My contention today is that there is something terribly wrong with the world. I will attempt to demonstrate this by proving my not unrelated contention that there is something very wrong with the channel 7 morning news/lifestyle program sunrise [the lower casing is an intentional design. They’re hip, you see]. For starters, in a bravura piece of graphic styling, the opening credits show the nifty abridged logo, sr, morphing into the more substantive [though still hip] main logo, the aforementioned sunrise. Now, not to be a pedant, though I have every intention of behaving just like one, I’d like to point out that ‘sunrise’ is one word, and that therefore ‘sr’ is an illegitimate acronym currently being perpetrated against the Australian viewing public. Gasp. I’d like to finesse a claim about this superficial inaccuracy being a symbolic omen of the more profound sense of implausibility that permeates the program in terms of tone, style and content, but that would be an exercise in simplistic over-reaching. And it would be far too neat. And short. So, as I have a lot of pent-up hot air to express, I have opted for the scenic route [whose length does not in any way entail that complexity and clarity will have been delivered by its end].

Okay. Just to make known the position of rectitude from which I am speaking, I must declare that the continued presence of sunrise on my beloved television leaves me bitterly resentful at times, and ungenerously contemptuous at others. In my better moods, I can regard it with baffled incredulity. But these statements should not hold great weight for you. I promised evidence of the crapness and jarring wrongness of sunrise [oh, and word to the wise, I consider loaded language to be my rhetorical prerogative], so now, in aid of my position, I will deliver some documentary material that I archived yesterday. […insert imagined sound of throat clearing importantly, perhaps even pompously…] On Thursday 24 July 2003, sunrise began in what I consider to be a questionable way. Whatever it was , it wasn’t subtle. Allow me to set the scene. The opening image presents us with the prospect of a boat steaming across an impossibly blue Sydney Harbour. Strains of The Age of Aquarius form the sonic backdrop. The voice-over begins as the images switch. We are buffeted in quick succession with ‘Australians enjoying their Australian lifestyle’ images, consisting of such sunny pearls as happy and care-free swimmers under the easy-going and MATEY eyes of life-savers, surfers basking in glorious AUSSIE sunlight [who are no doubt easy-going also. I mean, they are Aussie males], small children patting baby KANGAROOS, smiling ferry passengers dressed like Wiggles and waving colourful hats [I’m not exactly sure what message this is supposed to send. It might be considered fruity], more small children waving Australian FLAGS [a more responsible image, you must agree], and then footage from a Dave Matthews Band film clip which depicts a man hugging random people on the streets of New York. This is all odd. But it ain’t got nothing on the script that was aired over it. Set your face to horrified as I repeat the text, verbatim, that this program thought an inspiring beginning to both a purported news program, and, more importantly, to your day. Because, as you will see, what they most want to impress upon you is the notion that this show is all about you… though, it isn’t. Here follow the words that rocked me out of my early morning torpor; Stand by Australia, it’s time to make a difference. Time to focus on the good, and forget about the bad. This morning on sunrise, we launch our new campaign. We want Australia to unite, to share in the spirit of friendship. In fact, we want to give you a big warm hug… At this point voice-over man details the personages who are ‘on location’ in certain capital cities… They’re standing by, waiting to give you a hug. Plus, we’ll chat to June Dally-Watkins on the protocols of public touching. Right across Australia, welcome to the Age of Love. Welcome to the Age of Hugs. Welcome to sunrise on Seven. And now, from Brekky Central, David Koch and Melissa Doyle. I fucking kid you not. Now, before you say anything, this is not a sweet gesture originating from a humanitarian impulse. It’s a fucking devious self-promoting ploy, part of a new concerted effort at market repositioning that has been underway for a little while. Channel Seven has been running a lot of freaky and clunky adds spruiking the pleasures of a morning spent in the company of the sunrise team. One ‘catchphrase’ [though it lacks the catchy quality of such entities] that I can proffer as further evidence of an ulterior motive for this new Age of Love is this; [imagine voice-over man voice, and concomitant emphatic meaningful pauses] sunrise. The place for news. The place for optimism. The place for fun. Ads for the show generally contain many - oh god, so many - images of the hosts laughing laughing laughing, with a few playful swipes at each other thrown in for good measure. The message is clear, and it screams that sunrise is a riotous way to begin your day. Not that it promotes rioting at all, is that clear? And, should you choose sunrise, there’s a veritable bacchanal in store for you. But not in that unseemly way, okay? It’s good clean fun. And it’s fun. And clean. This is the message. And for some inexplicable reason, someone seems to have made the untenable decision of locating much of the show’s promoted ‘personality’ in the personage of David Koch [but you can call him Koshy, because he’s clearly your mate], who is a craphead. Anyway, back to Thursday the 24th July. The subtle-as-a-sledgehammer introduction was a foretaste of the new piece of preening that the sunrise team have dubbed Our Make A Difference Campaign [now, I’m not certain whether or not the ‘our’ is part of its official title, but as ‘our’ never fails to be attached to the rest of the campaign descriptors, I feel that such re-titling is not a misrepresentation on my part]. The rationale they proffer to justify inflicting such crap as this on us is that we need crap like this because of the miserable weather and depressing news. Fuck! They are spreading love through hugs! There might be other prongs to “Our Make A Difference Campaign”, but I didn’t stick around to hear them because I was going to puke [and because I wanted to limit my exposure to any actually constructive plans they might have so that I could maintain my rage, which is as follows]... Christ! They could fucking make a difference by bringing at least some semblance of fucking rigour to their presentation of the issues raised by the ‘big bad news stories’. Geez. But I must relent for the tale to continue. Hugs, yes. Koshy, of course, couldn’t pass up this opportunity to beat us over the head with his ‘jovial’ schtick. Oh, such merry times they were having, and what a great job he has ‘here at Brekky Central’ that it provides him with an excuse to manhandle his co-anchor, and all for a good cause [unspecified]. Oh Koshy, you’re one in a million. In response, Melissa Doyle does that laugh that she has to do everyday at Koshy’s incessant attempts to ‘lighten up proceedings’ and inject ‘personality’ and provide ‘fun’ through an informal [but oppressive] tone. I don’t know how he has managed to dictate the tone of this program, because he is its most recent addition. But the women do play along. Oh Koshy. Here he goes. Isn’t he just incorrigible? Blah blah blah. He’s jingoistic, incurious and set in his understanding of the world. Nevertheless, sunrise presents the same news as everybody else, despite its urgings to ‘forget the bad’, and despite the rollicking ride it promises to divert your attention from such unpleasantness. Which leads us to things worldly and disturbing on a more urgent level.

