This gem is from the CPRS bill, currently before the Australian House of Representatives…a chocolate frog to anyone who can tell me what it means……

It’s practically standing still now. They’ve dropped ropes out of the nose of the ship; and (uh) they’ve been taken ahold of down on the field by a number of men. It’s starting to rain again; it’s—the rain had (uh) slacked up a little bit. The back motors of the ship are just holding it (uh) just enough to keep it from— It’s burst into flames!It burst into flames, and it’s falling, it’s crashing! Watch it! Watch it! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get this, Charlie; get this, Charlie! It’s fire—and it’s crashing! It’s crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! It’s burning and bursting into flames; and the—and it’s falling on the mooring-mast. And all the folks agree that this is terrible; this is the one of the worst catastrophes in the world. [indecipherable] its flames… Crashing, oh! Four- or five-hundred feet into the sky and it—it’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It’s smoke, and it’s in flames now; and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring-mast. Oh, the humanity! and all the passengers screaming around here. I told you; it—I can’t even talk to people Their friends are out there! Ah! It’s—it—it’s a—ah! I—I can’t talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: it’s just laying there, mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and the screaming. Lady, I—I—I’m sorry. Honest: I—I can hardly breathe. I—I’m going to step inside, where I cannot see it. Charlie, that’s terrible. Ah, ah;—I can’t. Listen, folks; I—I’m gonna have to stop for a minute because [indecipherable] I’ve lost my voice. This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.

Today, May 6th marks the 72nd anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster.  Thirteen passengers and twenty-two crew and one member of the ground crew died in the explosion.

Wrapped in the sun, cupped in my hands
weaving in weaving out chasing the
lime blossoms and the lemon blossoms.

Cupped in my hands wings tip-tip-tapping
a flutter, twinkle, resounds on the wire.

Aπ΄τά κατάρτια η φωνή εξαπλώνεται
και ακουέτε καμπάνα στα πατρικά.

PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT  One of the causes of our continuing economic crisis:  

1. A society obsessed by property sucks essential capital out of growth areas and sinks it into the passive domain of land, bricks and mortar.
    
2. While property development can create both infrastructure and short-term jobs, it is limited use in feeding growth.  Once build, a building has two economic functions:  to justify the collection of rents or interest (passive); or to become a focus for financial speculation over the value of already existing goods (deceptively active).
    
3. Speculation unrelated to growth has become a central value of Western economies. Property is an important part of that speculation, as is the money market and armaments industry.  All are forms of pure inflation and train capital from areas of real investment and growth.
    
4. Since the 1960s Western economies have been repeatedly seduced by binges of property speculation.  Each time, short-term massive profits wipe out all memory of the preceding disaster.  Never before in history have there been so many South Sea Bubble catastrophes in such a short period of time.
    
5. The banks and big pension funds are central this amnesia because they are the two principal sources of capital:  the first through debt financing, the second through recirculation of the largest available deposits of money.  If there is to be new growth in our economies it must be financed from these two sectors.  But they prefer to buy property.What attracts them is the illusion of concrete collateralisation.  When a developer goes bankrupt, the lender gets the property.  On paper the lender can’t lose.  Curiously, however, these institutions have repeatedly lost money in property over the last several decades.  The reason is simple.  The property may be real but the value is not.  It is a product of speculation.
    
6. The managers who run the large deposit banks have a taste for big buildings.  They have wasted large amounts of capital by constructing remarkable headquarters buildings and imitative towers in every financial centre around the world.  The only function of these palaces is to warehouse a non-productive managerial class.
    
7. Every society needs housing and work space.  A civilisation mindful of its future makes sure that everyone has a bit of property.  An evolved civilisation attempts to ensure that both private and public buildings are of the highest possible quality.  Architecture at this level is an ethical expression of society at large.  The sign today we are merely involved in speculation is that our buildings relate less and less to any primary use or need.

From The Doubter’s Companion:  A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense by John Ralston Saul, Penguin, 1995. (ISBN 0-14-023707-0)

August, month and God, we give you our word
         again, next year you will find on this cliff, kissing.

From Virgo to Scorpio, we’ll cast a golden thread
         and light a cross at sea to thank you.

August stood bathing in the starlight
         and stars and jasmine dripped from his beard.

-  Odysseus Elytis

I stumbled on this today, quite by chance, when my book of Elytis poems decided to open at this particular spot.  It’s from the collection The Rhos of Eros (Τά Ρώ του Έρωτα)…..

silence rushes

Midwinter bears down; pares down the hours

the longest night is here and the moon is risen

low in the sky glowing ember of sun

the birds rush past seek meridian, gone.

the longest night is here and the moon is risen

high in the sky collecting starlight buds

still now, clear now, indigo, silver

the longest night is here and the moon is risen!