Leaping To The Top
The 2 week drive that saw the Yankees go 8-2 placed them to be back in the race last weekend. This week the Yankees lost the third game to the World Champion Phillies, but won a series in Texas and the first game in Cleveland, going 3-2. It was enough to place the Yankees at the top of the AL East by half a game.
Jorge Posada has come back, and while Melky Cabrera fell and hurt his shoulder, Brett Gardner has been there to hit really well. The Yankees have finally got most of the lineup they thought they would have with the exception of Xavier Nady. That being said, the big turnaround was probably chracterised more by better pitching than hitting.
With a third of the season gone, we're starting to see what this team is capable of doing. If they ca build on the lead and go to Boston with a few games in the standings, it would be a good thing, Winning there might just determine the season.
Joba To The Pen?
For some reason, this crowd just won't shut up. It's insane, but this week saw the Bleacher Report take the line that Joba was better as the intimidator in the 8th inning. As Joe Girardi noted, the good thing about Presidential debates is that they end. This one just keeps going.
Chien-Ming Wang In The Bullpen
With Phil Hughes pitching well as a starter in the last 2 outings, Wang is still consigned to the bullpen. It really comes down to the fact that between 6 pitchers going in to 5 spots. With three taken by Sabathia Pettitte & Burnett, it's Joba, Hughes and Wang trying to fit into 2 spots.
After 2 relief outing, Wang looks like he has some of his sink back. It maybe the case that Wang pitches 'Teh Eighth' until such time that a starter is needed. I's not a bad thing having pitching depth. This year, the Yankees have not had to dig deep down to option no. 7, 8 and 9, unlike 2005-2008. Ian Kennedy and Kei Igawa are not within shouting distance of the Bronx this year, while Alfredo Aceves is yet to make a start.
I know it's early days but signing AJ Burnett in the off-season was a good deal.
Swisher's Blues
After hitting like Ruth in April, Swisher has been struggling at the plate in May. He took a HBP to the elbow in early May and has been hititng like crud since. It's reminiscent of Jeter last year when he got hit in the hand by Daniel Cabrera in May and he didn't really hit the way he can until September.
I just wonder when Swisher is going to stop hurting and turn it around.
Derek Jeter Nudges .300
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Jeter's BABIP was way below his career norm. In the last few weeks he has seen it rise to above league average, and with it, he has rasied his Average to close to.300. It doesn't seem like Jeter is actually slowing down at all.
In the field, Jeter's defense has been average for Shortstop, with a UZR/150 of 0.7. Even at 35, reports of his demise were probably premature.The Yankees actually need to figure out a way of not letting him get so banged up.
F*ck You Pavano
Carl Pavano went 5-1 for the Indians this May. It's more wins than he ever got for the Yankees.
A Gen-X View of the Universe.
"The Issue Isn't Pussy, It's Monkey" - from The Right Stuff
Film, Cinema, Movies, TV, Music, Rock
2009/05/31
Sol Said...
Is Australia Racist?
And the collective cry went out, "aww come on Sol, you stupid incompetent millionaire!"
Racism as an institution in Australia is long dead, but the residue of that racism is everywhere - but it's everywhere in most countries. It's not really more so here in Australia than it is in say, Sweden or Canada or Mexico or Russia or China or the USA.
Sol saying Australia is racist has brought forth much discussion this week in the press, much of it in hot denial and accusations that maybe Sol himself was derogatory towards Singapore (stretching it, I thought, when I read the actual quote) or that perhaps he mistook the jokes as pointed xenophobia.
Let's get the jokes out of the way first. Jokes are pointed stereotyping. If anybody cracked a joke about Sol being of Mexican extraction, no matter how jocular and in "just-for-fun", if Sol took offense to it, it was offensive. I think people who are willing to make those jokes should be willing to die by those jokes. As Chief White Halfoat notes in Catch 22, "racism is a terrible thing when they treat an Indian like some spic, nigger, or kike".
A good point was made here by Sam DeBrito about the Chk-Chk-Boom Chick here.
Umm, yup. Totally got your back there wog boy. :)
In that sense, it doesn't matter what Peter Costello says with his smug self-righteousness, if Sol thought you were a xenophobe for your attitudes, he's entitled to expres that opinion. As Mr. deBrito rightly points out, Mr. Costello, you're a white dude from white-loaf Melbourne. It's Mexican-ancestor-Sol-Trujillo who gets to decide if your attitude is offensive or not. And it most probably was, given the over-hanging smug white-Australia Liberal values that your government had.
And it doesn't make it any bloody better when Kevin Rudd has to say "adios" as his parting shot to Trujillo, what with his Hicksville-in-Queensland upbringing and all. See? if you want to be derogatory about people, you just have to denigrate where they come from. But no, Kevin isn't really xenophobic.
No, Kevin isn't xenophobic but Melbourne seems like a hotbed of xenophobes. So it's a bit of a relief today to find that Adele Horin has this article.
That about sums it up. The 11 years under John Howard have done horrendous things to what we think is okay. Sol Trujillos saw it and called it like he saw it. I don't blame him one bit for that. I blame him for the Telstra share price, but I don't really disagree with him about xenophobia in Australia.
And the collective cry went out, "aww come on Sol, you stupid incompetent millionaire!"
Asked in a BBC interview whether there was racism in Australia, Mr Trujillo said: "I think it was evident in a lot of ways with me personally but more importantly with others."
His comments have shocked some, including the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia.
"I was quite flabbergasted to hear his comments," said the chamber's chief executive, Charles Blunt. "And I was quite shocked."
And Victorian Premier John Brumby said the comments appeared to be nothing more than sour grapes.
"I don't know what he's talking about, frankly," he said.
'Step back in time'
Mr Trujillo, who earned millions at the helm of the one-time taxpayer-owned telecommunications giant, cited what he described as "restrictive" historical immigration policies and "events over the past five or 10 years" that the report did not specify.
"I would say that Australia definitely is different [from] the US. In many ways it was like stepping back in time," he said in the interview, which was broadcast in part by ABC Radio this morning.
He said he was sure that would continue.
"But my point is that [racism] does exist and it's got to change because the world is full of a lot of people and most economies have to take advantage - including Australia - of a diverse set of people.
"If there is a belief that only a certain people are acceptable versus others, that is a sad state."
Racism as an institution in Australia is long dead, but the residue of that racism is everywhere - but it's everywhere in most countries. It's not really more so here in Australia than it is in say, Sweden or Canada or Mexico or Russia or China or the USA.
Sol saying Australia is racist has brought forth much discussion this week in the press, much of it in hot denial and accusations that maybe Sol himself was derogatory towards Singapore (stretching it, I thought, when I read the actual quote) or that perhaps he mistook the jokes as pointed xenophobia.
Let's get the jokes out of the way first. Jokes are pointed stereotyping. If anybody cracked a joke about Sol being of Mexican extraction, no matter how jocular and in "just-for-fun", if Sol took offense to it, it was offensive. I think people who are willing to make those jokes should be willing to die by those jokes. As Chief White Halfoat notes in Catch 22, "racism is a terrible thing when they treat an Indian like some spic, nigger, or kike".
A good point was made here by Sam DeBrito about the Chk-Chk-Boom Chick here.
More recently, good ole Chk Chk Boom chick, Clare Werbeloff, apologised for any offence she cause by using the term "wog" in her video-taped lie about witnessing a shooting in Sydney's Kings Cross ... then defended her use of the word saying her generation "don't really take offence to it any more".
Honey, you are a white chick from the suburbs, you don't get to decide if the word wog is offensive, us wogs do.
Umm, yup. Totally got your back there wog boy. :)
In that sense, it doesn't matter what Peter Costello says with his smug self-righteousness, if Sol thought you were a xenophobe for your attitudes, he's entitled to expres that opinion. As Mr. deBrito rightly points out, Mr. Costello, you're a white dude from white-loaf Melbourne. It's Mexican-ancestor-Sol-Trujillo who gets to decide if your attitude is offensive or not. And it most probably was, given the over-hanging smug white-Australia Liberal values that your government had.
And it doesn't make it any bloody better when Kevin Rudd has to say "adios" as his parting shot to Trujillo, what with his Hicksville-in-Queensland upbringing and all. See? if you want to be derogatory about people, you just have to denigrate where they come from. But no, Kevin isn't really xenophobic.
THE Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has telephoned his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, amid growing anger in India over attacks on Indian students in Australia.
Mr Rudd congratulated Dr Singh on his recent re-election but the pair also discussed the recent series of violent assaults, sources told the Herald.
In a sign of New Delhi's unhappiness over the attacks, the Indian foreign ministry called in Australia's high commissioner, John McCarthy, yesterday.
Mr McCarthy told the Herald that one of India's top diplomats, N. Ravi, "clearly conveyed Indian concerns" about the attacks.
