ANZAC in a line

We're into distilling here in Armagnac country, so here's the ever-eloquent Nabakov (our Melbourne Nabakov of course) on ANZAC rememberance:

But risking your own arse to pull your mate out of a swamp of shell-stirred shit, blood and mud and then bullshitting to your cynical commanding officers about what happened is what this nation was really founded on.

Such good writing it needed to be repeated and embedded into the netosphere.

PJ O'Rourke distils it, serves it to his own in a snifter

A nutshell summary of the complex art, practised in particular by so many commercial lawyers, of structuring chalk to resemble cheese:

"Conservatives are champions of the free market, and the free market is based on transparency and the rule of law. Now for three decades, since Thatcher and Reagan, we conservatives have had the rule of law and the means of transparency in our hands and have handed the world a load of crap.

"There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it," Mr O'Rourke said.

Well put PJ, let's start on 'tax advising' next.

'Mummy, you're a good mummy'

So said Bear as we sat eating breakfast. Beloved almost cried as she laughed. Bear is pushing boundaries and being a 2&abit, but there's no doubting she's got a big heart.

It's hard to be sure, but she may be acting out more now than she did when Mitt-Mitts first arrived. Long days fighting for the attention of a mum with an infant brother who needs feeding all the time, circled by angst-ridden cats and trapped in the modest confines of a townhouse that has what estate agents might euphemistically describe as 'low maintenance outdoor spaces', must take its toll. And not just on Bear.

Beloved is indeed 'a good mummy'; as I've mentioned before I remain in awe of her focus, staying power, and capacity for love under such pressure. Right now, I don't know how she does it. To see her holding Mitta on the boob with one hand and an open book with the other, reading to Bear, is to witness multi-tasking that would (or at least should) make Rudd's Chief of Staff wince.

She takes it in her stride, but her eyes show the tension of working constantly to maintain focus and sanity under such pressure and with so little sleep or support. I try, but working full time again means I just can't be present for the hardest bits.

As for Bear, well, she's doing ok but she lets us know. A girl is articulate and demanding, and balancing the need to push back and set boundaries with the need to reassure and give unconditional love is like removing ear wax from a sleeping moose.

(I have no idea where that simile came from, but I had to keep it.)

Last night she somehow crawled under her doona and woke to find herself trapped. She was screaming and shoving in all directions when I got to her room, head pressed against the side rail. She sobbed and sobbed with pulse racing as we stood there in the dark, my hugs and back-patting little consolation until Beloved arrived.

Sometimes reassurance can only come from a good mummy.

Mewling Malcolm needs to straighten his bat

Turnbull, I suspect, is not of the hardline group within the Liberal Party (and other right wing organs like News Limited) that want to beat up refugees at every opportunity. However he is presently allowing a virulent strand of security and fear driven attack to open up under his watch, getting the potential political mileage while personally 'distancing' himself from the detail.

So far all we get is a combination of salivating right wingers and a leader who says it is 'too easy' for those seeking asylum.

This is not good enough. His party, under his leadership, needs to have a coherent position, and in particular this needs to spell out: exactly what is it about the previous regime that they propose to reinstate?

Labor's policy is not soft- soft would be treating all asylum claimants as prima facie legitimate, respecting their freedom until given reason to do otherwise, providing them with ample resources and so on. Labor's policy is only soft in comparison with the policy employed by the Liberals when they were in power.

So what exactly does Turnbull want to reinstate? This very valid question popped up on Q&A last night but was not answered. Is it:

... The Pacific 'Solution'?

... Indefinite detention, sometimes lasting for years?

... Legitimising administrative error and neglectful misuse of power (this is what is effectively entailed by curtailing the ability to appeal)?

Malcolm, please answer. Which of these is needed so that the regime is no longer 'too' easy? If you don't want any of these awful regressions then show leadership, rein in your attack dogs, and let go of this one as a stick with which to beat, via the disenfranchised, the government.

At least Howard took direct responsibility for his unpleasant policies.

Queue-Jumping Boat People Are Flooding Our Shores!

Love those flood/water/tsunami metaphors, as the Australian wheels out the headline 'Rising tide of boatpeople'. A tide, a flood:

...49 suspected asylum seekers...

Shit, I better run home and lock up my wife and daughter.

...the sixth boat to arrive this year...

*stops breathing*

...a total of 276 unauthorised arrivals...

*skin turns clammy*

There have now been 455 unauthorised arrivals since the Rudd Government announced the changes last year.

There it is, the clincher, the underlying narrative being rebuilt for the grand purpose of domestic regime change- Labor is bad for your security and is going to let brown terrorists overrun our great land where beer flows and men plunder.