George Bush has hailed the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s sons as the end of an era. He says that their deaths [bloody and violent] are the clearest sign yet that the former Iraqi regime is dead; “Now more than ever, all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back”. I don’t know if he intended this to be a powerful statement, but such a thing is not comprised of reiterating the fact that, now that they are dead, two ranking members of a regime won’t be able to wield their power anymore, nor be able to instigate a movement to recapture their former positions, NOW THAT THEY ARE DEAD! Bush gave no indication that these deaths were not necessary to secure the certain end of the regime. And he gave no indication that these deaths were a bad thing at all. The whole death=bad nexus is being exploded and I’m freaking out. Actually, this particular nexus [god I’m a wanker] seems rather prone to explosion ‘in times like these’. And it is very disturbing. The news of such extra-judicial summary executions has been greeted with either calm or celebration. People are cheering in a satisfied ‘chalk-that-one-up-to-our-team’ kind of way. It’s upsetting. On Letterman, when he mentioned the deaths in his opening monologue, the crowd erupted with gleeful malice. I have a problem with this. Another problem I noticed was that, although the death of Qusay’s 14-year-old son alongside his father was reported in all the Australian news reports, there was nary a mention of it in the NBC reports that I saw on NBC Today. When a guest mentioned in passing that this was the case, attention was quickly directed to the other guest [by Katie, I’m ashamed to say], and it seemed that the ‘dead child’ element of the story was assiduously not being pursued. But, even if NBC isn’t touching it, it has to be getting reported to Americans, right? It must be. The ‘ferocious firefight’ is the dominant news story, and it shouldn’t fail to be mentioned that among the oft-repeated ‘4 dead’ is a young boy, right? Right? Even if his death will immediately be rationalised as ‘unavoidable considering the circumstances’, I think it says something strange that this information isn’t even being delivered in news updates and reports that deal specifically with this story, not even in that matter-of-fact tone that tries not to draw attention to itself. I don’t understand the reticence. This boy’s death is one of the primary consequences of this ‘great’ watershed moment. It is just as apt for airing as all the other facts being reported. And it’s important. I was never going to be of the mindset to be happy at the news that the US had ‘got’ Saddam’s sons. It’s anathema to me to be happy about any such thing. But the killing of the boy made it even more plain to me how important it was to prioritise apprehending people and putting them on trial over the idea [which is firming more and more into a principle] that killing people summarily, without an airing of the evidence and without allowing them the opportunity of defending themselves, can produce a good outcome. Basing the use of lethal force on a tip-off, and rationalising the use of such force because of its ‘effectiveness’, can lead very easily to very bad things, eg. the death of a 14-year-old boy. Shit. I actually don’t want to be the asshole who uses a death as a punch line in an argument, so you can just strike that last statement. I do not live in a world that could consume unperturbed such a crass use of information. I do not. I do not. I do not. I think that this point needs to be made, so I am making it; you don’t just kill people. And you particularly don’t just kill people when you are striking a fucking blow against tyranny in the name of freedom, justice, and democracy. This is a well-trodden argument, I know. But too much behaviour flies in the face of it, and does so without raising comment. Seriously, why can’t there be an emphasis at military training level on gaining skills in procedures that don’t consider killing the most viable option in such situations? Apprehending people who represent a danger to you is more the kind of conduct that best represents the self-understanding of a democratic state than killing them does. The absolute worst thing a democratic state can do, the thing that most blights and delegitimises it, is to condone and facilitate and perform summary executions, and to celebrate extra-judicial outcomes. Charges need to be examined, and challenged in relation to other accounts, so that a just repercussion can be decided. You know, that old chestnut. It seems that, without comment, things just proceed like this. We go crazy. Bad things happen. Then we remember that whole ‘equality before the law/ basic right of existence’ thing, and we promise that we won’t let our craziness override such overarching values, so that next time, maybe, we will keep our honour. And then we allow ourselves to let our concerns be mollified by partial justifications and a stampede of people rushing to judgment. So then BANG. Bad things happen. We run full pelt in the opposite direction to that which will do us any good, and it’s like HEY, WHA’ HAPPENED? God I’m a preachy little bastard today, and so unfocussed in my anger. Here’s the part where I say that ‘things don’t just happen’, and that ‘conscious choices are made to move away from a position that keeps important priorities in full and unobstructed view so that bad things don’t happen’, blah blah blah. I don’t like bad things. If they happen to others they can just as easily happen to me. So they should definitely be restricted to effect nobody. But when they happen they should at least garner a reaction. They should at least be acknowledged as bad things.

