"And though she be but little, she is fierce."
- courtesy of my mate Bill 💸 William Shakespeare.
The constant pressure on Xenophon, particularly during the negotiations on the new media laws, when he broke down in private and cried, saying he could not do it anymore, took its toll. His departure robbed the Senate of its sanest independent voice. Soon
What happened made the staffer sit bolt upright, then shift back in his seat. To their dismay, they watched Credlin feed Abbott — who had a voracious appetite, and had already polished off his main course — mouthfuls of food from her plate with her fork. They had all heard the stories about her finishing his sentences for him at meetings with business leaders, but this took their behaviour to a whole other level. The MP noticed that a couple of other diners sitting nearby had witnessed the spectacle. Asked to describe the reaction of the other patrons, he told me: ‘It was like I am not seeing what I am seeing.’ According to the MP, Credlin also fed Abbott some of her dessert — again, from her fork, off her plate. As the meal was ending, she put her head on his shoulder to complain about being tired, to which Abbott said they must go soon.
PLAY IT AGAIN, JAMES: Lileks on Casablanca:
The older you get, the more you appreciate the benefits of the censor’s code. In the modern version, Lazlo would say “I know you slept with him when you thought I was dead,” and she says “And I’ll do it again to get the letters. Don’t take it personally.” It would be all out in the open. The inability to say these things led to a scene that makes you wonder how people at the time interpreted it: this wasn’t how people acted, talking around the truth.
But it was how movie people acted. How our better selves might act. If we found ourselves in a
movie, set in Casablanca. Wherever, and whenever, that was, or is, or will be.