A bird starts a bush fire

Mop-up work continues after fires in the Tarago area. Source: Canberra Times
Photo: Karleen Minney

Today's Canberra Times reports the assessment of the rural fire service that a low-flying bird, ignited by power lines north-east of the ACT set fire to the bone-dry land beneath it. The report tells us almost 3,400 hectares of grassland, woods and farming property were destroyed. Although livestock and wild animals were killed, one house and some vehicles destroyed, fortunately no one was hurt and no one died. Still. Summer heatwaves in a time of climate change and global warming are not done with us unless we take action.

Celebrate diversity

And don't let racists win.

A picture of two girls wearing hijabs was taken at a 2016 Australia Day event in Docklands. The photograph was used in a 2017 Australia Day billboard which included rolling images of people from different backgrounds. The billboard was removed after threats. Photograph: GAZi Photography/www.australiaday.vic.gov.au

Crowdfunding raises $50,000 for new Australia Day campaign with girls in hijabs. Read the story in the Guardian Online.

I Am Not Your Negro

I'm looking forward to seeing this. 

I saw James Baldwin speak at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 1985. It was riveting, unforgettable with an electric atmosphere in the big tent. I went along with Martin Currie. It was four months after I was discharged from my ten months in hospital following my accident. I was still getting used to life in a wheelchair. Still am. 

A nativity scene without Jews, Arabs, Africans or refugees.

By dodo156 at imgur.com 

Priceless

Yesterday is the birth place of today

Marvin Gaye, 1983. Not wrong.

And he wasn't wrong here either ...

Sam Dastyari exposes the vile absurdity of Pauline Hanson

Racism is having a worrying (but minor) resurgence in Australia. Pauline Hanson is its best known flag-waver although in recent days journalist Andrew Bolt, television 'celebrity' Sonia Kruger and Norther Territory politician Adam Giles have added fuel to the flames (or been sucked into the vortex ... if you're inclined to feel over-generous when reflecting on their public pronouncements). All four have spoken up or written in favour of banning or keeping out Muslim migrants to Australia.

Sam Dastaryi, an Australian Labor Party Senator with whose right-leaning tendencies I have often disagreed, has been remarkably effective and truly outstanding in challenging attempts to make anti-Muslim sentiment the new normal of Australian political discourse. His performance - sitting next to Pauline Hanson on last night's ABC programme Q & A - is a masterclass in challenging political opponents directly, forcefully and effectively without losing either the plot or - even more importantly - the argument or the audience. You can see it here.

Today he posted a photo and comment via Twitter to highlight the absurdity, the irrationality, the mendacity of Pauline Hanson's racism. You simply cannot fault his analysis or doubt his real courage in these ghastly times. We need more people like Senator Dastyari to be willing to stick their heads above the parapet to say ... Enough, No more! And the rest of us (you know, when is a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant like me ever going to encounter such a challenge to my legitimacy and background?) ... we need to give whatever support we can to brave, decent, progressive voices.

Sam Dstyari at five years old. Pic: Sam Dastyari
Me @ 5. Never been religious (born Muslim).
Under the Hanson ban I would never have been able to come to Australia.

Some days a man could weep

From today's Guardian ...

The TV presenter Sonia Kruger has called for an end to Muslim immigration to Australia, saying she agrees with the US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s stance on immigration.

Read the whole article here.

Thankfully good folk like those at Gosford Anglican Church know something about common, human decency.

Poetry - a living, breathing art

Poet Jackie Kay recites her first commission as Scots Makar at the Opening Ceremony of Scotland's Parliament. (I was at university with Jackie and worked alongside her father, John, in the 1980s. Lucky me.)

Donald Trump: dangerous for democracy

A good day to enter my sixth decade

Breakfast at Local Press Cafe, Lake Burley Griffen ...

then the Great Moscow Circus ...

then ...

the flat-packed furniture shop ...

before a little bit of campaigning
for Every Australian Counts

Whatever you do ... don't mention the war?

Well no, of course we should mention it.  An article appears in today's Guardian under the headline 

Bernie Sanders' focus on Clinton's Iraq war vote isn't harping - it's necessary

It's written by Trevor Timm and, by and large, I agree with his central argument that the war in Iraq and the politics surrounding the decisions in the USA, the UK and elsewhere remain important matters of political debate and scrutiny today. But who voted which way and why is of less importance - except in the realms of history and election rhetoric in the current USA election campaigns (Democrat and Republican) - than establishing a clear framework to ensure we can deal with the war's legacy peacefully and avoid the political folly of repeating the mistakes of 2002 / 2003.