"I told him that the Australian Government is also very concerned, that Australian ministers had expressed this, and that we are doing everything we can to address the issues."
No, Kevin isn't xenophobic but Melbourne seems like a hotbed of xenophobes. So it's a bit of a relief today to find that Adele Horin has this article.
The messenger is dislikeable, but let's not shoot him. Trujillo's message about Australian racism has some validity. It would be useful if his words prompted reflection instead of defensiveness.
Australia's multiculturalism, which most citizens wear as a badge of pride, is in need of attention. After years of the Howard government's antipathy to the very notion of multiculturalism, there is work to be done, and little evidence of progress under Rudd.
We are a fairly tolerant nation that has absorbed waves of immigrants remarkably peaceably. Since the abandonment of the white Australia policy from the late '60s and the adoption of multiculturalism, Australia has been touted as a model of tolerance and diversity.
But that was years ago - before Pauline Hanson, before Tampa, before the Cronulla race riots where the infamous slogan "We grew here, you flew here" rang out; that was before Camden citizens blocked the building of an Islamic school, before a Sudanese-born teenager was bashed to death, before Australia got caught up in the Islamophobia sweeping the world. Racism was on display last weekend, when the Cronulla rugby league captain Paul Gallen called a St George Illawarra forward, Mickey Paea, a "black c---".
At the top of corporate Australia, Trujillo could hardly have missed the dominance of white Anglo males. A cursory glance at the chief executives of our top 100 companies reveals an overwhelming predominance of men called Steve, Greg, John, Rod and Paul. There is hardly a surname suggestive of Asian or Middle East background.
The lack of diversity in corporate life compares unfavourably with the US where decades of strong affirmative action has had effect. The same applies to TV. Here reporters and newsreaders do not reflect a diverse society. Networks don't seem to consider it important.
We are not more racist than other countries, and possibly much less so. We have no serious problem with skinheads, the Ku Klux Klan or a strong National Front. On the ground, most people muddle along, at least in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods. If they do not fulfil the multicultural fantasy of becoming best friends, or inter-marrying, they are civil and helpful to one another. "People rub along in a benign way," a Macquarie University researcher, Dr Amanda Wise, says. "The problems are in white areas like Sutherland Shire where people have no contact with cultural difference and form stereotyped views."
That about sums it up. The 11 years under John Howard have done horrendous things to what we think is okay. Sol Trujillos saw it and called it like he saw it. I don't blame him one bit for that. I blame him for the Telstra share price, but I don't really disagree with him about xenophobia in Australia.
"Die Hans Brix!"
Team North Korea
Every few years, North Korea surfaces from the sludge of international relations to rattle its sabre and detonate half baked nukes and fire inaccurate missile tests. It's quite a joke really if it weren't for the fact that Kim Jong-Il seems pretty serious about his threats and nobody is willing to march in to North Korea to get themselves some regime-change-a-la-Iraq.
Thus it's always a bad time when North Korea decides to announce that it's detonated its second nuclear test, total contravention of anything discussed in the Six Nations talk. The Six Nations which include the 2 Koreas, China, Russia America and Japan have so far pleaded and begged and bribed with North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program, but when they go and set off a 20kiloton nuke in a test, it's time for some diplomatic strife.
It's an ongoing joke. Like the warlords of Afghanistan, Kim Jong-Il makes his money dealing Heroin. They sell arms to dictators in Africa, they deal in black diamonds and whatever portable wealth while their population is starving. The regime is repressive to the point of cruelty, and the people are totally brain-washed in to supporting this system because dear leader allegedly makes it so good. It's like a whole nation that's been held captive by a cult of personality trying to build an on-going dynastic system like some medieval king. And the fact that the rest of the 21st Century world actually has to take this nation more seriously because of its serious nuclear ambition is truly pathetic.
But deal with them we must.
Nobody seems to have a plan on how to get North Korea to quit being North Korea as it were. Are they merely essentially fucked up? Or is it that they work hard to be so fucked up? Or is that they get immense help and encouragement to be so fucked up?
The Chinese are too invested in having the nation as a bulwark ally facing off the ...err... capitalist West at the 38th Parallel instead of on its own borders. It's not unlike the anxiety Russia has about the Ukraine wanting to join NATO. China doesn't ant North Korea to be absorbed into South Korea because suddenly the running dogs of the Capitalist West would be at their doorstep across the Yalu River.
Remember Douglas MacArthur's great plan to drop 8 nukes north of that river to create a no-mans land forever which would keep the Chinese out of the Korean peninsula? Yes, the plan that got him sacked by Truman. It sure looks prescient today, if only because dealing with the Kim Regime in both its generations has been like pulling teeth without anaesthetics - a medieval sort of problem. That's the Yalu River for you.
Perhaps we're lucky that Truman's notion of no further nuclear wars prevailed. China and Russia are still talking to the rest of the world, if with their own strategic concerns being their bug bears. That being said, most of these strategic concerns are a bit silly if it means in the case of Russia, the Ukraines cannot get energy supplies and in the case of North Korea, it continues the aggravation of this nuclear threat. And seeing that the Cold War is long over, you wonder why they let these Cold War Era politics continue locally to the detriment of their own reputations. I guess you can put this down to bloody-mindedness.
If it ever comes down to a military solution, it's going to have to be China that digs out the Kims from their bunkers, and not the USA or the West or their allies in the far east. If nukes ever get exchanged, then you'd have to say MacArthur had it right in 1951.
Every few years, North Korea surfaces from the sludge of international relations to rattle its sabre and detonate half baked nukes and fire inaccurate missile tests. It's quite a joke really if it weren't for the fact that Kim Jong-Il seems pretty serious about his threats and nobody is willing to march in to North Korea to get themselves some regime-change-a-la-Iraq.
Thus it's always a bad time when North Korea decides to announce that it's detonated its second nuclear test, total contravention of anything discussed in the Six Nations talk. The Six Nations which include the 2 Koreas, China, Russia America and Japan have so far pleaded and begged and bribed with North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program, but when they go and set off a 20kiloton nuke in a test, it's time for some diplomatic strife.
These fireworks follow the launch in April of a three-stage rocket over Japan and the Pacific. Until that point, it was still possible to argue that increasingly belligerent rhetoric from Mr Kim’s regime was just his way of catching the attention of President Barack Obama’s new administration. The pariah state had long said it wanted an accommodation with the United States that guaranteed its security. But engagement with the outside world now looks near the bottom of its priorities.
North Korea also says it has torn up the truce that ended the Korean war in 1953. This was provoked, it says, by South Korea’s decision to join the American-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a group that aims to block shipments of weapons of mass destruction and related contraband. South Korea was reacting to Mr Kim’s nuclear test; North Korea accused it of a “declaration of war”. With American and South Korean troops put on a higher alert, some kind of military clash looks possible.
North Korea has also said it is restarting its plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, closed since 2007 as part of a disarmament deal negotiated with America, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. International nuclear inspectors have been kicked out of the country. There is also concern that North Korea will resume selling nuclear technology abroad.
Earlier this month North Korea told South Korean managers at the Kaesong industrial complex, not long ago seen as a symbol of warming ties on the peninsula, that they must sign new, costlier contracts for North Korean workers, or pack up and go. The chief North Korean negotiator of closer relations between North and South, once a confidant of Mr Kim, is rumoured to have been sent to a labour camp and even shot, possibly for taking bribes.
It's an ongoing joke. Like the warlords of Afghanistan, Kim Jong-Il makes his money dealing Heroin. They sell arms to dictators in Africa, they deal in black diamonds and whatever portable wealth while their population is starving. The regime is repressive to the point of cruelty, and the people are totally brain-washed in to supporting this system because dear leader allegedly makes it so good. It's like a whole nation that's been held captive by a cult of personality trying to build an on-going dynastic system like some medieval king. And the fact that the rest of the 21st Century world actually has to take this nation more seriously because of its serious nuclear ambition is truly pathetic.
But deal with them we must.
Nobody seems to have a plan on how to get North Korea to quit being North Korea as it were. Are they merely essentially fucked up? Or is it that they work hard to be so fucked up? Or is that they get immense help and encouragement to be so fucked up?
The Chinese are too invested in having the nation as a bulwark ally facing off the ...err... capitalist West at the 38th Parallel instead of on its own borders. It's not unlike the anxiety Russia has about the Ukraine wanting to join NATO. China doesn't ant North Korea to be absorbed into South Korea because suddenly the running dogs of the Capitalist West would be at their doorstep across the Yalu River.
Remember Douglas MacArthur's great plan to drop 8 nukes north of that river to create a no-mans land forever which would keep the Chinese out of the Korean peninsula? Yes, the plan that got him sacked by Truman. It sure looks prescient today, if only because dealing with the Kim Regime in both its generations has been like pulling teeth without anaesthetics - a medieval sort of problem. That's the Yalu River for you.