For the last year or so I have had the burning suspicion that Katie Couric is a woman of better-than-average integrity and sense - a condition which, considering her environs, makes her worthy of a great deal of respect in my eyes. Yet, until the other night, I could never quite explain why I felt that her presentation of - and interaction with – the news was a version I could treat with less skepticism than I reserve for that of many of her contemporaries. She’s no firebrand, but there is just something about her that makes it immediately apparent that she is far superior to the saccharine deadheads who work alongside her on NBC Today. This is what I think of her. She’s smart, but not serious about herself. And she’s really nice, but not in that puke-worthy way, because she’s also fair. These were unsubstantiated thoughts until the other night, when actual evidence flooded in to fill out what had previously only been a good feeling. I can now say - without the nervous qualification of ‘pending further evidence’ - that I love Katie. On Wednesday she totally nailed evangelical reverend Pat Robertson about the crap he’s been putting on his website, and she did it in such an elegant way that I doubt he has yet realised how proficiently she deflated his position in front of an audience of millions. You see, Pat Robertson is a crank. He’s quite polite, to be sure. But don’t be fooled. Though he may look like your darling rosy-cheeked grandpa, his senility is a choice, and it is carping and influential. And it is influential because, more often than not, interviews with him don’t go the way of the other night.

I don’t think I need to tell you how chillingly organised and disproportionately funded the Christian Right is in America, but what the hell, it is. There are radio and subscription networks and so forth, which have somehow fed a major mainstream media presence. So, when national issues brush against the vague notion of ‘values’, it has become de rigeur to publicise the response of at least one Christian Right spokesperson. Apparently, you wouldn’t be doing your job if you didn’t deem such action necessary. It probably aids pluralism or something, balancing out all that noxious pinko-lefty babble that is overrunning America. Anyway, Pat Robertson is an evangelical with a healthy following. In response to the Supreme Court decision that invalidated sodomy laws, he has placed a call to prayer on his website. What he wants people to do is pray for the Lord to guide three of the Supreme Court Justices to resign. Alongside his call to prayer he has written an argument attacking the court and its decisions since 1962, when it decided that having prayer in public schools had the effect of sponsoring religion, which was a no-no considering that the Constitution is quite specific that the State must not make laws that either promote or impinge upon religion. The court has been behaving badly ever since, and now they’ve just gone too far with this ‘equal rights for freaks’ free-for-all. They must be stopped. Robertson admits that he wants the judges he’s targeted to resign to make way for three conservative appointments. By his logic, though he wants these potential conservative votes on the court to pave the way for an enhanced public presence of religion (a word Robertson reads as ‘morality’), he won’t admit that the new guys he wants will be activist judges at all, because activist judges are dirty agenda-ridden heathens and conservatives just aren’t like that.