We have 6 figure immigration but 455 UNAUTHORISED arrivals is a crisis. Remind me again, after the last time we went down this path and victimised these desperate people, how many ended up being found to be legitimate refugees? I don't have the number in front of me* but I believe an accurate characterisation would be 'an overwhelming majority'.

So, let's have it again, if they are genuine refugees then their attempt to gain asylum is legitimate and legal.

And someone is snivelling along, betraying his claims to being smart and liberal as he lets his incoherent attack dog try to whip up the hysteria again:

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said the Rudd government had given a green light to people smugglers and put out the welcome mat for illegal migrants.

Come on Turnbull, surely even you draw the line at stooping this low...

* Wiki has "over 80%" as the figure, anything out there to contravene that?

Rosanna, Rosanna...

Once was young, once was freewheeling.

We live near one of Australia's coolest strips, and we love it- at least what we remember of the places we used to frequent. But with several years of on-and-off house watching under our belts, a second child, and a renewed love of trees and bicycle paths and streetscapes that don't look like they were intentionally designed to drive out all people under 14, things move on. Like my hairline, six pack, and dreams of doing anything useful with myself.

So, anyway, not for any good reason, but does anyone out there have a view on life in Rosanna, Heidelberg, Viewbank or Macleod?

Just asking.

I was converted first. Beloved- think she switched over as we were walking through one of several nice bands of parkland up there, kookaburras on branches, Bear warbling and running from tree to tree, bike paths linking playground with playground.

And pursuant to a little chat going on at Helen's, I don't mind the look of this or this either.

Boof!

Mittsa has had a further meeting with the blunt instrument known as our Maternal and Child Health Nurse. Joyously ours since Bear's birth, she's had many opportunities to gruffly accuse Beloved of 'you wiping baby bum too hard' (thrush, in fact) or 'no-one show you how to dress baby' (no-one, indeed, as this is partly the job of individuals like the Mat Nurse, together with not being a complete bitch who makes young mums feel like crap).

Anyway, she's soften slightly, perhaps amazed that we've managed to keep our kids alive this long, and has had little to argue with in respect of Mitts.

Over the 97th percentile for weight, and 90th for length and head circumferance. He's a boof!

But he's got a soft heart, with huge smiles for his dad and a penchant for big cuddles. Since birth he has seemingly attained a level of zen that he carries through the vicissitudes of the day, easily placated with a hug or a chat. He coos multi-syllabled dipthongs that get closer and closer to sounding like words, words that are wizzing around in daddy's head waiting for a match: da-dy, lo-ve oo, fay-vrite, car-dools.

Our moments are still too brief.

Sticking hands with Twitter

Sticking hands is an esoteric concept from Wing Chun kung fu, often performed blindfolded, where two partners play an intuitive game and seek through soft pressure to find their way through their partner's defences.

In this way I have slapped my way into Twitter, reappraised, and redrawn my profile there.

The reason I made my twitter profile, freely linked from (and to) this site, purely a dad streak, was to see if it had value as a local networker. By having my general region and parenthood explicitly in the title I thought this might lead rapidly to bonding with other parentals in my area, on top of a more general theme of soppy haiku-like mementos of parenthood. But I've observed a few things.

Twitter's great value is in the moment, the instant, and the ubiquity. In context, you can make a comment quicker than you can on a blog and have that instantly publish, not just to people with you on their feedreader, but to the entire rapidly expanding Twitter world. It gets lost in moments in a busy topic, such as earthquakes or fires, however people then read down into the variety of comments on a given topic. They can also feed off one idea and keep this going.

It also nicely complements the blog in its sheer ease, allowing time-poor plebians like moiself to make passing comment when we don't have the time to analyse and properly parse the issues.

I've now glued the dovetail fit and two are one. Or to take my original metaphor, my hand reached Twitter's chest, for a moment, and I've retaken its measure.

Life goes on dear reader, unaffected as you are. Just wanted to explain...

How the hell did Brian Pape get standing?

Taxpayer prerogative to challenge all spending?

The full bench of the High Court set aside two days — yesterday and today — to consider the challenge brought by law lecturer Bryan Pape. The barrister and University of New England academic argues that the payments — worth billions — exceed the Federal Government's taxation powers.

Did something change since I studied intro to public law? What on earth is this fool's particular personal interest in blocking a payment? Per Gibbs J:

...an interest, for present purposes, does not mean a mere intellectual or emotional concern. A person is not interested within the meaning of the rule, unless he is likely to gain some advantage, other than the satisfaction of righting a wrong, upholding a principle or winning a contest, if his action succeeds or to suffer some disadvantage, other than a sense of grievance or a debt for costs if his action fails..

If merely being a concerned taxpayer who doesn't want their money spent improperly gives standing, I'd like to question about 400,000 different pieces of expenditure, thanks.

Have I missed some specific law change to facilitate overfed Barrister/Academics have a pot shot at their will, or is this just another case of the so-called black letter lawyer's High Court dropping the bar for something close to their hearts?