Perhaps we're lucky that Truman's notion of no further nuclear wars prevailed. China and Russia are still talking to the rest of the world, if with their own strategic concerns being their bug bears. That being said, most of these strategic concerns are a bit silly if it means in the case of Russia, the Ukraines cannot get energy supplies and in the case of North Korea, it continues the aggravation of this nuclear threat. And seeing that the Cold War is long over, you wonder why they let these Cold War Era politics continue locally to the detriment of their own reputations. I guess you can put this down to bloody-mindedness.
If it ever comes down to a military solution, it's going to have to be China that digs out the Kims from their bunkers, and not the USA or the West or their allies in the far east. If nukes ever get exchanged, then you'd have to say MacArthur had it right in 1951.
2009/05/27
News That's Fit To Punt 26/05/09
Arms Dealing
Pleiades had this interesting story today: The Japanese might have committed atrocities in the second world war. They might have hit first with Pearl Harbor, but there's one thing the Japanese have sworn off since the 1970s and that is the business of exporting arms. Then again, it hasn't really needed to resort to such means until now.
It really comes down to the fact that there won't likely be an export-led recovery anytime soon, and it's difficult to expand domestic demand when everybody has everything and the population is generally aging. Everybody already has any and every gadget under the sun, multiple watches, and some people have multiple cars. Japan is a land of material plenty where people are trying to sell even more things but you can just see it's a really hard sell.
So it seems the Japanese government is about to unseal one of the options they mothballed when times were better just to pay the bills. Let's face it, USA, the EU, China, North Korea, Russia and India all profit greatly by selling guns to African despots who then run interminable Civil Wars. Nobody's discussing it out loud, but most of the African civil wars of the last 40 years were fought with weapons sold to them by these nations. Oliver North's Fruitfly thing doesn't just pop out of nowhere - it's a product of a highly organised trade in arms all over the world that ends up with civil wars and child soldiers in Africa.
Apart from the glaring ethical issues above, there's no practical reason not to re-join in the international arms trade. Even the ethical problems of it boil down to something like: it's either your kids who starve to death or somebody else's kids who get shot, so you choose somebody else's kids getting shot.
Still, given the amount of plenty in Japan, it seems a little harsh to make that call, but Japan has been in the doldrums for a while now, and the GFC has ravaged the economy even though they didn't have a debt problem. Thus it seems they're willing to go to where they weren't before. It's as if they've lost a layer of luxury.
People will discuss this in terms of whether Japan is going militaristic again, but I think that would be missing the point. Make no mistake, Japan is doing this to pay its bills. It's that dire in the GFC when the benevolent Pacifist uncle decides to deal guns.
Pleiades had this interesting story today: The Japanese might have committed atrocities in the second world war. They might have hit first with Pearl Harbor, but there's one thing the Japanese have sworn off since the 1970s and that is the business of exporting arms. Then again, it hasn't really needed to resort to such means until now.
The huge engineering and technological might of Japan may be poised for a new lease of life as the country prepares to ditch a self-imposed ban on arms exports that was introduced in the mid-1970s.
The controversial decision, which is likely to encounter bitter opposition from the country's mainly pacifist middle classes, could deliver significant economic benefits to Japan and lead to a realignment in the global defence industry.
A ruling party MP said that the greatest significance would be the conversion of Japan's robotics industry from civilian to military use as the world's defence spending is directed to remote-control hardware, such as drone aircraft.
Lifting or toning-down the 33-year old embargo would unleash some of the world's most advanced heavy engineering companies into the international weapons market, one of the few areas of manufacturing where Japan's immense technical resources have, for purely political reasons, not produced a dominant global player.
It really comes down to the fact that there won't likely be an export-led recovery anytime soon, and it's difficult to expand domestic demand when everybody has everything and the population is generally aging. Everybody already has any and every gadget under the sun, multiple watches, and some people have multiple cars. Japan is a land of material plenty where people are trying to sell even more things but you can just see it's a really hard sell.
So it seems the Japanese government is about to unseal one of the options they mothballed when times were better just to pay the bills. Let's face it, USA, the EU, China, North Korea, Russia and India all profit greatly by selling guns to African despots who then run interminable Civil Wars. Nobody's discussing it out loud, but most of the African civil wars of the last 40 years were fought with weapons sold to them by these nations. Oliver North's Fruitfly thing doesn't just pop out of nowhere - it's a product of a highly organised trade in arms all over the world that ends up with civil wars and child soldiers in Africa.
Apart from the glaring ethical issues above, there's no practical reason not to re-join in the international arms trade. Even the ethical problems of it boil down to something like: it's either your kids who starve to death or somebody else's kids who get shot, so you choose somebody else's kids getting shot.
Still, given the amount of plenty in Japan, it seems a little harsh to make that call, but Japan has been in the doldrums for a while now, and the GFC has ravaged the economy even though they didn't have a debt problem. Thus it seems they're willing to go to where they weren't before. It's as if they've lost a layer of luxury.
People will discuss this in terms of whether Japan is going militaristic again, but I think that would be missing the point. Make no mistake, Japan is doing this to pay its bills. It's that dire in the GFC when the benevolent Pacifist uncle decides to deal guns.
2009/05/26
Star Trek Review
To Boldly Do What Has Been Done To Death
I was a trek fan as a kid. Not a Trekkie as such because I never really had the toys or played Kirk and Spock in the local park. As kids, we all liked Star Trek because it was interesting. As a teen I grew away from it, and the Star Wars franchise stole the thunder of Star Trek for a good deal of my teens. It was only in my Twenties where I began to turn over the ideas in the Star Trek universe in much finer detail.
The movies from the 1980s provided much fodder for thought about who these characters really were, and what was inherently dramatic about Star Trek as a universe. All these notions came to us through movies such as 'Wrath of Khan' and 'Search for Spock'. Indeed, 'Wrath of Khan' marks some kind of highpoint in 1980s cinema to the extent that it even got Seinfeld's ringing endorsement.
Yes folks, there's a lot of interesting detail in the Star Trek universe that is thought provoking which is why it sustains itself through various incarnations. When the Next Generation series came along, I was riven with ambivalence. On the one hand, I wanted to like this new group of characters, but on the other hand I had developed views of my own about how captains of a starship ought to be based largely on Captain Kirk and Captain Piccard sure wasn't Kirk.
Eventually the 'Next Gen' characters moved onto the big screen and gave rise to their own coterie of films culminating in 'Generations' where they killed Captain Kirk, and I think that was about the time I totally switched off the saga.
I'm relating this long-winded background to my appreciation in as much as it's probably representative of most people who are passingly familiar with Star Trek going in to see this film. So this, in a sense, is my caveat about reviewing this new Trek movie - I'm going into with a lot of baggage.
What's Good About It
For the fist time in a Trek movie, the action is pumping. The fisticuffs, the stunts, the photon torpedoes, the exploding planets, the monsters on frozen ice worlds, all have a heart-stopping quality that's never been part of the Trek movies.
The action has enough energy to keep you on the edge of the seat with sweaty palms, holding your breath. There was never a moment in any of the old TV episodes where the Kirk fisticuffs had as much compelling action. The movies are more concerned with aging than action, and so there never was this athletic feel. There's something very appealing about this burst of energy.
The film is also true to the sequence of films. While it is a re-boot, what we're seeing is an entirely new Kirk and crew come together in an altered universe, which was altered indirectly because of Spock from the original series. I've been pondering this idea over since seeing the film and I think it is one of the better things about the film.
Zachary Quinto's Spock is spookily reminiscent of a younger Nimoy's Spock. The slight slouch, the raised eye-brow, the squint, the deadpan delivery. Chris Pine's Kirk is a far cry from Shatner's caffeinated loony maverick. He's more like an adrenalin junkie ready to leap into any action, regardless of the consequence. The rest of the cast round off nicely.
In any case, you can tell the writing, directing and casting of the film was a labor of love, and that is exactly what needed to be done to bring this franchise back.
What's Bad About It
The action is good, the energy is good, but sometimes the film feels like it's more flash than thought. Maybe I'm being a little obtuse here, but the thing that separated Star Trek from Star Wars was the meditative quality of space itself. Space in Star Wars is a backdrop against which spaceships speed and shoot and dogfight. In Star Trek, space itself is the medium upon which human, Vulcan and Federation thought is writ.
This is an important distinction between the two franchises. To boldly go into the unknown is the original mission. Star Trek has always tried to grapple with the nature of this exploration. Star Wars by contrast is a war that is being fought after all the discoveries have been made, and then forgotten and re-discovered. So to take away the very meditative quality from Star Trek and substituting in the Star Wars ethos is something with which I feel uncomfortable.
