Dear Nick,

Thank you, i hate reading Eco, so a nice little quote was very handy for me. there's odd shapes in that -- linear progression and circling thought, does that make semicircles or tangents? i'll pull it out of abstraction some day.

and thanks for reminding me that i never finished The Master and Margarita either (on last attempt i think i got distracted by Don Quixote -- which i never finished either).

cheers dear,
jane.

very dangerous. have just found book distributor warehouse about 15 minute walk from home. hope that they're not open to the public too often as i bought a pile of books on Sunday, and forgot to pick up the orangutan books and the beautiful Musee d'Orsay coffee table book. currently reading "Useful Things", a kinda brief history of everyday items (very lightweight), and a book about famous scientific rivalries written by one of The Thompson Twins. perhaps it is my state of mind at the moment, but i am enjoying this book mostly because i am correcting it as i go along and writing nasty comments in the margins. (i usually never, ever, ever write in books. i feel like writing in this one is part of my contept for it, but even so, it is in pencil).

there were ideas about ranting about things, but circumstance has moved things too fast for me to get round to typing. bugger it, i'll rant anyway. just pretend this was a week or more ago.

John Brogden -- politically stitched-up, yes. i don't think his behaviour was aceptable, but on the scale of offensive behaviour by politicians i thought it was a bit exaggerated. the mail-order bride reference probably was intended as more of an attack on Mr Carr than Mrs, but unfortunately was expressed so very badly and thoroughly steeped in the casually sexist and racist undercurrent of Australian culture. it's not right, but if every politician who made racist or sexist comments (or policies!), or who used personal attacks rather than political ones had to resign, we wouldn't have any kind of government left.

The bum pinching incident? again, it's not something i accept, but i don't think that it's grounds for trial. i also found it funny that the real scandal was that at a social event he pinched the bottoms of women JOURNALISTS. as if it would be okay if they were caterers or accountants or textile machinists. Australian law may not recognise the rights of confidential sources, but a journalist's bottom is sacrosanct.

And obviously the biggest of backflips when the guy tries to kill himself. i don't know what kind of wrinkles i put on my face reading the Australian editorial the next day -- some sort of mixture of feeling bad for the man and his loved ones, anger with the press, amusement at the way everyone apart from Murdoch journalists was responsible, with just a bit of nausea thrown in. i realise that this kind of hypocrisy is essential to good taste, but i wish it were a bit more subtle. if the guy's an arse, he's an arse -- even in unfortunate circumstances. it worries me that this may set some kind of self-harm precedent. Hey kids! People getting you down? Why not try cutting yourself up to make people sorry for you? Absolution is yours with the contents of the medicine cabinet! (i can be tasteless because my ideas and voice are small and unimportant. hurrah)
But that would be falling into the trap of believing the media forms the way people think. i find that such a scary idea that i refuse to believe it on principle.

Katrina -- i have a confession to make. in the run-up i didn't really care about this. my thinking was "it's a pretty big city, below sea level, in a tropical kinda area. hurricanes and storms come every year, this is a stupid beat up. if you're not prepared for high winds, rain and flooding, then you probably shouldn't be living there".

don't worry, i do know i'm an arse.

i can only explain my thought at the time because i kinda expected things like emergency networks, evacuation procedures, structural engineering and such to be in place and functional. perhaps it will give you some sort of schadenfreude come-uppance satisfaction to know that i nearly cut my thumb off when i actually saw the news and heard about what was happening (safety tip: never cut up potatoes in your hand with a sharp knife, particularly while watching the news).

what is happening there is far beyond my ability to depict. a terrible disaster if that's not a tortology.

it's been coming out for a few days precisely how unprepared the region was (ooh, i had some neat links on that, but they've gone. sorry, but you've probably heard it before anyway). and of course the whole emergency response thing wasn't really a model of efficiency. while i'm astounded and horrified that this massive cockup (originally "administrative failure", but it didn't seem to sum things up as well) has been so comprehensive and killed so many people, i am just a shit enough of a person to think of this in more general world terms than specifically about the fate of the region. it's just possible that an emotional reaction to the situation has fuelled more generalised grouchiness.

i got furious about "emergency management" until i realised that i wasn't surprised really. but how on earth do news services get away with repeating the same old crap about the party diaries of the Bimbos du Jour or a local sportsman having a kid or even some politician pinching some woman's bum when things like "your government has just paid some guys a lot of money to come up with a disaster management scheme... and it's not really very good is it" are going on? the excuse usually lies with what people are actually interested in reading/seeing/hearing.

so i don't put the blame on the media. i just despair in a very old-lady-who-writes-in-to-the-papers way about how evading responsibility is the new black. if you live in a democracy it is your fucking responsibility to know about these things. how else are you supposed to vote? i'm in a particularly bitter mood at the moment, so i would say that if you don't give a shit about how tax money is spent, how your country/locality is administered, who has the power and what they do with it, then you deserve tyranny because you live as if you expect it (and i'd probably include myself in this).

it's unworkable for everybody to know everything about the activities of the state? of course it is! which is an essential flaw of democracy, and why representative democracy isn't what it says it is.

isn't there something disturbing about a system that "manages" a disaster rather than "prevents" or "rescues"? but we live in a time where minds prefer to be massaged than confronted.

i was going to go on to good stuff about emotionality, but the thought's not quite ready. perhaps later.