Apparently, the next crusade is upon us, and the enemy is ‘activist judges’ who ‘attack religion’ and whose outrages have remodelled the American moral framework, to its detriment. The signal Pat Robertson is sending out is “Danger! Danger!” He illustrates this point by claiming that, using the logic that the Court used – you know, that dangerous doo-lally about there being an essential right to privacy in matters of consenting relationships against which the state shouldn’t legislate – it will only be a matter of time before incest, polygamy and bestiality become legal. And, though she didn’t argue the point as I would have, Katie really came through when she addressed this clap-trap. You see, I would have tackled it by making some attempt to bring to people’s attention the idea that equating homosexuality with incest is quite a leap, and that it is more judicious to equate it with heterosexuality, whose legal practice has not seen the rise of a movement to legalise such sexual acts as incest etc. In this way, I would hope to demonstrate that there is no danger in this decision. But Katie did her thing way better than I would have. My response would have probably prompted an argument, and we would have been all caught up in the definitions of right and wrong that we as combatants had brought to the table. We would never have gotten to the ‘there is nothing to fear’ point, especially in the allotted timeframe. This is why Katie’s a pro. When faced with a prickly assertion like that, she calmly asked whether Pat Robertson thought it likely that any American court judges would ever act to legalise what he was claiming their logic had left them able to. And he had to say no! There was no thunderstruck awe, nor gasps of shock and defeat, and they moved seamlessly on to the next dismaying point he had made. She had plenty of time, and she used it to great effect. She deftly and reasonably challenged him on his assertions, she skewered his logic, sometimes using his own constructs against him, and she gently allowed us to see what was ludicrous about his position. And it wasn’t one of those axe-grinding, malicious point-scoring interviews, either, which you only like if your point is being scored. There was no sense that she had conducted the interview in order to gain a scalp. When it ended cordially, as all interviews must, it actually ended cordially. You see, she's really nice. Robertson was never flummoxed for a response, he covered all the ground he wanted to and didn’t bluster or anything. But the calibre of her questions meant that people were most definitely exposed to the notion that there were other options. And the quality of his responses, I thought, would have led many to judge that the option he was promoting wasn’t the most sound one. I was elated. I thought, “How brilliant. He doesn’t even know that his responses aren’t the only thing being aired. It’s her questions that are revelatory about the issue, and they are being broadcast on the highest rating morning affairs show in America.” I don’t know if you’ll understand, but this powerfully impressed me. Katie Couric carves a place for sense, and I love her.

Symposiast Fiction – Period Romance Serial

…continued from With all the rage that her limp heart could muster, she looked the Count in the eye and slowly whispered the words that were to seal her fate. “I hate you, father, I hate you!”…

An intense silence followed, alleviated only by Alejandro’s sharp inhalation of breath. But Fermina’s eyes remained defiantly fixed on her father, in the hope of catching some approximately human reaction in his face before it fled to make way for the steely impassivity that usually resided there. She was seeking some sign that her declaration had at least momentarily revealed a chink in the supremely indifferent façade that he had presented to her all the days of her life. With some horror, though little surprise, she was made to finally realise that it was no façade at all. He was indifferent, and quite genuinely so. He was no actor. He had been indifferent to her love when she had loved him - a childish folly, you must concede, but one to which all children are prone – and he had been indifferent to the disappearance of that love once he had killed it. So it stood to reason that her hatred - long felt but only newly performed - would be insufficient to register some acknowledgment in him. In the face of her anger, however forceful or implacable it might have been, he would feel no compulsion to alter his position. Her changes meant nothing to him. She meant nothing to him.