This film might be the least cerebral, un-thought-provoking Trek movie, ever.
What's Interesting About It
I've been thinking lately with all these re-boots that one of the features of 20th Century Fiction was the creation of so many characters that sustain multiple narratives. That might be James Bond or Indiana Jones or Jason Bourne or Spiderman. If there was one distinguishing feature of fiction in the last century, it might have been the explosion of these characters that now inhabit our consciousness.
If you line up the best characters of the 19th century, you end up with 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. If you did the same with 20th Century fiction, you would have an Army of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Forget whether it is highbrow or low-brow for a moment. The fact that these characters keep coming back tells you something about who we are. And here's another interesting thing - James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock are making a return this year as America reaches out for hope in a way that it hasn't since the 1960s when Kirk and Spock first graced the small screen.
The incarnations of Kirk, Spock and company have gone through TV shows to animated series to the 6 films on the big screen, 7 if you include the tragic and execrable 'Generations', and here we are again, watching with avid interest. So, one has to think there is something inherently interesting about these very characters, otherwise we wouldn't be bothered with them so much.
Trekkie fanboy-isms by some aside, the degree to which these characters inspire revisiting suggests that our culture needs Star Trek more than we care to admit. There's something primal about the appeal of people going deep into space to solve dramatic problems. Don't be surprised if there are lots more of these movies to come.
I was a trek fan as a kid. Not a Trekkie as such because I never really had the toys or played Kirk and Spock in the local park. As kids, we all liked Star Trek because it was interesting. As a teen I grew away from it, and the Star Wars franchise stole the thunder of Star Trek for a good deal of my teens. It was only in my Twenties where I began to turn over the ideas in the Star Trek universe in much finer detail.
The movies from the 1980s provided much fodder for thought about who these characters really were, and what was inherently dramatic about Star Trek as a universe. All these notions came to us through movies such as 'Wrath of Khan' and 'Search for Spock'. Indeed, 'Wrath of Khan' marks some kind of highpoint in 1980s cinema to the extent that it even got Seinfeld's ringing endorsement.
Yes folks, there's a lot of interesting detail in the Star Trek universe that is thought provoking which is why it sustains itself through various incarnations. When the Next Generation series came along, I was riven with ambivalence. On the one hand, I wanted to like this new group of characters, but on the other hand I had developed views of my own about how captains of a starship ought to be based largely on Captain Kirk and Captain Piccard sure wasn't Kirk.
Eventually the 'Next Gen' characters moved onto the big screen and gave rise to their own coterie of films culminating in 'Generations' where they killed Captain Kirk, and I think that was about the time I totally switched off the saga.
I'm relating this long-winded background to my appreciation in as much as it's probably representative of most people who are passingly familiar with Star Trek going in to see this film. So this, in a sense, is my caveat about reviewing this new Trek movie - I'm going into with a lot of baggage.
What's Good About It
For the fist time in a Trek movie, the action is pumping. The fisticuffs, the stunts, the photon torpedoes, the exploding planets, the monsters on frozen ice worlds, all have a heart-stopping quality that's never been part of the Trek movies.
The action has enough energy to keep you on the edge of the seat with sweaty palms, holding your breath. There was never a moment in any of the old TV episodes where the Kirk fisticuffs had as much compelling action. The movies are more concerned with aging than action, and so there never was this athletic feel. There's something very appealing about this burst of energy.
The film is also true to the sequence of films. While it is a re-boot, what we're seeing is an entirely new Kirk and crew come together in an altered universe, which was altered indirectly because of Spock from the original series. I've been pondering this idea over since seeing the film and I think it is one of the better things about the film.
Zachary Quinto's Spock is spookily reminiscent of a younger Nimoy's Spock. The slight slouch, the raised eye-brow, the squint, the deadpan delivery. Chris Pine's Kirk is a far cry from Shatner's caffeinated loony maverick. He's more like an adrenalin junkie ready to leap into any action, regardless of the consequence. The rest of the cast round off nicely.
In any case, you can tell the writing, directing and casting of the film was a labor of love, and that is exactly what needed to be done to bring this franchise back.
What's Bad About It
The action is good, the energy is good, but sometimes the film feels like it's more flash than thought. Maybe I'm being a little obtuse here, but the thing that separated Star Trek from Star Wars was the meditative quality of space itself. Space in Star Wars is a backdrop against which spaceships speed and shoot and dogfight. In Star Trek, space itself is the medium upon which human, Vulcan and Federation thought is writ.
This is an important distinction between the two franchises. To boldly go into the unknown is the original mission. Star Trek has always tried to grapple with the nature of this exploration. Star Wars by contrast is a war that is being fought after all the discoveries have been made, and then forgotten and re-discovered. So to take away the very meditative quality from Star Trek and substituting in the Star Wars ethos is something with which I feel uncomfortable.
This film might be the least cerebral, un-thought-provoking Trek movie, ever.
What's Interesting About It
I've been thinking lately with all these re-boots that one of the features of 20th Century Fiction was the creation of so many characters that sustain multiple narratives. That might be James Bond or Indiana Jones or Jason Bourne or Spiderman. If there was one distinguishing feature of fiction in the last century, it might have been the explosion of these characters that now inhabit our consciousness.
If you line up the best characters of the 19th century, you end up with 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'. If you did the same with 20th Century fiction, you would have an Army of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Forget whether it is highbrow or low-brow for a moment. The fact that these characters keep coming back tells you something about who we are. And here's another interesting thing - James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock are making a return this year as America reaches out for hope in a way that it hasn't since the 1960s when Kirk and Spock first graced the small screen.
The incarnations of Kirk, Spock and company have gone through TV shows to animated series to the 6 films on the big screen, 7 if you include the tragic and execrable 'Generations', and here we are again, watching with avid interest. So, one has to think there is something inherently interesting about these very characters, otherwise we wouldn't be bothered with them so much.
Trekkie fanboy-isms by some aside, the degree to which these characters inspire revisiting suggests that our culture needs Star Trek more than we care to admit. There's something primal about the appeal of people going deep into space to solve dramatic problems. Don't be surprised if there are lots more of these movies to come.
2009/05/24
Yankees Update 24/05/09
A Much Better Week
Since that horrible 1-5 week a fortnight ago, the Yankees have turned it around putting in a 9-game winning streak. In the process they have wiped off the 2 game deficit below .500 and are now 6 games above for the first time this season. The winning pct for the season is .585, which is very close to what they need to make the 95win mark, which may or may not be enough to make the post-season. Anything short of 95wins on the other hand means they will be counting on others to fail, which is not where they want to be.
The streak included the 2 wins against the Twins in the remainder of that 4 game series and a 3game sweep of the Orioles this week. So they have managed to undo the damage of that 1-5, immediately following on. The Blue Jays were swept by the Red Sox this week so they've fallen back to the pack. The Red Sox themselves have been playing at a .600 clip in the last 10 games, but the Yankees have managed to close on them as well.
Then of course they ended the streak by losing to the Phillies, but they won one today, so the week is 5-1. At 1.5 off the Division lead, the Yankees aren't looking as bad as 2 weeks ago. It's nice that the Yankees have done so well to recover from that week, but it means they have to keep it up to catch the Blue Jays and Red Sox.
Francisco Cervelli
The big revelation during this stretch has been the guy who got the call-up from AA, catcher Francisco Cervelli. Cervelli has been an integral part of the winning streak where he has hit .323/.344/.323 His catching skills have been praised soundly, but that batting average has been gravy. His OBP was sitting at .393 through to the May 19 game.
The reports on Cervelli were that his hitting was not as impressive as his catching, but he has come in from Trenton which is a pitchers' park. Of course Ramiro Pena's bat has cooled significantly. We sort of wonder what Angel Berroa is still doing on the40-man roster, given that we lost Steve Jackson to the Pirates.
The Pirates Have Kidnapped Our Pitchers
The supposedly upcoming pitching depth of recent years has somehow ended up in the Pirates. The list includes Jeff Karstens, Russ Ohlendorf, Eric Hacker and now Steve Jackson. Steve Jackson was claimed off waivers by the Pirates and the Yankees got nothing back in return. Worse still, Steve Jackson was the last player the Yankees got in the ditching of Randy Johnson - which was ditching a guy that was useless to them, however you'd still want *something* when you trade him away.
When you add in Jose Tabata, it looks like the Pirates are busily rebuilding from Yankee spare parts. Maybe they'll even trade for Eric Duncan.
Part of it is a function of having signed CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett while keeping Joba, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes and re-signing Pettitte. There just weren't going to be spots for these guys. Still, it's weird seeing all these names over with the Pirates.
Don't Want To Jinx Them But...
