s here. No facial hair. Designer clothes.

Who are these people?

Their megaphone toting leader began exhorting his comrades: “What do we want?”

“Freedom to print!” they screamed in response.

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

Good god, had the Government finally taken away our freedom to print?

I took a closer look and noticed that their slogans were printed in some professional font designed to create impression it was hand-painted.

Shocked, I looked to their leader, past his cream shirt and slacks to his feet.

He was wearing boat shoes. The penny dropped. Dogs!

I scurried over to the back of the column and fronted some weedy young guy, probably the work experience kid.

“Is this a marketing exercise?”

Handing me a postcard claiming ‘it’s time for an ink revolution’ he nodded sheepishly.

I politely asked him if he knew there was Burma protest ten meters away. Did they think that campaigning for ink cartridges or whatever it was they were spruiking maybe trivialised the plight of the Burmese people?

He sneered something about it being a free country and things soon got ugly.

I remember screaming at them to ‘go back to your marketing department, you scum’ and ‘piss off back to the northern beaches’ and plus other incoherent abuse.

Some laughed, others look embarrassed. One guy got pissed off and flipped me the bird. He almost got spat on.

Some time later, I fumed silently while chanting ‘Free Burma!’, watching the faux-protesters nearby as they took a breather before having another crack at the lunchtime herd.

I wasn’t so super-pissed at the concept. Sure, an advertising campaign that mimics public protest is pretty unoriginal, but activists are fair – and sometimes deserving – game.

This is Australia. It’s your responsibility to take the piss.

But parading it in the face of ordinary people trying to make a difference in the face of disinterest and apathy really irked me.

No one likes having their face rubbed in it, especially by yuppie scum.

A sixteen year old private schoolboy, collecting money for some unknown charity, caught me in the middle of a ‘Free Burma!’ and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he asked. “Who is Burma?”

I told him to get fucked.


>>>


Postscript: www.thepriceofinkstinks.com – the website being promoted by the marketing people, seems to be a front for US giant Kodak. From what I can tell, Kodak once did business with Burma but no longer, having ceased operations there some time ago.

when kids take drugs and then they die...

Chris Lilley's in hot water again.

In episode three of his latest creation, Summer Heights High, the introduction of a plot line involving the ecstasy-related death of student Annabel Dickson – which in turn stirs the creative juices of schoolteacher Greg ‘Mr G’ Gregson – has sparked outrage among the friends and family of Annabel Catt; the twenty-something Sydneysider who died after overdosing on PMA after attending the Good Vibrations festival in February.

Catt’s death earlier in the year got the full treatment from media commentators and the like, with shrill warnings of the dangers of recreational drug use and the usual calls for tougher penalties as a means of deterrence. It provided another opportunity to wheel out Tony Wood, who continues to use his campaign against ecstasy to publicly grieve the death of his daughter Anna, some ten years on.

However the sober response of Catt’s family, obviously devastated at the loss of their cherished daughter via misadventure, meant that the confected media outrage never really took off. Without vengeful parents calling for blood, the story never really had the legs.

So it’s a shame to hear of their distress following this Wednesday’s screening of SHH. According to the producers, the series was in the can well before Catt’s death.

However the failure by anybody of the ABC to connect the dots and pick up the phone to warn the family is pretty poor. Annabel’s brothers sound particularly incensed, which is sad given the even-handed way they responded to the dugs issue following the loss of their much-loved sister.

Unfortunate coincidences aside, Lilley’s comedy enjoys such popular appeal because it takes a scalpel to middle-class sensibilities and the all the hypocrisy it entails. It’s a necessary job, people get cut, sometimes undeservingly.

But someone’s got to do it.

>>>

Video: Mr G sings about Annabel Dickson

Media: Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High in drug death joke – The Herald Sun

Blog: Bless the beasts and the parents of dead children - Jack Marx, The Daily Truth

Interview: The Catt boys talk drugs with Triple J

John Cale

John Cale and band are coming to Australia. Fucken fantastic. Shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbin and Perth. Can't wait.

Sydney show is Thursday 8 November at the Enmore. Tix on sale 28/9

More info at www.lovepolice.com.au

poor orn'ry people

I am returned following wedding shenanigans. Despite getting plenty maudlin and plenty drunk on the night, it was a really lovely event and very touching in places. Going to have some trouble living down some wine-inspired moves on the dance floor – but that’s about the extent of my disgrace this time.

Despite a shattering hangover on the Sunday, I got back feeling pretty good. I’d been feeling quite tired and keeping some unsociable hours prior to heading up the coast, so to feel refreshed after a few days work and play up north was a pleasant surprise.

Yesterday morning I woke up about 5am to a haunting song playing on the radio. It was described as an Appalachian folk song called I Wonder as I Wander. Apparently it’s a Christmas carol, but it sounds more like a lonely funeral hymn to me. Regardless, it’s a beautiful melody and I’m having trouble shaking it.

Tonight I’m playing football for the first time in a fortnight. True to form, the clear weather has fled ahead of clouds which are spitting out light rain at regular intervals. My colleague Jo has asked me to stop playing altogether on account of the dreary conditions it seems to attract. Good to know The Mock can control the skies as well as the fortunes of various supported teams.

The weekend is pretty free. Night on the tiles for SamBam’s 30th on Saturday night but that’s all. Mile of haus-work to get through. Monica and Brian are going up to Coolangatta with some good friends for a little break, so I’ll have to catch them later.