Eddie Van Halen has new teeth!

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Thanks to everyone who commented, emailed and IMd about my dark clouds yesterday. Really, there is nothing to worry about. Today I’m back on top, thinking more about “the future” and less about “the past” (neither of which really exist, of course, other than mental constructs in “the now”). It’s part chemical, part psychological. The questions I’m asking myself today are better than the self-pity dialogue I had yesterday. Today’s it’s all about “what can I do differently?” rather than “how the hell did I end up here?”.

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John Howard won’t pull Australian troops out of Iraq because he doesn’t want the US to be “humiliated”. It’s this kind of muddled thinking which has totally undermined Australia’s credibility on the world stage. Our continued involvement in the tragedy of Iraq, our refusal to sign Kyoto, our treatment of refugees in internment camps, and our treatment of our indigenous people have left Australia’s international reputation severely lacking. Humiliated? The US has already been humiliated by Iraq. I can’t see how acknowledging their mistake is going to lead to more humiliation. We teach our children that admitting a mistake is the first step to learning from it and resolving it. So it tells you a lot about a government’s willingness to learn and grow when it cannot admit its own mistakes. Do they think history will punish them more for admitting a mistake than for perpetuating one?

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