The C&C hit factory, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera are doing very well at the moment. Last year Cabrera had a great April that looked like he was turining into Bernie Williams. Then he went on to have a truly below-replacement level season. So, I'm tempering my praise but he's looking very good hitting .317/.370/.500. He's also doing this on league average BABIP so that indicates he's done it without much luck. The increase in his line-drive percentage is very encouraging.
Cano is back to his 2007 level of production. He's hitting .317/.354/.527, which is very handy to have coming out of second base. What's encouraging about Cano is that his BABIP is not out of line with his 2006 and 2007.
Since that horrible 1-5 week a fortnight ago, the Yankees have turned it around putting in a 9-game winning streak. In the process they have wiped off the 2 game deficit below .500 and are now 6 games above for the first time this season. The winning pct for the season is .585, which is very close to what they need to make the 95win mark, which may or may not be enough to make the post-season. Anything short of 95wins on the other hand means they will be counting on others to fail, which is not where they want to be.
The streak included the 2 wins against the Twins in the remainder of that 4 game series and a 3game sweep of the Orioles this week. So they have managed to undo the damage of that 1-5, immediately following on. The Blue Jays were swept by the Red Sox this week so they've fallen back to the pack. The Red Sox themselves have been playing at a .600 clip in the last 10 games, but the Yankees have managed to close on them as well.
Then of course they ended the streak by losing to the Phillies, but they won one today, so the week is 5-1. At 1.5 off the Division lead, the Yankees aren't looking as bad as 2 weeks ago. It's nice that the Yankees have done so well to recover from that week, but it means they have to keep it up to catch the Blue Jays and Red Sox.
Francisco Cervelli
The big revelation during this stretch has been the guy who got the call-up from AA, catcher Francisco Cervelli. Cervelli has been an integral part of the winning streak where he has hit .323/.344/.323 His catching skills have been praised soundly, but that batting average has been gravy. His OBP was sitting at .393 through to the May 19 game.
The reports on Cervelli were that his hitting was not as impressive as his catching, but he has come in from Trenton which is a pitchers' park. Of course Ramiro Pena's bat has cooled significantly. We sort of wonder what Angel Berroa is still doing on the40-man roster, given that we lost Steve Jackson to the Pirates.
The Pirates Have Kidnapped Our Pitchers
The supposedly upcoming pitching depth of recent years has somehow ended up in the Pirates. The list includes Jeff Karstens, Russ Ohlendorf, Eric Hacker and now Steve Jackson. Steve Jackson was claimed off waivers by the Pirates and the Yankees got nothing back in return. Worse still, Steve Jackson was the last player the Yankees got in the ditching of Randy Johnson - which was ditching a guy that was useless to them, however you'd still want *something* when you trade him away.
When you add in Jose Tabata, it looks like the Pirates are busily rebuilding from Yankee spare parts. Maybe they'll even trade for Eric Duncan.
Part of it is a function of having signed CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett while keeping Joba, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes and re-signing Pettitte. There just weren't going to be spots for these guys. Still, it's weird seeing all these names over with the Pirates.
Don't Want To Jinx Them But...
The C&C hit factory, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera are doing very well at the moment. Last year Cabrera had a great April that looked like he was turining into Bernie Williams. Then he went on to have a truly below-replacement level season. So, I'm tempering my praise but he's looking very good hitting .317/.370/.500. He's also doing this on league average BABIP so that indicates he's done it without much luck. The increase in his line-drive percentage is very encouraging.
Cano is back to his 2007 level of production. He's hitting .317/.354/.527, which is very handy to have coming out of second base. What's encouraging about Cano is that his BABIP is not out of line with his 2006 and 2007.
2009/05/23
BrisConnections News
Recycling Trash
The defaulted BrisConnections securities are going to be packaged up and sold again.
So, let me get this straight... These people originally sold something encumbered with a $3.00' liability for 1 dollar, and it plunged through the floor. Once defaulted, they're going to recycle the defaulted ones and exempt the $1.00 due this year, but try to get the last of the $1.00?
So they're Auctioning something that actually will have a net value of $0.00 with a starting price of $1.00? Why isn't ASIC investigating these guys?
The defaulted BrisConnections securities are going to be packaged up and sold again.
Nearly 280 million Brisconnections securities - more than 70 per cent of the group's issued capital - will be auctioned next month after they were defaulted following a second instalment date.
BrisConnections offered stapled units at $3 each when it floated last year, with $1 payable upfront and two further $1 payments due nine months and 18 months after the allotment date.
The second instalment was due on April 29.
Under the trust's constitution, all securities in which the second instalment remains unpaid are to be defaulted.
"These defaulted securities will be offered for sale at a public auction," Brisconnections said in a statement today.
It is estimated approximately 278 million securities will be offered for sale, just over 70 per cent of the total 390 million securities issued.
The securities will be offered at a reserve price of $1 each, in lots of 500 units or more.
The auction will be held in Brisbane on June 5.
So, let me get this straight... These people originally sold something encumbered with a $3.00' liability for 1 dollar, and it plunged through the floor. Once defaulted, they're going to recycle the defaulted ones and exempt the $1.00 due this year, but try to get the last of the $1.00?
So they're Auctioning something that actually will have a net value of $0.00 with a starting price of $1.00? Why isn't ASIC investigating these guys?
2009/05/20
Wisdom Tooth
Something To Write Home About
Some years ago, I chipped my wisdom tooth in the back of my mouth. Maybe it was screwed anyway and that's why the chip fell off. I was on the road at the time and swung into other work. The chipped tooth didn't hurt, while my wallet did, so I left it at that. Years went by and this morning I woke up with what Iago would call 'a raging toothache' and so I took the day off from work to immediately have work done on my chipped wisdom tooth.
Now, you have to understand that I am the type of guy who would do his tax returns promptly each year, but I've stayed away from the dentist for a while. I know some people who have it the other way around and go to their dentist for regular check ups but rarely do their tax returns. It occurred to me that maybe most people have one corner of their life for which they just can't make any time.
More realistically, I haven't been missing the dentist for any reason other than lack of habit. I never got into a comfortable groove of going to the dentist for regular check ups so it just went astray from my life. I guess I've been lucky I haven't had any other problems.
The pain got worse as the day wore on until I had to have some cold water in mouth or I couldn't stand the pain. I got my x-ray done in St. Leonards. I thought my Zygomatic Arch would collapse in on my face as I waited in ever-increasing agony. The throbbing pain was as if I was being punched in the face every 10 seconds. It was getting increasingly, unbelievably painful. The wait for the x-ray damn near killed me - or felt like it would - as I sat there swallowing from a bottle, non-stop, to keep water in my mouth.
And then it was off to the good dentist. Anyway, the first thing he said was "that's coming out."
Like, tell me something I wouldn't know, I thought. With my whole right side of the face throbbing with this Promethean pain I had to hobble over to see the X-ray for an explanation of 'why'.
I just didn't care 'why' at that point. I was paying this man to remove this pain from my head. Dutifully, he explained the infection of this and that and the cavity of one thing and a possible root canal of another and I was standing there holding my cheek thinking, "whatever Doc, just bust out your needle and let's yank this thing."
Within 15minutes he had me anaesthetised and then the tooth was pulled. Minimum of fuss and blood and pain. I really don't know why I hadn't done it until I had to; but I guess that's the nature of all these things. It was more surreal watching him fix two stitches in my mouth to lose the gap, what with the suture coming out of my mouth and somewhere in the back of my mouth I could feel the tug of the suture.
Being the weird artist-type that I am, I asked to take the tooth home with me. It looks horrible. Sort of a reminder of why one shouldn't just leave problems alone, just because they're not hurting this minute.
Some years ago, I chipped my wisdom tooth in the back of my mouth. Maybe it was screwed anyway and that's why the chip fell off. I was on the road at the time and swung into other work. The chipped tooth didn't hurt, while my wallet did, so I left it at that. Years went by and this morning I woke up with what Iago would call 'a raging toothache' and so I took the day off from work to immediately have work done on my chipped wisdom tooth.
Now, you have to understand that I am the type of guy who would do his tax returns promptly each year, but I've stayed away from the dentist for a while. I know some people who have it the other way around and go to their dentist for regular check ups but rarely do their tax returns. It occurred to me that maybe most people have one corner of their life for which they just can't make any time.
More realistically, I haven't been missing the dentist for any reason other than lack of habit. I never got into a comfortable groove of going to the dentist for regular check ups so it just went astray from my life. I guess I've been lucky I haven't had any other problems.
The pain got worse as the day wore on until I had to have some cold water in mouth or I couldn't stand the pain. I got my x-ray done in St. Leonards. I thought my Zygomatic Arch would collapse in on my face as I waited in ever-increasing agony. The throbbing pain was as if I was being punched in the face every 10 seconds. It was getting increasingly, unbelievably painful. The wait for the x-ray damn near killed me - or felt like it would - as I sat there swallowing from a bottle, non-stop, to keep water in my mouth.