Hubris - MSNBC documentary from Rachel Maddow, 2013

All of which is by way of my apology for what follows. Mr Angry of Gilmore has been hitting the keyboard again in response to the article and some of the comments made by other readers. Here is what I wrote. 

I agree that the Iraq War is a legitimate matter to be raised in political debate today (like millions of others I marched to oppose the war because there were no WMD and the US and British governments at that time lied to their citizens). I agree too with your observations that we can trace the origins of ISIS to the chaos that war unleashed.

I'm not overly impressed, however, by Bernie Sanders reductionist rhetoric, which you quote in the article,

I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq.

The politically easy and (I think) reasonable answer to BS comment is that 'we were all lied to / if I knew then what I know now, etc'. Thousands of politicians the world over voted the same way as HRC. I believe they were wrong to do so. But that does not necessarily make them unfit to govern 10 years and more later. 

The questions BS and voters ought to be addressing is this: given the horrendous mistakes and deceit (by some people in government at the time) what foreign policy lessons have they learned, how will they govern to resist the mindless nihilism of ISIS, keep citizens safe and build a peaceful future? 

But here's the thing. Bernie has to answer those questions persuasively, just as much as HRC needs to, because he wants to be President as much as she does. We need to know in detail what both HRC and BS would do with their foreign policies because we certainly know what dangerous fools like Donald Drumpf and Ted Cruz would try to do. None of us wants to live (and maybe die) in the world they'd want to bomb back to the stone age.

Mr Angry from Gilmore is back again ...

Democratic Party, USA

An article appeared in The Guardian over the weekend which set me off (as sometimes happens). I resisted the temptation to respond because - frankly my dear, no one gives a damn what Douglas thinks. But I obviously cannot control myself. I saw the headline again this morning when I skimmed the front page. It's not just the politics of the article which drove me nuts (I believe it adopts a wishful thinking position because that's more soothing than the real world, it appears). It's also the deliberate avoidance of facts (about the relative strengths in the Democratic nomination process of the two candidates) that rattles my cage. Presumably mere facts present difficulties for the author's vision of how she would like the world to be rather than how it truly is.

That latter part - the disinclination to deal with facts - has always annoyed me about some of my fellow travellers on the political Left. When facts don't fit or cause problems for the narrative some folk on the Left carry on with their first thought, simply ignoring evidence they don't like. I think our task (keeping the progressive impulses of history moving forwards) is hard enough without resorting to pseudo-analysis from which all those pieces of real world intelligence we would rather not deal with have been quietly left on the floor. It reminds me of the behaviour I indulged in sometimes as a child. When I didn't like something - a parent issuing instructions perhaps - I tried to imagine that if I closed my eyes to their presence or obscured them with my fingers they would not be there. But when I lowered my hands the insistent parent was still there. Just like difficult facts.

Here is today's contribution in response to the article from the Guardian, here:

Bernie Sanders just won his seventh straight victory. Is he unstoppable? 

2.4 million more people have voted for HRC than Bernie. HRC is more than 200 delegates ahead of Bernie in the pledged delegate count. Bernie continues to lag behind HRC in both the popular and delegate vote. These numbers suggest quite the opposite of the article's rhetorical question. 

And you write that in Wyoming

He won 56% to 44%, and picked up seven delegates

but conveniently omit the fact that HRC picked up 7 delegates too.

And your article seems to deliberately misuse the language of the nomination process when it says

Sanders has done this in the past seven primaries, eventually crossing the finish line ahead of her.

We know, of course, that there is a fundamental difference between how HRC and Bernie perform in closed primaries or caucuses like Wyoming (with tightly closed and small electorates) and primaries (with far larger and more open electorates). New York is a primary not a caucus. It has a huge number of voters from a far more diverse population. It's in such contests that HRC has been at her strongest. So even if Bernie exceeds expectations in New York the maths of the nomination process suggest his bid has already been stopped because he needed to do better earlier to have any realistic hope of winning the race for pledged delegates.

Funny ... if it were not so depressingly true

Ben Jennings cartoon in today's Guardian

Mr. Angry from Gilmore comments ...

Failed politician and former Chief of Staff. Pic: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Down here in Australia there has been a flurry of journalistic activity arising from the anticipation of the publication today and extracts from a book about the downfall of Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia.  Much of the current excitement revolves around the fall out last September from perceptions (which means tittle-tattle and gossip) within the parliamentary Coalition group that Mr. Abbott might have been having an affair with his Chief of Staff, the reputedly fearsome Peta Credlin.

I neither know nor care about the depth or otherwise or the precise nature of the pair's personal relationship. It's simply none of my business.

