Two great enemies of politics: indifference to human suffering and the passionate quest for certainty in matters which are essentially political

Politics can be an exciting, boring, uplifting, depressing and downright nasty business. It always has been. For these reasons I have made it the focus of my study for an awfully long time, but also for these reasons I more often than not try to avoid following it at all costs.

I was going to do this whole positive bit on 'politics' being essentially about the conciliation and compromise of innumerable issues in the pursuit of maintaining peace, harmony and (hopefully) prosperity that is (roughly) 'just/fair', but my heart just isn't in it.

Against my better judgment, I decided have a look around at some of the reaction to Sarah Palin being chosen as McCain's Vice-President nomination, but the discussion is just so split along partisan lines that I just can't be bothered. There are an awful lot of hateful people out there who seem to confuse 'righteous anger' with 'coherent argument'. My free time at the moment is WAY too valuable to waste time on it.

I really can't stress enough how depressing it is to find that so many (so very, very many) commentators out there appear to offer little more than vitriol, unsupported by anything more than a certain kind of smug, self-satisfied (albeit seemingly ill-informed) anger. And that's it. No more. For all the talk of hope and future at the top, there's a lot bitterness and resentment down below.

If distaste/dislike/hate/loathing is what drives someone, and ideological certainty (of whatever persuasion) underwrites an individual's identity (and often their very being), they are unlikely to read, listen and (most of all) consider conflicting positions. That's not good. It's not good for a lot of reasons, but - it appears to me - there is one reason why above all others.

For me, 'good' politics is essentially a discourse. It is a process of discussion. It should produces progress out of dialogue. Its outcomes should preserve both freedom and stability by bringing everybody together to the bargaining table. In order for successful resolutions, this has to be underwitten by open minds and mutual respect.

This should be obvious. People disagree about stuff. All sorts of stuff. The everyday business of politics is nothing more than the peaceful negotiation among conflicting interests. The enemy of this is ideological dogmatism (of all forms), ideological determinism (of all forms), rightious anger (of all forms), and do you know what else? A lack of respect that manifests itself in bloody-minded rudeness.

So instead of a lofty discussion of principles, policy and the future of the world's sole superpower, all I'm seeing is a bunch of rude people scrapping over a bone.

And it isn't pretty.

Someone wake me when it's over.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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