And then it was off to the good dentist. Anyway, the first thing he said was "that's coming out."
Like, tell me something I wouldn't know, I thought. With my whole right side of the face throbbing with this Promethean pain I had to hobble over to see the X-ray for an explanation of 'why'.
I just didn't care 'why' at that point. I was paying this man to remove this pain from my head. Dutifully, he explained the infection of this and that and the cavity of one thing and a possible root canal of another and I was standing there holding my cheek thinking, "whatever Doc, just bust out your needle and let's yank this thing."
Within 15minutes he had me anaesthetised and then the tooth was pulled. Minimum of fuss and blood and pain. I really don't know why I hadn't done it until I had to; but I guess that's the nature of all these things. It was more surreal watching him fix two stitches in my mouth to lose the gap, what with the suture coming out of my mouth and somewhere in the back of my mouth I could feel the tug of the suture.
Being the weird artist-type that I am, I asked to take the tooth home with me. It looks horrible. Sort of a reminder of why one shouldn't just leave problems alone, just because they're not hurting this minute.
2009/05/18
Crappy Media Moralism Rules The Day
Sorry To Burst Your Bubble Lady, But I Don't Thinks So
I'm a little legalistic sometimes. I figure if you can't abide by the law, that puts you in the criminal basket. So if somebody's done something criminal, then they should at least be charged, and if the charges stick by the judge, they should get tried. It's fairly simple.
It worries me a little bit that what is happening to Matthew Johns is looking more and more like a media beat-up rather than a desire to get to the bottom of what happened. Now, it has to be said, charges were not laid, and the NZ police have said that they won't reopen the case which seems to say to me that there isn't anything criminal going on.
Thus it worries me considerably to see articles wherein the NSW Rape Crisis Centre chimes in and has this to say.
Let's get this right. This Karen Willis is saying these Group Sex incidents are more common than we've been led to believe. The NRL is actually leading the way educating men against this kind of behaviour; but these Cronulla Sharks players need to put their hands up to take the public punishment that's been meted out to Johns for his part - even though no charges have been laid?
I'm getting more than worried about the tenor of the media response to the allegations. Nobody can claim to know what exactly transpired. Not even Matthew Johns was there from start to finish - he left the room by his own account. The NSW Rape Crisis Centre is dispensing announcements as if Johns and the other players committed rape - which may or may not be true, but the NZ police sure don't think so; yet these other guys have no incentive to come forward and admit they did it. They won't even get to see the inside of a courtroom when the media has billed them guilty as charged.
Why the hell would they admit to anything? For a free kick to the crotch? These people are on drugs.
Okay, what happened was incredibly unsavory, and yes, there are immense differences of power between star athletes and a single 19 year old woman that make it very unpleasant, but I need to see that a crime was actually committed before I kick Matthew Johns any harder. I thought we still lived under a system of presumed innocence until proven guilty. All of this is just jumping the shark as they say.
The sanctimoniousness of the media and the pundits is getting pretty ridiculous.
If Not Consent, Then What?
The hypotheticals that come out of this 'case' are quite disturbing.
Imagine you have a one night stand with a woman, and you part ways and think everything is okay. You got your consent, did the deed as mutually consenting adults; it's not like she screamed rape or you did any rough stuff; she's not even saying date-rape.
Then 6 years later you're lambasted for taking advantage of the woman, even though you secured consent at the time.
The media goes to town on your reputation and without a trial to prove anything, you're branded as guilty as charged and sacked from your job and everybody thinks you're the scum of the earth.
It could happened to you if a woman changes her mind about consent after the fact, and you would have absolutely no recourse. So it seems to me right now, consent isn't consent any more if this 'Clare' woman's version is allowed to stand and destroy Johns' career. I just don't understand why more people aren't disturbed by that.
Why Moralising Is Not Getting Us To Ethical Behaviour
Moralising is an ugly business. You profit on other people's bad behaviour and the prejudices of the stupid and ignorant. Heres' Tracey Grimshaw talking about her editorial stance.
Well yes, the Group Sex thing is rather repugnant to the majority of the populace, but I still want to see charges laid and stick before I go further in condemning Johns. In the mean time Ms Grimshaw, the type of editorialising where you dance all over Johns' credibility is actually the unethical thing to do.
Here's another moralising column by one Robyn Riley.
Umm, lady, you wouldn't want to be tried in the media with the same sort of information with which Johns has been buried. I'm also a little miffed by this notion/assumption that the woman who claims to be the victim wouldn't possibly lie about this incident, even with testimony to the contrary that's been in the press. While I'm not defending Johns' right to indulge in this sort of sordid behaviour (and maybe one should defend it but that's another topic), it's not like we'd know anything about his sex life if he wasn't a public personality that's just been thrown under the bus.
But you know what? If there's one thing we know about moralists is that they're shameless.
I'm a little legalistic sometimes. I figure if you can't abide by the law, that puts you in the criminal basket. So if somebody's done something criminal, then they should at least be charged, and if the charges stick by the judge, they should get tried. It's fairly simple.
It worries me a little bit that what is happening to Matthew Johns is looking more and more like a media beat-up rather than a desire to get to the bottom of what happened. Now, it has to be said, charges were not laid, and the NZ police have said that they won't reopen the case which seems to say to me that there isn't anything criminal going on.
Thus it worries me considerably to see articles wherein the NSW Rape Crisis Centre chimes in and has this to say.
NSW Rape Crisis Centre Manager Karen Willis, who advises the NRL on sexual assault issues, says the problem of group sex happens across the board.
She said the NRL has already taken steps to address the behaviour of some footballers towards women.
"It's not just footballers...generally a lot of blokes just don't get it," she told Network Ten.
"The NRL...(have)... been the first male-dominated organisation in this country to put up their hand and say we have a problem and we need to do something about it. That work needs to continue."
Ms Willis also urged the men who took part in the New Zealand sexual assault with Matthew Johns to come forward and publicly name themselves.
"If they're in any way sorry for what they've done or understand the impacts of their behaviour, the very first thing they need to do is admit that."
Let's get this right. This Karen Willis is saying these Group Sex incidents are more common than we've been led to believe. The NRL is actually leading the way educating men against this kind of behaviour; but these Cronulla Sharks players need to put their hands up to take the public punishment that's been meted out to Johns for his part - even though no charges have been laid?
I'm getting more than worried about the tenor of the media response to the allegations. Nobody can claim to know what exactly transpired. Not even Matthew Johns was there from start to finish - he left the room by his own account. The NSW Rape Crisis Centre is dispensing announcements as if Johns and the other players committed rape - which may or may not be true, but the NZ police sure don't think so; yet these other guys have no incentive to come forward and admit they did it. They won't even get to see the inside of a courtroom when the media has billed them guilty as charged.
Why the hell would they admit to anything? For a free kick to the crotch? These people are on drugs.
Okay, what happened was incredibly unsavory, and yes, there are immense differences of power between star athletes and a single 19 year old woman that make it very unpleasant, but I need to see that a crime was actually committed before I kick Matthew Johns any harder. I thought we still lived under a system of presumed innocence until proven guilty. All of this is just jumping the shark as they say.
The sanctimoniousness of the media and the pundits is getting pretty ridiculous.
If Not Consent, Then What?
The hypotheticals that come out of this 'case' are quite disturbing.
Imagine you have a one night stand with a woman, and you part ways and think everything is okay. You got your consent, did the deed as mutually consenting adults; it's not like she screamed rape or you did any rough stuff; she's not even saying date-rape.
Then 6 years later you're lambasted for taking advantage of the woman, even though you secured consent at the time.
The media goes to town on your reputation and without a trial to prove anything, you're branded as guilty as charged and sacked from your job and everybody thinks you're the scum of the earth.
It could happened to you if a woman changes her mind about consent after the fact, and you would have absolutely no recourse. So it seems to me right now, consent isn't consent any more if this 'Clare' woman's version is allowed to stand and destroy Johns' career. I just don't understand why more people aren't disturbed by that.
Why Moralising Is Not Getting Us To Ethical Behaviour
Moralising is an ugly business. You profit on other people's bad behaviour and the prejudices of the stupid and ignorant. Heres' Tracey Grimshaw talking about her editorial stance.
She stated clearly that Johns must answer "the hard questions'' about an incident in 2002 which involved having group sex with a 19-year-old woman in a New Zealand hotel room while on tour with his team, the Cronulla Sharks.
"I wrote the editorial myself,'' Grimshaw explained.
"It was something I wanted to say, and it was decided in the program meeting that day that I would do this.''
The following night, Grimshaw did score the searing 20-minute interview with Johns, who admitted that what he had done was morally wrong.
