I confess I have been remiss in my coverage of all things Girlie. Some people have noticed and made polite enquiries. To a considerable degree my negligence has been caused by a certain teenie inertia in the Girlie department; it’s hard to write about someone who spends 14 hours a day in bed.
She has given me a couple of good tellings-off recently. Last night, for instance, when I arrived home, a little jolly, at around nine and started cooking dinner (smoked salmon, ricotta, cherry tomato and avocado pizza, dears), she seemed very upset to be starting dinner at 10 pm.
A word of explanation: with Lost in Translation out, there is a small window of opportunity for old guys to hang around in bars and actually look cool. I, for one, am making the most of it.
Anyway, back to our late dinner:
“People don’t have dinner at 10 o'clock, Dad! It’s not normal!”
People schmeeple.
One aspect of the Girlie’s character is that she is a bit of a conformist. Ever since she was wee she had a real respect for authority and a dislike of getting on the wrong side of it, unlike her big sister. But I don’t qualify as “authority” any more. I’m just that guy that buys the groceries, cooks the dinner, gives her pocket money and worries about his weight.
Last weekend she went to a party and I found myself in a familiar conundrum: whether to supply her with booze or not. This one really gets me. You see if I supply the booze and she gets into some sort of trouble as a result, I’m responsible. However, I know she’s going to buy some anyway, and at 17 that’s pretty easy. Also, seeing as I hit the grog at 16 it seems a bit hypocritical to disapprove. So I've drawn the line at the top shelf.
Having armed her with a six pack, I dropped her off and picked her up afterwards; from down the road where her friends couldn’t see me, of course.
Speaking of hypocritical, this from our “one rule for us and one for the towel-heads department”: did anyone notice US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer’s promise to veto any place for Islam as “a source of inspiration for the law” in the new Iraqi constitution? Personally I think that’s a great idea, even though he has a snowball’s chance of sustaining it long past the coming US withdrawal and civil war. Such separation of church and state is, of course, an honoured principal of the US Constitution, but it’s one Bremer’s boss doesn’t like very much and is doing his very best to undermine. George Junior wants to, in his own words, ensure religion “will have an honored place in our plans and laws,” which, if you think about it, goes somewhat further than the Iraqi wording. For more, check the Project for the Old American Century’s “fundies” page.
Let’s not forget the words of one truly great Republican, Thomas Jefferson: “The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and engrafted into the machine of government, have been a formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.”
Of course it’s great to see the Bush administration has seen the light and is now supporting affirmative action programmes to boost disadvantaged groups.
Some sort of “Road to Damascus” experience, maybe?
Here in New South Wales there are crisis everywhere: the hospitals are falling apart and people are dying as a result and the trains are groaning under industrial action when they’re not flying off the rails. Bob Carr, our somewhat aloof and superior Labor premier, until now has always seemed consummately in control, but is starting to look as if he’s lost it. He’s been very quiet at a time when leadership is required.
At the state level he seems to be doing what Howard is doing nationally: imploding.