Shaming Arizona.

A walk in Sherbrooke Forest.

Succumbing to a demand from Aradhna that we venture to the Dandenongs -- precise destination determined by me, of course -- my lovely wife and I took a 45-minute drive to Dandenong Ranges National Park and walked an easy track in Sherbrooke Forest. I drifted among towering mountain ash and fern trees like a child wandering beneath a circus big top, bewildered by the proximity of natural splendour on offer so close to the Melbourne CBD. Aradhna, bless her heart, put up with my constant prattling and pauses to snap photos with her iPhone (I have yet to replace the camera lost in Brisbane -- my penance). Here are the results.
Aradhna snapped this as we snaked into the Dandenong Ranges.
The Dandenongs were clear-cut to build Melbourne in the 19th-century. These soaring Mountain Ash are over 100 years old.
Even a galoot like me fit comfortably into the trunk of this massive tree.
Aradhna waited as I made like a hoodied possum ...
... and even joined me for a photo.
My inglorious dis-hibernation.
Snapped this just before a rain shower 'refreshed' us on our way back to the car.

US in Iraq to "out-terrorise the terrorists".

Army specialist Ethan McCord (right) was at the scene of the extermination of 12 innocent Iraqis and two Reuters journalists three years ago in a Baghdad suburb, a video of which was released by WikiLeaks a few weeks ago. He and another former soldier named Josh Stieber have co-written a 'letter of reconciliation' to those injured in the attack.

McCord and Stieber do more than prove their decency as human beings with the letter. They provide harrowing insight into their jobs as soldiers in Iraq.

In a BBC interview, McCord said he enlisted to go to Iraq and help the Iraqi people:

I was living in a fairytale, obviously. Our job was not to protect the Iraqi people, it was more along the lines to out-terrorise the terrorists.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more damning indictment of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Death of a superstar.

The city of Melbourne was rocked by the murder of its most famous citizen this week. The victim, pictured above walking with his wife Roberta, was the subject of a mini-series that won his portrayer (and Roberta's) critical recognition and blockbuster ratings. The shelves of 'crime' sections across Melbourne's numerous bookstores sag with books adorned with his portly mug. Roberta herself wrote a bestselling tome, describing life with her celebrity husband and his 'colourful' cohorts, and continues to get paid for providing 'exclusive access'.

Who is this man who once referred to himself as 'The Premier' because he 'ran this f*cking state'? The man who had morning radio DJs asking callers where they were the moment they learned he'd been killed?

The man is Carl Williams, Australia's most notorious gangster. During Melbourne's 'gangland wars' of the late '90s - early '00s, Williams was responsible for the murders of nearly every member of the Moran family, a competing pack of low-life drug dealers who'd shot Williams in 1999 over the production and distribution of amphetamine. His baby-faced, bogan appearance made him an unlikely drug kingpin and mafia don. Which, of course, only added to his marketability.

Williams has been jailed in isolation since 2007 but around lunchtime on Monday had his skull crushed by one of the two inmates allowed to share an exercise room with him. He was found dead in his cell soon afterwards. No guards witnessed the attack, either in person or via CCTV. The other inmate was on a wall phone throughout the attack. Watching.

Suspicious, no?

There are now three inquiries looking into how such a high-profile prisoner could be murdered in a maximum-security facility. On the morning of his murder, Melbourne's leading tabloid reported that Victorian police had paid $8000 towards his daughter's tuition at a private school. Coincidence? Not according to so-called experts. If it turned out Williams was cooperating with police in return for financial assistance it would make him a 'dog', the lowest form of prisoner. The Herald-Sun denies its front page treatment of the story led to Williams's murder and their columnists are predictably decrying his fame. Fame they manifested, stoked and made untold riches exploiting.

Who's next?

Saturday in St Kilda

Moving back to Balaclava means being a 15-minute walk from the St Kilda foreshore, which Aradhna and I visited today on an absolutely perfect day.
Looking towards the shore from the St Kilda pier.
Along the promenade.
Entryway to St Kilda's venerable Luna Park.

War: The Video

Harrowing doesn't begin to describe this video. Please do so knowing you're about to watch war in its sadistic glory.

That is, the extermination of human beings by fellow human beings. Who enjoy it.

Being 'anti-war' in 2002 meant being tagged as more than just a lefty, a liberal, a peace-loving hippie. It meant being called a pussy, a wuss, a naive, wide-eyed doe bounding through sun-drenched fields, unwilling to accept the hardness of a dark world intent on destroying me and my blessed-by-god country. I watched Colin Powell address the UN and was shaken by his conviction, if not his 'proof', of the threat posed by Iraq and its wacky dictator. It was clearly bullshit. Nevertheless, the American public assumed the role of terrified children in need of protective adults like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rice and The Miserable Failure, who lied with comforting gravitas and impunity. The US media, to its shame, carried water like pampered minions desperate for acceptance into the cool kids' clique.

Convincing a brainwashed populace accustomed to TV war coverage introduced by waving-flag graphics and soaring soundtracks was like explaining the hazards of gambling to a person gleefully waving a million-dollar-winning lottery ticket. The reality of war was irrelevant. US = Good. Brown-skinned people = Bad. War as humankind's most evil invention was relegated to a far corner of the mind by a great bulk of the world's most prosperous country. Bloodlust was in the air. Only a fool wouldn't breathe it in.

I've read dozens of books written by soldiers or war correspondents but have never been exposed to a more searing indictment of any country's decision to go to war than this 18-minute video. This is war. This is what it does to soldiers and civilians. This is how it destroys all that it touches, regardless if they walk away from the battlefield.

Clusterf*ckistan

Only in the rabbit-hole-realm of the US military can a horrific admission regarding the murder of innocent locals garner praise. But the frankness of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's admission to troops serving in Afghanistan that "We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat" is remarkably commendable. He was telling the truth and, in doing so, revealing the regularity of atrocities in Afghanistan.

A spokesperson for Gen. McChrystal said "the general was urging his forces to exercise courageous restraint (by suggesting that it is unlikely that erratic behavior at a checkpoint constitutes a threat) while also expressing sympathy for the confusing and threatening situations in which both soldiers and Afghans find themselves."

Here's the full exchange:

Q: "On escalation of force, have you considered engaging the local community on the issue? We could explain at the brigade/battalion level what behavior we find threatening, and how we are trained to react when we feel threatened. We could negotiate with the community leaders over mutually agreeable actions and reactions that are better understood by both and gives part ownership of the issue to the community and empowers them in line with our approach to reintegration."
Gen. McChrystal: "That's a great point. I don't know if we have, but we certainly ought to be doing that. We have so many escalation of force issues, and someone gets hurt in the process, and we say, 'They didn't respond like they were supposed to.' Well, they may not have known how they were supposed to respond, so as they approached an area or checkpoint or whatever, they may have taken actions that seemed appropriate to them, and when a warning shot was fired they may have panicked. I think this is a great thing to do, to engage people and tell them the kind of behavior on their part that would lower the chance that they would run into problems.
"I do want to say something that everyone understands. We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there's danger, they're asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn't mean I'm criticizing the people who are executing. I'm just giving you perspective. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

I admire the general's honesty. His job is an impossible one -- keeping frightened soldiers from killing, when killing is what they've been trained to do.