where are you

Right now I cannot see you, cannot see much, in fact. I am temporarily blinded by a vision I had this evening; it was not a happy one.

I saw someone I love inhabited by one who hates me, and when I refused to hate myself with him, though I shed tears, repented my impositions and found means to remedy for the future, he turned cold and left.

Please don’t think this was Drew. Drew left yesterday amid subdued but fond farewells beside the Kombi, bound to Broken Hill and back.

I’m not even sure the person I saw was real.

invading other countries is wrong

Jacob Kovco, or Jake, as we can now call him having joined the ranks of his intimates, only Australian so far to die in Iraq, apparently shot himself in mysterious circumstances, after which multiple procedural bungles delayed the return home of his body. Now the counsel assisting the inquiry into his death reads to the court from the young soldier’s diary – a dream he had one month before his death, in which he pulls out his pistol and shoots himself in the head. The journal insists, however, that he is not suicidal; on the contrary, he is ‘very happy’.

His friend says they’re in a lethal war zone carrying out-of-date weapons and guarding embassy officials going out to ’socialise’ (it wasn’t clear whether that meant parties or brothels) and it’s only a matter of time before the next death. He’s caustic as Kafka, this one: ‘You serve your country but for what? Why should we risk our lives for that?’

According to the Herald the revelations to the inquiry have rocked the Howard Government, the armed forces, etc, etc… which I suppose is why they had to reduce front page coverage of the story to the space once reserved for the amusing trivia of Column 8.

The seven main columns were taken up by, der, a big colour picky of a soccer player. Better that than a charge of sedition, I suppose.

oh by the way…

If you start rootling around on this site you’ll soon discover that behind the orderly front all is as yet chaos. The pages keep changing, the design’s all cockeye and the links don’t work — that’s because you’re on a building site. You’re looking at rough walls and framework, modular sections yet to be installed. Come back a few times in the next month or two and see the full ZenSiren online experience emerge around you.

all might be free

She looks more like Moscow’s answer to a sort of young, souped-up Gretel Killeen than to Paris Hilton, the dismissive tag that’s been so easily bandied around. Ksenia Sobchak hosts a reality TV show and does sexy poses (discreetly clad) for men’s magazines, but she has a degree in political science and international relations and she’s the daughter of Putin’s mentor.

She’s just founded a new youth movement called All Are Free, saying that everything that is happening today makes her awfully sad. She says she’s attempting to counter the ‘fake’ youth movements set up by Putin’s government to divert restless youth from focusing their unrest into revolution, although of course she didn’t put it that way. On the contrary, she says she feels ‘enormous gratitude’ toward Putin, who apparently saved her father’s political ass at some stage. She says she just wants to teach young people how to be free.

No-one seems to be directly asking her how she’s planning to do that, but enrolments have apparently begun. So I suppose we wait and watch to see if she is indeed part of the answer, or part of the problem. The press has so far handled the phenomenon with varying degrees of tact, intelligence and even comprehension, but here’s a link to the story in the very smart mosnews.com.