What's black and white and red all over
Sydney got covered in a layer of brownish dust in the middle of the third week in September. Usually the country comes to the city once a year of the Royal Easter Show. On this occasion, gale force westerly winds (30 knots and more) picked up several layers of transmontane topsoil, swirled it into the upper layers of the atmosphere and brought it east until it reached the city in some profusion. It was an eerie sight, as the accompanying images attest.
In the first light of dawn it was a bright red - almost as if Irwin Allen's prediction of the Van Allen Belt catching alight had been fulfilled. This image, of the entrance to Cronulla Beach, was from this time (on left, click on image to enlarge).
As the sun rose marginally, the color changed to a bright orange, as demonstrated in the second image of Cronulla (on left, click on image to enlarge).
In the full light of day, the color was nearer to ochre, as seen in the image of the ferries at Circular Quay, and the color faded to a duller brown through the morning as the dust dispersed. (on left, click on image to enlarge)
It was like awakening in a new and vaguely foreign landscape, the stuff of nightmares. The first glimpse to the east out of our bedroom window, before I knew what was the cause of the strange light was frightening - was I really awake or was this some particularly nasty early morning dream? I had to get confirmation from Cath that she was seeing the same thing and then from the local ABC radio as to the cause.
The dust showed the lack of imagination currently driving the content-makers of the local media. I grew tired of the sameness of the headlines and of the television reports. One more "Life on Mars" headline would have seen me write a complaint to myself about the failure of sub-editors to appreciate the variety of the language available to them. The TV reports were just as dire in their predictability.
And it was another example of the impact of climate change on weather - like the recent hot August nights: we've just had the mildest winter, followed by the hottest, driest August. I wonder what could be the cause?
Dismal scientists 0 - Anti-Hanrahans infinity
Australia continues to power ahead; the imminent recession was evanescent; the Ned Rudd and his mates used the right economic levers; even the planned deep deficits now look like being paid off well ahead of time. Unemployment remains low compared to predictions - although I concede that underemployment is higher than the figures would indicate, with many workers moving from full-time to part-time labor and a number leaving the workforce. Nonetheless, the landscape of doom and gloom has not appeared. So much so that those who a few months ago were predicting the heat death of the Australian economy are now saying that we really had nothing to worry about at all - as if the measures taken by the government and others, including the fiscal stimulus and massive cuts to interest rates hadn't resulted in the situation where we now are. And we are $5 billion better off than we thought. I hate to say I told you so ...
Stranger things in the strange land
"You lie!" screamed Representative Joe Wilson at President Barack Obama during a recent address to the Congress. What could motivate such an outburst? Was it, as Jimmy Carter and others have asserted the product of an undercurrent of racism with which certain sectors of the US polity have greeted the first black President? Obama himself has taken pains to distance himself from the idea, saying to David Letterman that he was black even before he was elected President - a form of non-denial denial that Aaron Sorkin would have been proud of. Many USAmericans would not vote for a black candidate and many have refused to accept his election. But this may not derive solely from his color; it might also be a factor of the refusal by elements of the conservative factions to accept the election of any candidate who does not subscribe to their wingnut belief system. Bill Clinton faced the same refusniks, as did Paul Keating in a different way in Australia.
To take my lead from an idea in A Very British Coup, the thing that frightens the establishment is not the election of a progressive, but the election of progressives who have the ability to translate their programs into effective laws and actually change the landscape. Such leaders need to opposed with every weapon in the armory. The incandescent reaction of the wingnut press to Obama's health proposals is just one example of the way in which they seek to characterise any mildly progressive view as something more dangerous than it really is. I think that the reaction to Obama is much more in the nature of this sort of reaction from those who feel that they are born to rule when their prerogatives are threatened by the possibility that an effective leader has been elected. Despite Obama's own disavowal of a racist motivation, there is an element of that too in the Wilson outburst and in the rantings of people like Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity and Dobbs.
Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the whole thing was that Wilson's accusation (that Obama was lying when he was talking about the putative coverage of unlawful non-citizens in the health care legislation) was itself just plain wrong. Obama was telling the truth, and it has been the wingnuts, with false assertions about "death panels" and the "public option" and myriad other scare tactics, who are the liars. And they are demonstrating how a lie can get around the world while truth is putting on its pants.
If Obama doesn't get his health care reforms through it will shadow his presidency, as it shadowed Clinton's. And the US will remain a second-class nation for nearly 40 millions of its citizens.
From the oval office
Once again the oval office provides us with stories of triumph and the world's best examples (outside the arena of the economic pessimists) of Schadenfreude.
In the former camp are the examples of Steve Hooker, Kim "Princess Fiona" Clijsters and, mirabile dictu, Cadel "Mr Whingey-Pants" Evans.
Steve Hooker is the Australian pole vaulter, who has been the best in the world for a couple of years but who, a couple of weeks before the recent world championships, managed to injure one of his thighs. The best advice of his doctors and trainers was that he should sit the championships out. But he was not ready to heed their advice and, virtually, on one leg he managed first to qualify for the final (by taking one jump at the qualifying height and, 48 hours later, entering the competition at a dangerously late stage, clearing the winning height on his second jump. In the whole competition, qualifying and final, he executed three jumps on one leg and won. An example of the sort of commitment and guts (at the risk of serious long-term injury) that should inspire us all in our day-to-day activities.
Princess Fiona retired a couple of years ago to have kids, and is now coming back to tennis. Her performance at the US tennis Open was another inspiring one, and an endorsement of good style and grace in the professional sports arena. Her antithesis was Serena, the younger of the Williamses, whose melt-down on court, when a line judge foot-faulted her, contrasted nicely with Clijsters' calm demeanor. Williams was in fact defaulted out of the semi-final - losing match-point because of her behavior, a classic case for Schadenfreude. An interesting lesson in life - and the sort negative reinforcement that should see better behavior for a while.
Meanwhile, props to Cadel Evans, who won the world road-race championships this week. My knock on him has been his two-fold: a tendency to be passive in road races, never taking the initiative, and the likelihood that when he again fails to succeed he finds others to blame, especially team-mates and team management. He has provided no end of Schadenfreude moments, especially in Le Tour de France. In the recent Vuelta d'Espana, it was a flat tyre and a slow wheel change that did for him, so he said - but he finished a creditable third. In the world's, he played his part in the Aussie team, was helped along though the race by his team-mates, Simon Gerrens, among others, helped him keep in touch with the leaders. But it was Evans himself who took the initiative on the final climb and gapped the field to win the race. So, well done him, and another object lesson for life coming from the oval office.
In AFL the GFC has claimed another title, after the St Kildas failed to take their chances. The Saints were the better side for three-quarters of the game but did not convert, so the Pivotonians have another title. Bad luck, Sainters - but in the oval office, as in life, as Whingey-Pants showed, you have to take the bull by the tail when opportunity knocks.
First written: October 2009
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