He has since stepped down from the Nine Network and from his coaching work with the Melbourne Storm.
Grimshaw is considering whether she will continue with editorials on the show.
"I don't see why my view should be any better than anyone else's,'' she said.
"I prefer to just be a conduit for information, but this was obviously something I felt very strongly about.''
Well yes, the Group Sex thing is rather repugnant to the majority of the populace, but I still want to see charges laid and stick before I go further in condemning Johns. In the mean time Ms Grimshaw, the type of editorialising where you dance all over Johns' credibility is actually the unethical thing to do.
Here's another moralising column by one Robyn Riley.
That I find is the saddest indictment of the whole incident. People seem ready to believe almost anyone who has something to say, except the woman.
She's the one person whose claims have been openly questioned.
Some of that may be because of the circumstances, how it took five days for her to make a formal complaint, but is that the only reason?
Maybe it's more to do with the fact that Johns is a likable personality. It also may have something to do with the genuine pain and remorse he has increasingly shown with every appearance on Channel 9.
Whether by accident or manipulation, he has become the real victim in the eyes of many.
Umm, lady, you wouldn't want to be tried in the media with the same sort of information with which Johns has been buried. I'm also a little miffed by this notion/assumption that the woman who claims to be the victim wouldn't possibly lie about this incident, even with testimony to the contrary that's been in the press. While I'm not defending Johns' right to indulge in this sort of sordid behaviour (and maybe one should defend it but that's another topic), it's not like we'd know anything about his sex life if he wasn't a public personality that's just been thrown under the bus.
But you know what? If there's one thing we know about moralists is that they're shameless.
Some New Sounds I Bought
Zappa Plays Zappa
This one's a bonus CD that comes with a Double DVD of Dweezil Zappa leading his band through the sonic adventures of his old man Frank. I saw them over a year ago and it was a revelation to hear the songs played live and it didn't hurt to have Napolen Murphy Brock and Steve Vai playing on stage with them. My review of that show is here.
Since seeing them I'd seen the DVD set in various J&B hi-Fi shops I've been trundling into, priced at anywhere between $30.00 and $45.00. Having seen them live, and not wishing to let the memory totally fade, I decided to buy the thing only to discover there was a bonus audio disc. (Hooray!)
The songs are culled from their stage shows that have slightly different interpretations of the songs. The more standard takes are on the DVDs. They songs are played immaculately, and lovingly. IF there's one complaint I have, it's that they seem to go just a little too slowly. I've been listening to the 'You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore' Series on my iPod in the car for months now, and I'm used to hearing these numbers zip by with gusto and over-rehearsed casual abandon. It's no biggie, but you can hear on these recordings at least that Dweezil's band is still climbing the heights Frank's band found.
One more thing: Dweezil censors his old man's lyrics a lot. 'St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast' was missing the word cock in the line "He stumbled over his cock."
Not sure if Frank would have approved of that.
Sting Plays Reneaissance Stuff
It's a real drag to find the most pretentious impulses are the ones that get Sting a record from the immensely revered, all-conquering, Von-Karajan-inflected Deutsche Grammophon label. The album I speak of is the 'Songs from the Labyrinth' where he sings the songs of John Dowland accompanied by Lute. I guess the curiosity got the better of me an I shelled out the bucks for this album. I might have been better buying the deluxe edition of 'The Who For Sale', but I thought, "no, buy something you wouldn't know the content thereof!"
I dunno.
Maybe I should stick with stuff I know I like at this stage of my life. Sting makes a fine job of huksing and crooning his way through this album to the accompaniment of a gorgeous sounding lute, but I just feel this is as phony a classical recording as my Beastie Bach, if not worse in as much as he just seems to make his delivery as straight as possible to put across the point that this is somehow a 'serious recording. I mean, it's a fine enough album but Deutsche Grammophon? Come off it Gordon!
To be blunt, I would have preferred if he played updated rock versions of these songs rather than this pseudo-historical, pseudo-intellectual quest for some kind of authenticity that fails because he's Sting. He should leave this stuff to people who do this stuff because they can't do anything else. He does rock, well. This is just perverse.
And I bought it like the sucker punter that I am. :(
This one's a bonus CD that comes with a Double DVD of Dweezil Zappa leading his band through the sonic adventures of his old man Frank. I saw them over a year ago and it was a revelation to hear the songs played live and it didn't hurt to have Napolen Murphy Brock and Steve Vai playing on stage with them. My review of that show is here.
Since seeing them I'd seen the DVD set in various J&B hi-Fi shops I've been trundling into, priced at anywhere between $30.00 and $45.00. Having seen them live, and not wishing to let the memory totally fade, I decided to buy the thing only to discover there was a bonus audio disc. (Hooray!)
The songs are culled from their stage shows that have slightly different interpretations of the songs. The more standard takes are on the DVDs. They songs are played immaculately, and lovingly. IF there's one complaint I have, it's that they seem to go just a little too slowly. I've been listening to the 'You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore' Series on my iPod in the car for months now, and I'm used to hearing these numbers zip by with gusto and over-rehearsed casual abandon. It's no biggie, but you can hear on these recordings at least that Dweezil's band is still climbing the heights Frank's band found.
One more thing: Dweezil censors his old man's lyrics a lot. 'St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast' was missing the word cock in the line "He stumbled over his cock."
Not sure if Frank would have approved of that.
Sting Plays Reneaissance Stuff
It's a real drag to find the most pretentious impulses are the ones that get Sting a record from the immensely revered, all-conquering, Von-Karajan-inflected Deutsche Grammophon label. The album I speak of is the 'Songs from the Labyrinth' where he sings the songs of John Dowland accompanied by Lute. I guess the curiosity got the better of me an I shelled out the bucks for this album. I might have been better buying the deluxe edition of 'The Who For Sale', but I thought, "no, buy something you wouldn't know the content thereof!"
I dunno.
Maybe I should stick with stuff I know I like at this stage of my life. Sting makes a fine job of huksing and crooning his way through this album to the accompaniment of a gorgeous sounding lute, but I just feel this is as phony a classical recording as my Beastie Bach, if not worse in as much as he just seems to make his delivery as straight as possible to put across the point that this is somehow a 'serious recording. I mean, it's a fine enough album but Deutsche Grammophon? Come off it Gordon!
To be blunt, I would have preferred if he played updated rock versions of these songs rather than this pseudo-historical, pseudo-intellectual quest for some kind of authenticity that fails because he's Sting. He should leave this stuff to people who do this stuff because they can't do anything else. He does rock, well. This is just perverse.
And I bought it like the sucker punter that I am. :(
2009/05/17
Yankees Update 17/05/09
A Better Week
After going 1-5 in the previous week, the Yankees have gone 5-1 with a 4 game winning streak this week to bring them a couple of games over .500. The week started with closing out the Baltimore series with a win, then taking 2 from 3 in Toronto and winning the first 2 games of the Minnesota series at home. They need to do the same again in the coming week against Baltimore and the rest of the Minnesota series, but also the Philadelphia.
Philadelphia? Yes I guess it's that time of year when inter-league play begins.
Trading Minor League Arms
The Yankees DFA'ed Eric Hacker and ended up having to trade him to the Pirates. It's a bit of a drag because Hacker was showing signs that he could contribute to the big league down the track. The pitcher they got back in return is Romulo Sanchez.
I've been playing 'ML Front Office' on my PS3 lately and I've been 'rebuilding the Pirates'. Rebuilding the Pirates meant basically sweeping out the cupboard and keeping only the players with some ceiling. Sanchez is a guy I've kept; and if it hadn't been for the game, I would have no idea who he was.
Johnny Damon On Fire
Walk-year candidate for a special season Johnny Damon has been on fire. He's leading the Yankees in AVG, Homers, Runs and RBIs thus far. I doubt they'd bring him back, but you never know. It's hard to say just who is going to be out there as a LF candidate this off-season. The smart money is on Matt Holliday, but he's been pretty crap to date with a 250/.316/.403 line.
While just under a quarter of a season doesn't really mean much, I'd want to see more than a .719 OPS playing in the AL West from Holliday before I feel like he's a great investment for multiple years.
Somebody Else's Problem Now
I can't help but notice that Randy Johnson is having some diffculty getting to his 300wins. Once upon a time he looked like he wasn't that far away from it, pitching in Pinstripes, but we know how that went. It's sort of funny to see him trying for San Francisco where they continue to invest in old hands.
As of this writing, Johnson is still on 298 and lost to the Mets. Just for the record, his ERA right now is 6.86. That sure sounds familiar.