Flames of humiliation licked her face, and yet, his mind had moved to other matters. His attention switched back to the papers before him, as if the interlude that had scorched her with such vehemence had not even occurred. Time passed. The blood roared in her ears. Her eyes prickled. Her mind was filled with shouting, as she attacked the situation from as many angles as her rage was propelling her to find. Perhaps it was pure futility that she lamented his carelessness in regard to her. She knew his faults, and she knew them to be rabid and numerous. She even knew that, had she lived her life in the knowledge that he adored her, she would have scorned his love. Had such a love existed at all, she would have seen that it was tainted by its source. But still, she was cut to the quick by his matter-of-fact dismissal of her self in its entirety. When the value of one’s existence is rejected or denied, it is a potent slap. It wallops you, irrespective of whether it has been delivered by a wholly detestable figure. And such wounds can only inflame further when you know that all you have to offer in life is your existence, when you are a woman of mean education and without the consolations of work or a public life, and when there is no other hook on which to hang your identity besides your presence in a household. And now Fermina was to be banished even from that meagre position. She had thought it impossible that she could exist in a more pronounced state of invisibility, or that she could ever be made to feel more keenly that she was worth little in the eyes of others. But she was now to be removed even from those around her who, in a practical sense, at least had to think of her on a daily basis, even if such thoughts were tinged with irritation. So, she was consigned to further degradation.

And yet, though her reeling mind had fixed upon no source of consolation, she began to regain her composure. It was a measure of how much of it she had clawed back that, a few minutes later, she had regained enough to be darkly amused when, having emerged from his papers, her father’s face contorted into a startled gape when he found, to his astonishment, that she was still there. It was laughable that he should have been so astounded, and yet, it was characteristic of his thinking. She knew that, to his mind, she should have ceased to exist as a presence in his life after he had made final and binding arrangements to be rid of her. It would seem to him a galling miscalculation to find that she remained, and that his decision would not acquit itself in actuality until the morning. But the fault would rest with Time, not him. And it would pass. It was a pittance, but Fermina felt that that look on her father’s face, when enlivened by an instant of unpreparedness, was the only victory she would ever win. Now that she would be leaving his house, consigned to some distant hole, she had the feeling that it would be the only memory she had amassed over her lifetime with him to show that she had once had an effect on his selfish composure. Her presence had been felt. But it was a paltry memento to account for the only life she had yet known….

Apologies for having been so lax in blogging this past week. The Period Romance is traveling along nice and ridiculously, though, and the next instalment will appear shortly. But onto other matters. The reason for which I have been rather mute on burning issues this week is that there are only so many responses a girl can make to the same old crap. "Fuck off" does tend to lose its potency if it becomes a constant refrain. But I did stumble across a slight alteration in the relentless but ineffectual (for my purposes) delivery of news this week. A school massacre plot was foiled in New Jersey, and, rather than being described as a 'Columbine-style plot', it ascended to the new moniker of 'School Terror plot'. That's a new one, isn't it? I suppose it has been recruited so that the screeching headline "Terror Plot Foiled!!" can run without accusations of fraud. Other than introducing me to the new application of this term, though, the reports on this event followed 'ye olde Columbine' formula quite to the letter. As is usual in such cases, a reason had to be almost immediately identified for why a young person would countenance such action, and while the report mentioned many times that the students involved had been quite especially singled out for derision, it did not link such environmental factors directly to a will to kill. You see, mental anguish just doesn't cut it. It is far too common. It implicates everyone, and as we know, everyone doesn't do this. Thus there has to be a reason above and beyond the banality of high school hell. So, due to the thoughtfulness and aplomb of a helpful and dutiful news service, the reason was readily supplied. The kid watched The Matrix, you see. He was such a fan that he even referred to himself as 'Neo' or 'The One'. Ah hah! So he was weird! We've got 'im! There's enough evidence on killers who were weird to make an airtight case here. Nice one. But perhaps there's more to it ...? Mmmm. Let me think. The Matrix has guns in it, doesn't it? And the child in question - hand me that file - yes! It says here that he planned to use guns! ...[insert sound of cogs turning here]... Matrix. Guns. Matrix. Guns. ...[click]... By george, I think we've cracked it, sir. A more straightforward case of cause and effect I have not seen. Tally-ho! Flawless logic there, old chap. Exemplary. Faultless. Case closed. And if there are any malcontents out there whose default position is that of leery cynic, and who will therefore undoubtedly and petulantly pester us for further proof, or even, quite outlandishly, will suggest that other avenues of inquiry be pursued... well, for the benefit of these irreparably misled souls, might we take this opportunity to triumphantly declare that there is a secondary piece of information that corroborates the 'Questionable Stimuli' theory to which we have slavishly adhered. Trumps! Hah! You see, you silly earnest dears, it is also known that the kid was rather fond of a specific violent video game, the title of which I have unforgiveably neglected to memorise for the future protection of my impressionable, as yet abstract, offspring. What a poor mother I shall make. Tsk tsk.