UPDATE: High Court has knocked the fool back. That would have cost the taxpayer at least 3 schoolteachers worth of legal costs, wonder if they'll recover all...?

Asians and what won't Malcolm say to find a spike?

Can you picture Labor handing China a blank piece of paper, let them write a wish list that included rewriting our intellectual property laws, then claiming victory with a 'free trade agreement'?

What about China getting into a bit of a spat, self-evidently a stupid one, flicking it's fingers and finding our panting leader by their side, directing the ADF onto the battlefield? Far fetched?

I think so too, which is why you can rest assured that no matter how close our government get to Beijing, there will be none of the complete abdication of policy responsibility that took place under Malcolm's party. More than that, the fact that the Liberals not only had much closer ties with a range of elements in the US, but labled anyone who questioned that closeness as 'anti-American' and 'weak on security' (baffling to anyone who knows what security means in international relations discourse), shows that they have no problem with completely attaching to a foreign power that self-evidently has different national interests.

So, is it so absurd to ask whether race, or at best completely discredited notions of yellow peril, underpin their tub thumping about Labor and China?

The only explanation I can find for Turnbull's playing to the lowest denominator, the utter dumbing down of the man many of us thought would be a fascinating and more likeable leader of the Liberals, is that he has lost his bottle. He is flailing for the 'Howard touch', and it won't come to him, he is not that person, to his credit, and this course will surely lead him into cognitive dissonance and further collapse.

Once were shopping warrior

In just over 2 years my ability to shop confidently has unravelled and I am either middle-aged dad or 14 year old geek redux.

It is difficult to believe a blogger might not so long ago have been reasonably in control of the zeitgeist, able to walk into a shop full of colourful trainers and walk out with some fantastic vintage Golas just before the style took hold, or a pair of bright red Ferrari one-offs mere months before red was everywhere. But, dear reader, I bordered on such control. I shopped with confidence. Even Beloved acknowledged I had an eye for style and cut; indeed she's spoken many times of the instant impression I made when we hooked up in London back at the tale end of 2002. So long ago.

For a guy, and I accept the proscription, I dressed pretty well.

So *ahem* as you know I've had 2 kids and largely been in hibernation where things cultural are concerned. Even my blogging suffered! And now I'm starting to walk around, blinking, trying to dress myself again and finding it hard to avoid ending up in Katmandu tops, generic-looking running shoes, and other 'comfortable' wear befitting a man of a certain disposition. That is, the dad who has given up on aesthetics for good.

I'm not there, but it's unnerving. I'm insecure in shops, in a way I haven't been since perhaps my late teens when I first started to get a sense of personal style. Worse, I see things such as '80s style basketball trainers and I want to give people a lecture on how we had those back when I was a boy.

Damn! How does that sneak up on you?

Anyway this is not entirely a narrative of horror and fatalism, I think I persevered and found a pair of trainers that both suit me and do not mark me out as someone who inhabits Bunnings and Football BBQs. They are retro- back to the '60s, which beats the '80s any day for me.

But in the process I basically got 2 different shoestore dudes to "explain to me how it all works at the moment with shoes and stuff", which is probably like going up to a lifeguard and asking how to do the dog paddle.

Now... shirts, jackets, jeans....

Bear Laid a Cable

What can I say, I'm proud as!

Of course she's been crapping since she was born, but this is the first in the real toilet, and she didn't even go through a phase of using the potty.

She does have her very own custom seat. Now as someone who enjoys his morning moments of quiet contemplation on the throne, this got me thinking. Could I too have a personalised seat, soft and well fitted, to carry in with me when I feel called to business? I already carry in a strong stovetop coffee (clears the air!).

The cats would also like a spot of their own. Both try to 'hang out' with me by climbing onto the edge of the bath and leaning forward in expectation of pats. Should they not have their own soft, embellished stand on which to perch?

But I'm digressing- it's Bear's moment and she's entitled to be the focus of the post. I cheered when, on Beloved's prompting, she told me what she'd done. Clever girl. She looked so proud. The challenges you can overcome now you know how to take a dump.

Tag this under "what do you mean life as a parent is less sophisticated??"

Bringing Up Baby Redux- Angela Shanahan's Just Bung 'Em Out Approach

In case you hadn't had your fill of inconsistent, offensive and hypocritical parenting lectures after watching Bringing up Baby, here's Angela Shanahan demonstrating that complete inability to watch and comprehend is no barrier to giving poofs, single parents and us modernz generally a good old fashioned lecture:

Of course so much of the problem with modern parenting is modern families....

...How odd that we make a fuss about infant management techniques but are willing to subject our children to bizarre social experiments such as same-sex parenting ... much more harmful than any infant management technique could be...

