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When I was small we spent Christmas camping by a river in NE Victoria. The festivities began on Christmas Eve, when campers and residents of the township of Bright gathered for carols by candlelight. During the singing of my favourite ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ I never wondered about the absence of snow ‘deep and crisp and even.’ I don’t imagine anyone else did, either
The discussion in Australia as to how such atrocities are to be approached is telling. The call for responsibility has varied by degrees. Most tend to some variant of the rotten apple theory: a few particularly fruits that may be isolated and extruded from the barrel. Culpability can thereby be confined, preserving the integrity of other military personnel and, importantly, political decision makers.
You are transfixed, steering your car but so captive to the bird’s powerful flight that you could readily follow it as it breaks away and lifts above the forest into the setting sun. Sometimes you do not want it to end. The eagle soars into the light. Away and up into the sky. And here is the corner, down towards the dirt road leading home. You are there.
One of the minor annoyances of the United States election was how unreliable the polls turned out to be, particularly in some key swing states. Unsurprising, but still annoying for those hoping for a massive repudiation of the Trump presidency. In the large scheme of affairs the failure of the polls to predict is insignificant, but it does raise interesting questions about its implications for public life in the United States and in Australia.
Throughout the summer I risked smoke, storms and sickness to escape into the embrace of the sea, until, one day after that final swim, places of worship were effectively closed, along with beaches, pools, and national parks across NSW.
At the fringes of the legal system, there are areas of work you probably won’t read about in law school career guides. Many of these deal in trauma or poverty. They are substantial, but they aren’t celebrated or pursued by the mainstream of the profession. They generally attract neither money nor prestige, and in many cases the ‘market’ fails to provide paid jobs of any sort, irrespective of need.
Alan Jones has never shied away from controversy. Relentlessly pounding various positions for decades, he has remained, till his recent announcement that he would be retiring, immoveable. He ducked accusations; he prevailed in the face of storms and juggernauts. At Sydney radio station 2GB, he maintained a degree of authority from the fear of politicians.
We have always lived thus, in our heads. Bone domes, impenetrable to others, we might project animus, animation, add to Duncan’s questioning. The mind’s construction in the face, enigmatic, Rubik cube with sixteen squares on each face, so any signs I give are laced, graced with ambiguity.
So rapidly have I adapted to this surreal existence in which we now find ourselves, the sound which was once an inseparable part of my morning routine — jets announcing the dawn as they droned overhead — has now become disturbingly anachronistic.
Beyond sunlit planes of sea and sand/Like the shade on my front lawn/Nightshadow creeps over continents/Cities light up in glowing clusters/While the deserts hide their campfires.
This year the contrast between the original story of Christmas and its Australian circumstances has cut even deeper. Bushfires have taken lives, destroyed properties and spread smoke and ash over cities. If the theme of the first Christmas was one of hope and joy, behind the bushfires this year lurks anxiety about the future of the world.
It rose in its tall verticals from the grace and welcome of the earth, / That swooned far, far below, / As canny masons hefted the limestone / Into vast beatitudes of grace; / Shipwrights inverted their minds to groom the oak, / So that it would soar, / As if a celtic monk had charmed a serpent into a holy phrase.
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