Now, I don't at all mean to give the impression that I know what made a teenage boy and his friends write a kill list and amass their parents' combined weapons stockpiles, but I am just registering for the public record that I very much doubt that movies or video games played a pivotal role. Because, seriously... Fuck off.

Symposiasts Fiction – Period Romance Special

…continued from And, as the manservant Alejandro set down her breakfast before her, she wondered what indignities her father had planned to both deaden and torment her today……

“Father”, Fermina whispered, eyes downcast.
“How are you this morning, my sweet daughter?” The Count did not wait for an answer, for he was not used to interruptions, even from his kin, “it is a beautiful morning, is it not - the sun shines over our fair Madrid, the birds sing - it truly is a beautiful morning”. His cheery obfuscations sent a chill through her spine; the Count did not concern himself with life’s trivialities, unless… unless concealed beneath lay a grander design. “On such a day as this, it seems a shame to be trapped, as it were, behind the cold walls of La Denetrione, especially for someone of your beauty”. The last word he mouthed languidly, as his eyes met hers. She looked away. What could he possibly mean? Could he at last be offering her the glimpse of freedom she had for so long craved? As her mind drifted towards familiar thoughts of escape, the manservant Alejandro poured into her empty cup some pomegranate juice. She glanced at him, but his eyes would not meet hers. Her mental wanderings soon ended as the Count’s booming voice flared back to life.
“You have been cloistered behind these walls for too long Fermina. You are a woman now, a grown woman. There is a limit to what you can learn from Rosamunda and myself; to what you can learn from within La Denetrione…” With a burst of feeling, Fermina began to entertain the impossible thought that perhaps today, after all these empty years, the Count Daza could be about to offer her the freedom she had for so long craved; the freedom her mother had won all those years ago. Her heart began to soar, releasing within her feelings of hope, passion and desire that had slept dormant for the entirety of her empty life.
“It is for this reason that I have decided to…” Fermina was aware that her fate rested on the words that were to follow. The difference between joy and sadness, life and death – her future stood before this rhetorical precipice. She felt a burning within her as she waited for the Count’s intent to be revealed…
“It is for this reason that I have decided to send you to live with the order of Espantaso de la Alumbramiento Virginal…” With these words, Fermina’s heart sank into the familiar depths of despair and hopelessness from which it had ever so briefly been released.
“You will leave tomorrow at dawn, sailing on La Transferencia. Alejandro will accompany you…” By this point Fermina was no longer following the Count’s cruel words. She was once again resigned to her fate, her imprisonment. The possibilities and dreams that only seconds before had seemed so close, so real, were now as distant as the dark mountains that ringed Madrid – merely shadows that lurked beyond reach. With all the rage that her limp heart could muster, she looked the Count squarely in the eye and slowly whispered the words that were to seal her fate.
“I hate you, father, I hate you!”

Symposiast Fiction - Period Romance Serial

…continued from To her, the city below promised escape. Within its rank heat and throbbing crowds she saw nothing but freedom. Freedom, and the promise of something more…

Fermina shook her head, and willed herself out of such an enchanting fancy. For she knew that today, like everyday, that prospect would be denied her. She had reached an age where it was no longer considered decent to venture unaccompanied into the city that had been her refuge as a child. She was now not even able to accompany Rosamunda, the houskeeper, on errands or to the market, as she was told that her presence in such surroundings could tarnish her, and reflect poorly on her station. If she was rarely seen, she became a rare commodity, and her father could control the kind of people who saw her so that she was made available only to those with specific intentions. She knew all this. It had been decided for her. So, with a sigh, she coiled her hair and fastened it at the nape of her neck. She then bent to gather up her embroidered house gown, and stray ebony tendrils fell across her cheek. Having fastened the eyes of her gown, she composed herself and moved languidly out of the room. She had to perform her duty, and appear be��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������

Has Jewel gone insane? In her crazy new album's liner notes, she talks about the writing process for the song U & Me=Love: "Originally, Lester and I wrote this for Holly Valance. We wanted to write a techno pop song; I ended up falling in love with it end kept it"... Holly Valance?