A Magisterial Awe: These Creatures of the Night Sky

 

If in time there was a place like this, if in time we were all born into a Garden of Eden, if in time there was a placement, overwhelmed and overwhelming, the scale of the tragedy now being visited upon them too much for any one person to bear, and he walked free, but it was not about his freedom, he was as shocked, stunned might be a better word, by what was unfolding as anybody else. You didn't have to fast forward very far. 

In some senses Old Alex was more comfortable in his own skin than at any other time in his life, but it was not about him. It was about a scale of a tragedy, it was about an extremity of human experience, it was abut the blind leading the blinded and the enormous consequence of it all; as death rates began to soar, as the cold, hard reality began to seep through the bones of those who had been hoodwinked, who had thought they were doing the right thing. He watched in disbelief as old colleagues, people he had thought intelligent, progressive, the pushers of boundaries, congratulated each other on getting their third booster and poured scorn on the unvaxed; the outliers they would once have pretended or protested to have supported; people outside the swim.

The quiet was terrifying; that was true, the silence of the suburbs, but this, now, was a distinguished quiet, as the corruption of the polity spread though the mainstream media he had once been so proud to be part of, as regrets, that bout of shame, guilt, regret and remorse figured through his own life, as he puzzled over the rank stupidity of it, as it remained true that one of the most frightening things about that era was the behaviour of the public, their compliance, their gullibility. They queued, queued, to get vaccinated and tested. They drove across town to vaccinate their own children. 

They shouldered a responsibility, those active members of a rising storm, and while the mainstream media continued to be loyal to their funding source, the government, and continued to peddle a narrative with less and less credibility, his own disbelief compounded. How could it be? How could this possible?   

It was a scorn, they poured, on their fellows. 

But more and more the scorn ran both ways. 

A country divided could not stand. 

Scott Morrison's polling had plunged. The election had to be held by the 21st of May. 

Albanese might be as bad or worse; as ludicrous, preposterous, out of touch and ignorant, deliberately ignorant, but you had to get rid of one before you got rid of the other. 

The country was becoming increasingly ungovernable; had been heading that way for many years; with its creaking and grotesque bureaucracies and extravagant wastes of public money, but here it was a mechanism, a country, a polity, a public or national narrative that was becoming unbound, disconnected from reality, disconnected from the people they were meant to serve.  

He had no way to know if it was true, the Gentlemen of the Watch may have observed; but from this end there was no doubt.

We come at the End of Empire. We are partial to that partial light. We have always been and will always be. And in the awe of it, the magisterial awe of it, the warship had arrived.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

SKY NEWS

Australia’s Resources Minister has stood up for those Western Australians who are tired with Premier Mark McGowan’s strict border restrictions.

Keith Pitt’s comments come just weeks after Mr McGowan indefinitely extended the state’s border restrictions.

“They’re entitled to ask ‘if not now, when?’ and they’ve been through this now for two years,” he told Sky News Australia host Chris Kenny.

“What is it that needs to happen in state’s like Western Australia and others to get back to the most normal situation that we can possibly manage.”

he borders were set to be reopened on February 5 which corresponded with the state reaching the 90 per cent double dose vaccination target.

However Mr McGowan scrapped those plans when he said it would be “reckless and irresponsible” to open the state with the amid the current Omicron outbreaks in other states.

Joining Mr Pitt in calling for greater certainty around the border reopening was Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.

"We're hoping now the Western Australia government can give us certainty about when things will open," Mr Joyce told Ross Greenwood on Sky News Australia's Business Now program on Monday.

"Because we're staring at starting the Perth to London service again at the end of March but no real certainty of whether that will open.

"We're starting a new Perth to Rome service in June but no real certainty of whether Western Australia will be open by then."

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Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has sent a signal to Novak Djokovic on his Australian Open future should he be the Prime Minister come next year's grand slam.

The world No.1 faced an extended battle with the federal government over his visa arrangements after failing to provide sufficient evidence for a vaccine exemption.

Facing a ban from Aussie shores for three years, Djokovic’s future at next year’s Australian Open could be determined by Mr Albanese should Labor win the next election.

The Opposition Leader said there were clear rules surrounding visas and vaccinations, refusing to be drawn on the cancelled visa.

“We have rules in this country about migration, they are rules that should be enforced by the government that issues visas,” Mr Albanese said on Monday.

“And the rules are that visas don't get issued to people who aren't vaccinated, that’s what the rules are.”

SMH

Australia’s medical regulator is considering a proposal to lift a ban on blood donations from people who lived in Britain in the ’80s and ’90s, as blood banks see mass cancellations during the Omicron wave.

More than one in five regular donors have been unable to attend appointments in recent weeks due to either being in isolation or unwell with COVID-19.

THE NEW DAILY

A growing Omicron outbreak threatens to plunge Western Australia’s lucrative mining sector into chaos amid renewed calls for the state to reopen its borders.

Twelve new local cases emerged on Monday, including seven linked to a Perth nightclub cluster. A further 42 infections were reported over the weekend.

About 80 workers at BHP’s Yandi iron ore mine are isolating after being identified as contacts of a rail contractor who tested positive while on site.

The contractor had returned a negative rapid antigen test last week before flying to the site in the state’s north.

They felt unwell on Sunday and subsequently returned a positive PCR test.

ABC

Shelly Coad's five-year-old son Kai is starting school in Adelaide this week. But instead of feeling excited for his milestone, she's full of fear because of his health issues.

"My son Kai is what you'd call vulnerable. He's immunocompromised. He's had issues from birth with his respiratory system," she said.

"COVID is just terrifying for us. And the thought of now sending him to school during a massive case load of COVID is absolutely terrifying."

Her anxiety has been made worse because the South Australian government's back-to-school plans don't include a surveillance testing regime for primary and high school students, as is being implemented in New South Wales and Victoria.

In NSW and Victoria, parents are being given free rapid antigen kits to test their children twice a week. They're urged to report positive results to the school.

Four million children are due to return to school over the next fortnight.

"When you look at places like NSW and Victoria, they've set up constant surveillance of both teachers and students in order to provide protection. Whereas here in South Australia, it's kind of a 'she'll be right approach'. Well, our family is not OK," Ms Coad told 7.30.

"It feels like the government is saying to us that our children don't matter."

THE GUARDIAN

Aged care workers will receive two pre-election bonus payments worth up to $800 in total as the federal government seeks to claw back public support for its troubled pandemic response.

Ahead of a major speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced on Monday night that the bonus would be paid to more than 230,000 aged care workers in government-subsidised home care and to residential aged care staff providing “direct care, food or cleaning services”.

The first payment of up to $400 will be made this month with the second due in early May. The latest date the election can be held is 21 May.

The payments were immediately criticised by the Health Services Union (HSU), which labelled the gesture as “too little, too late” when the workforce was in crisis.

“Trinkets are not required when diamonds are needed,” the HSU secretary, Gerard Hayes, told Guardian Australia.

“From day one, they have not understood aged care, they have never understood the rollout of the vaccine, they haven’t understood the booster shots, and they have never understood the workforce crisis we are facing – and they never complied with the outcomes of the royal commission.