Tony Abbott has, justifiably in my view, refused to comment on or respond to questions about whether or not he and Ms. Credlin have indeed been inside each others underpants. But if I understand correctly what Nicki Savva, the journalist and author at the centre of row, has asserted or reported in her book it's this. She doesn't allege or comment on claims our former PM and his Chief of Staff were at it. She does, however, quote from named sources in the former PM's own political party (who have subsequently gone public) who confirm that Coalition gossip about unfounded, firmly-denied and unprovable claims of an affair were what finally tipped Abbott Government supporters over the edge to unseat their leader.

But the whole 'did they / didn't they?' business of salacious tittle-tattle misses the point. And even the defensive Mr. Abbott sought to turn the gossip to self-serving advantage. In having a go at the (presumably) false and almost entirely irrelevant question of sex (unless you're Mr. and Mrs. Abbott or Mrs. and Mr. Credlin) Tony Abbott sought to reclaim his tarnished reputation by defending his own and his Government's political records and so-called achievements.

It was at this point of reading an article in today's Guardian that Mr. Angry from Gilmore added to the frenzy by submitting a comment below the line of my favourite journal.

Abbott said in a statement on Monday the best response to the book was “the objective record of the Abbott government”, 

It's none of my business and I truly could not care less about Tony Abbott's sex life. 

NOT - INTERESTED - IN - ANY - WAY - SHAPE - SIZE - OR - FORM. 

But it is disturbing how demonstrably delusional Mr. Abbott seems to be. The 'objective record' of the Government he led - and of which the current PM was a member - was so astonishingly bad, so inept that not even his Tory mates could do anything but dump Mr. Abbott - unambiguously the worst, most incompetent, failed Government leader in Australia's history.

My saving grace is that 16 fellow readers recommended my comment. One reader, however, contradicted my assessment, suggesting that 'stopping the boats' was part of the good 'objective record'. A Guardian reader? Please.

America ... just say no.

Even the preppy, white-kids who predominate at the Conservative Political Action Conference have this man pegged for the self-serving, megalomaniac charlatan we know him to be. Please America, just say no.

John Oliver on Donald Trump

Spot on and priceless.

Even I'm beginning to feel a little nervous

The Donald ... Sorry, I meant Freddy

I may be letting my worst fears cloud my judgement. I still hold to the view that Trump will crash and burn but this nightmarish thought came when I was in the shower this Australian morning ...

What if?

What if a runaway train is crashing through the Republican Party? What if they don't know how to stop it? Maybe the GOP establishment will try to minimise the train wreck by doing deals. Trump goes on to win the nomination. Marco holds back on outright criticism of the presumptive nominee and lets Cruz - who seems to hate everyone except Ted Cruz - be the loser attack dog.

Trump, Rubio and the GOP establishment cut a deal. Rubio is selected as the VP candidate on a ticket with Trump. GOP brokers this deal because it can't stop Trump but thinks this would minimise harm and give it a chance of beating the Democrats. Rubio accepts the deal because - if they were to win - he think his 'Apprentice' years make him unbeatable as Presidential candidate in the future. Trump accepts the deal because it solves his 'Hispanics problem', means he could pass all the day to day grind of politics to his side-kick Marco , and he gets to drive around in the big Presidential limo being Mr. President - not building walls, not banning Muslims - just being a motor mouth constrained by the realities of governing in the real world.

As I said. One's nightmare.

The darkest hour is just before dawn ... in politics as much as anywhere else

Was this man's heart ever truly in it?

Mr. Bush goes home but the money lined up behind him stays in the game. Mr. Rubio floats higher. Mr. Cruz sinks a little and will be entirely sunk soon enough. Mr. Carson may hang around for a while, although not even he is sure why. Mr. Kasich will battle on in delusional self-belief until the money runs out.

And when it boils down to GOP make your mind up time it will choose Mr. Rubio over Mr. Trump because America is not insane.

Mr. Trump, however, does not know how to lose even though he has experienced it already in this nomination round. His megalomaniac tendency will refuse to accept the decision of the Party he claims he wants to lead. Mr. Trump will throw a very expensive, billionaire's hissy fit and seek to stand for the Presidency anyway because Mr. Trump truly does believe that if you have enough money you ought to be able to buy anything you want and can afford. Even a country.

Towards the end of March it should all be a lot uglier than it looks now.

Whatever the outcome of the GOP three-ring circus, please America, Vote Democrat.

The Donald is leaving the building

That, Mr Trump, is the sound of the 'Fat Lady Singing'.
Thank you Iowa