woberto Report This Comment
Date: November 29, 2008 11:50PM

Utzon received the prestigious Pritzker prize for architecture in 2003 with the jury singling out the Opera House as one of the most iconic buildings of the 20th century, arguing it "proves that the marvellous and seemingly impossible in architecture can be achieved".

A member of the pantheon of the 20th century's architectural greats, Utzon was haunted - but insisted he was not embittered - by the disastrous end of his relationship with Sydney and what has become the city's iconic harbourside symbol. He left the project after a battle over design and cost led to the appointment of Government architects to take over the project and finish its interiors with no bearing to his original designs.

And despite its enormous beauty and almost mythical shape, the Opera House remains mired in argument about poor acoustics and lack of space in its most important theatres.

FrostedApe Report This Comment
Date: November 30, 2008 02:04AM

There has never been anything so fucked up that a properly motivated government can't fuck it up worse. This is proven many times a day, here in the US.

quasi Report This Comment
Date: November 30, 2008 06:32PM

No worries; Prez Obama is gonna fix everything - he said so.

FrostedApe Report This Comment
Date: November 30, 2008 07:10PM

The Spirit of America, the spirit that made it great, and in fact created it in the first place, is officially and permanently dead. Used to be, what people wanted from the government was just to not be fucked with. I'll take care of me and mine, and if there's something left over, I'll help take care of some others, too. Now, people are willing to have the gov tell them what to do, as long as the gov also prevents someone else from doing something they don't approve of. It's very sad. It took 80 years of propaganda and manipulation, but we now have more than half the people thinking that more government will fix all the problems that were created by having too much government in the first place. There is no way in Hell that anyone will ever convince me that HUD and the Dept of Education are in any way constitutional. I've read it. Ain't in there. Just a couple of easy examples off the top of my head.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: November 30, 2008 08:14PM

FA, we must be riding in the same boat dude as the sentimets expressed above could well have come from this keeboard too. The shame of it all is that at the moment it's more like a tug-boat bein dragged along by the big government powers afoot and all the simpletons that empowered it to grow even larger in the coming years.

Best of luck to us all is about the best I can muster at the moment

FrostedApe Report This Comment
Date: November 30, 2008 11:41PM

Look, I'm no anarchist, by a long shot. A strong federal government can do certain big, important, good things that can't be accomplished any other way. Interstate highways, customs and immigration, national defense and foreign relations, regulation of interstate trade, shit like that. Those are things only they can do, and should be doing. You know, that stuff in the Constitution? You may have noticed that "selling our country to China" was conspicuously absent from that list.

Yeah, we're in the same boat, Brother. The bilge just keeps getting deeper and deeper, and I don't think there are enough of us bailing to keep this ship afloat. We get the government we deserve, and I guess we're all partially responsible, because we didn't inform and educate and persuade enough people to keep it from happening. I'll give them credit for persistence. It took over 80 years of hard work, but they never gave up. They created a new religion, with government as their God, and you're either worshiping at the altar, or you are a dangerously unstable heretic.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: December 01, 2008 02:48PM

Yep, all the things that should be done by the fed are being either done badly or not at all, while the powers meant to be held by the states are being outright usurped or at best ransomed by the fed. "State X,Y,Z ... don't play ball with this federal program and we'll cut off your highway, disater relief, etc. funds."

While "change" is indeed something we need here, the change we'll be getting won't include things like congressional term limits to prevent all the lifetime legislators from basically developing their own little kingdoms, or more correctly: fifedoms; tax credits/incentives (or penalties) designed to encourage companies to either keep their manufacturing facilities here or move them back here again to REALLY stimulate the economy; limitation of legal immigration to levels we as a nation can actually afford realistically without allowing it to simply spiral out of control as the current immigration quotas are subject to do, and on the subject of illegal immigration, how about a little REAL effort at doin somethin about it other than just sayin "We Can't!"