Of course, why didn't I see that? There's more problems though- people are interested in parenting:

My research has uncovered 926 book titles available in Australia under the heading of parenting and child care, and that does not include the magazines and associated DVDs. The size of the market is astonishing when one compares it with the popular self-help categories of diet and weight loss.

WHERE'S THE PRIORITIES FOR TODAY'S YOOF?

Naturally she's got a good grasp of her subject matter, first lampooning Spock then going on to rave about the virtues of parents trusting their instincts. Waasn't that, um, what Spock was about? And this:

...by the more selfish members of generations X and Y, his child-centred methods didn't always work.

By contrast with the previous generation? Or the ones before that, they did pretty well didn't they?

But here's the really grating bit for me:

I hope my regular readers will not be disappointed to know that although I have managed to have nine children, and am now the hands-on grandmother of three, I have never read a baby book.

That would be to avoid the discussion questioning the motives of people who choose to pop out large numbers of children? Of course, she's a brilliant mum to each and every one of them, remembers their names and all. Just ask her.

Is it possible a pair of gays who love and pay close attention to their 1 or 2 children and willingly read and absorb a range of views on how to parent are likely to do just as good a job as an arrogant reactionary who thinks popping out enough kids to staff their own McDonald's franchise is proof enough good parenting.

She lauds the brilliant work of the

Royal New Zealand Plunket Society

Presumably the oddball name means Plunk It Out and Start on the Next One?

Having a large sprawl doesn't prove you aren't a good parent, I hasten to add, but I think you'd have to take some pretty decent steps to ensure you could pay them all a decent about of attention, and it certainly doesn't work in converse as some sort of proof, in itself, that you are a brilliant parent who can stand aloof and lecture the world. Or get away with mindless homophobic and reactionary gittery.

How DO these idiots get published in the MSM?

Night Terrors - a father's breakthrough

Night terrors 2 nights in a row. We've had them a number of times, probably over the past 8 or 9 months. A girl cries out, we go to her but she can't be consoled, and thrashes around while letting out an unnerving cry that borders on a scream.

I have often got there first, Beloved being asleep on the couch, but that's made it worse. She looks at me - eyes sometimes open but incomprehending - and cries louder, calling for Beloved. Soon she gets what she wants but even Beloved can't calm her for a while. Official advice is that this is fine, and you simply need to keep them company, and safe, until the terrors pass. But when your daughter is violently upset in the middle of the night this is no consolation and I'm still reluctant to accept that it does no harm.

It feels as though she needs protecting, from something, and I'm limping out of the room having failed my duty as a dad.

Last night they started again and I went straight up. I stayed out of her way, and rested my hand on her torso while saying quiet words of reassurance. She started to wind up and I let her move around, just keeping the same level of contact and talk. I stayed with the one response rather than giving in and trying to hug her or tuck her back in. She was getting more upset, but didn't move into the usual daddy-rejection phase.

Then she took a break, and started the fusting; a Bear's soft pinching that she uses to bond, usually on the back of the hands. She fusted, let out a sigh, and I started to feel hope. I waited. There were a couple of further minor false starts when she let out a few cries and moved a little, but we were on the closing stretch.

She drifted back off to sleep. No full-scale crying, no 20 minutes of parental despair, and perhaps most of all for me no rejection and sense of helplessness.

The rest of the night? Like a bomb.

On a lighter note, in relation to crying infants, love that Blue Milk tags her column on Bringing up Baby under child hatred bigotry. Guess she's not switching to the Truby King method either...

21st Century Dystopia awaits

Utterly without moral compass:

The Fertility Institutes' clinic service gives the chance to select physical traits through "cosmetic medicine". Prospective parents can request a son with brown eyes, black hair and a dark complexion, or a pale, blonde, green-eyed daughter.

Jeff Steinberg, who was in the team involved in the birth in Britain in 1978 of Louise Brown, the world's first test tube baby, is undeterred. "I live in LA and everyone here wants to have a straight nose and high cheekbones and are perfectly happy to pay for cosmetic surgery," he said.

"I understand the trepidation and concerns, but we cannot escape the fact that science is moving forward. If I have to get smacked around by people who think it is inappropriate, then I'm willing to live with that."

Shorter: I don't care. I am omnipotent and can do what I want. I am above the human race.

I despair for the world that awaits my children. I despair for our absurd postethical society and the sociopathic players who stroll through it waving their technological determinism around as they gleefully tear apart everything that makes us human.

I despair for us and the pointlessness of political activism when the most overt shifts in our egalitarian base slip through with barely a murmer.

I guess Obama's too busy brushing up on his rhetoric and polishing his bloody certificates from Harvard to take some leadership on an issue less obvious.

(Note: extreme ranting trimmed on edit, I'm doing my best to contain the verbage, sometimes it's hard!)