After going 1-5 in the previous week, the Yankees have gone 5-1 with a 4 game winning streak this week to bring them a couple of games over .500. The week started with closing out the Baltimore series with a win, then taking 2 from 3 in Toronto and winning the first 2 games of the Minnesota series at home. They need to do the same again in the coming week against Baltimore and the rest of the Minnesota series, but also the Philadelphia.
Philadelphia? Yes I guess it's that time of year when inter-league play begins.
Trading Minor League Arms
The Yankees DFA'ed Eric Hacker and ended up having to trade him to the Pirates. It's a bit of a drag because Hacker was showing signs that he could contribute to the big league down the track. The pitcher they got back in return is Romulo Sanchez.
I've been playing 'ML Front Office' on my PS3 lately and I've been 'rebuilding the Pirates'. Rebuilding the Pirates meant basically sweeping out the cupboard and keeping only the players with some ceiling. Sanchez is a guy I've kept; and if it hadn't been for the game, I would have no idea who he was.
Johnny Damon On Fire
Walk-year candidate for a special season Johnny Damon has been on fire. He's leading the Yankees in AVG, Homers, Runs and RBIs thus far. I doubt they'd bring him back, but you never know. It's hard to say just who is going to be out there as a LF candidate this off-season. The smart money is on Matt Holliday, but he's been pretty crap to date with a 250/.316/.403 line.
While just under a quarter of a season doesn't really mean much, I'd want to see more than a .719 OPS playing in the AL West from Holliday before I feel like he's a great investment for multiple years.
Somebody Else's Problem Now
I can't help but notice that Randy Johnson is having some diffculty getting to his 300wins. Once upon a time he looked like he wasn't that far away from it, pitching in Pinstripes, but we know how that went. It's sort of funny to see him trying for San Francisco where they continue to invest in old hands.
As of this writing, Johnson is still on 298 and lost to the Mets. Just for the record, his ERA right now is 6.86. That sure sounds familiar.
My Generation
At The Barbers
So I'm sitting there waiting on the sofa at the barber's and the music channel Max is playing video clips. Suddenly, it's the Who with 'My Generation' blaring out of the screen. A kid who must have been about 8 started singing along to my amazement. He knew the words, right down to "Hope I die before I get old."
Which generation are you talking about kid? I thought.I mean, it's not like Pete and Roger were able to live up to that adage.
An old geezer greying at the temples and beard was sitting across from me and his foot started tapping, his fingers started rapping the leather, and pretty soon, without much of an expression, he's grooving to Keith Moon's fills and Entwistle's bass. He looked like a Babyboomer for sure The irresistible force that is rock, right there in front of us. It all had me smiling.
Of course, I'm gen-X, so The Who shouldn't be my band, but they are. Just who's generation are we talking about again? Anyway, it figures that it's always 'my' generation for whoever identifies with the song. It's 'my' generation for whoever wants it, and it's 'my' generation for whoever plain dig the band. It's never their generation if they don't get *it*.
The actual video was a cut-up of The Who's carer from various periods. I could see all the familiar footage from Kilburn and 'The Kids Are Alright'. Then, at the climax of the song, it became a montage of The Who smashing their equipment.
"Wow, said the boy. They're smashing their guitars!"
The barber who is an Englishman let out a laugh. Business is good for him, he's opened a second store recently.
I told the kid they used to do it all the time.
"Everyone?"
"No, just those guys."
Pretty soon, it gave way to Madonna and everything went back to banality-as-usual. You could just feel everybody in the barbershop losing interest in the screen in an instant. ...but I think the auto-destructive act was capturing the kid's imagination already. The future is bright.
So I'm sitting there waiting on the sofa at the barber's and the music channel Max is playing video clips. Suddenly, it's the Who with 'My Generation' blaring out of the screen. A kid who must have been about 8 started singing along to my amazement. He knew the words, right down to "Hope I die before I get old."
Which generation are you talking about kid? I thought.I mean, it's not like Pete and Roger were able to live up to that adage.
An old geezer greying at the temples and beard was sitting across from me and his foot started tapping, his fingers started rapping the leather, and pretty soon, without much of an expression, he's grooving to Keith Moon's fills and Entwistle's bass. He looked like a Babyboomer for sure The irresistible force that is rock, right there in front of us. It all had me smiling.
Of course, I'm gen-X, so The Who shouldn't be my band, but they are. Just who's generation are we talking about again? Anyway, it figures that it's always 'my' generation for whoever identifies with the song. It's 'my' generation for whoever wants it, and it's 'my' generation for whoever plain dig the band. It's never their generation if they don't get *it*.
The actual video was a cut-up of The Who's carer from various periods. I could see all the familiar footage from Kilburn and 'The Kids Are Alright'. Then, at the climax of the song, it became a montage of The Who smashing their equipment.
"Wow, said the boy. They're smashing their guitars!"
The barber who is an Englishman let out a laugh. Business is good for him, he's opened a second store recently.
I told the kid they used to do it all the time.
"Everyone?"
"No, just those guys."
Pretty soon, it gave way to Madonna and everything went back to banality-as-usual. You could just feel everybody in the barbershop losing interest in the screen in an instant. ...but I think the auto-destructive act was capturing the kid's imagination already. The future is bright.
2009/05/16
News That's Fit To Punt 15/05/09
Small Neighborhood, Bad Karma
This story is plain sad.
You feel sorry for all participants. How unlucky would you be, to be any of these people?
Viagra For Free For The Unemployed
I'm not sure that this is exactly what the unemployed need, but here you go.
The first thing that popped into my mind was that wanting free viagra was probably the least important thing on Matthew Johns' mind right now.
More Sporting Scandals
This time it's the A-League. It involves a 20year old rising star Sebastain Ryall, who is accused of fondling a 13 year old girl when he was 18.
That's just so wrong, isn't it? It's certainly enough to make A-Rod and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens look like normal, decent people. ...Wait a minute, Roger Clemens is meant to have fucked an under-aged country-western singer so scratch him off that list.
This story is plain sad.
TAIPEI - A Taiwan carpenter bought a porn DVD only to find secretly taped motel footage of his wife having sex with his friend, whom the husband later stabbed, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The husband, identified only by his surname Lee, discovered the illicit sex on the DVD in 2002. The sexual acts apparently had been recorded using a hidden camera and were on a pornographic DVD, titled Affairs with Others' Wives, which the husband bought from a vendor to watch at home.
Lee, who lives in Taoyuan County near Taipei, divorced his wife after viewing the DVD. His friend, a butcher, fled their village.
In August 2008, Lee spotted the butcher in Chungli City, returned with a knife and stabbed his former friend in the thigh.
You feel sorry for all participants. How unlucky would you be, to be any of these people?
Viagra For Free For The Unemployed
I'm not sure that this is exactly what the unemployed need, but here you go.
Pfizer is unveiling a new program that will let people, who have lost their jobs and health insurance, keep taking some widely prescribed Pfizer medications - including Lipitor and Viagra - for free for up to a year.
The world's biggest drug maker will provide more than 70 of its prescription drugs at no cost to unemployed, uninsured Americans, regardless of their prior income, who lost jobs since January 1 and have been on the Pfizer drug for three months or more.
The announcement comes amid massive job losses caused by the recession and a campaign in Washington to rein in health-care costs and extend coverage.
The move could earn Pfizer some goodwill in that debate after long being a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices.
The program will also probably help keep those patients loyal to Pfizer brands.
"Everybody knows now a neighbour, a relative who has lost their job and is losing their insurance. People are definitely hurting out there," said Jorge Puente, Pfizer's head of pharmaceuticals outside the US and Europe and a champion of the project. "Our aim is to help people bridge this point."
The first thing that popped into my mind was that wanting free viagra was probably the least important thing on Matthew Johns' mind right now.
More Sporting Scandals
This time it's the A-League. It involves a 20year old rising star Sebastain Ryall, who is accused of fondling a 13 year old girl when he was 18.
Sydney FC and Australian under 20s player Sebastian Ryall has been stood down by Football Federation Australia after being charged with engaging in a sexual act with a 13-year-old girl, the FFA said in a statement today.
The charge arises out of an incident that allegedly took place at Mona Vale on January 25, 2008, when Ryall was aged 18.
Ryall first faced court on August 13 last year, and is expected to face Downing Centre Local Court in October.
Ryall, who was scheduled to leave on Saturday with the Australian under-20 team for a camp in the Netherlands, recently transferred to Sydney from Melbourne Victory.
He has been suspended from participation in football matches in Australia, including the A-League, until September 3 and is also ineligible to participate in national team competition until the criminal case has been determined, or September 2009, whichever is the later.
That's just so wrong, isn't it? It's certainly enough to make A-Rod and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens look like normal, decent people. ...Wait a minute, Roger Clemens is meant to have fucked an under-aged country-western singer so scratch him off that list.
2009/05/15
Gruen Censor
ABC Censorship Hoopla
God, you know it's a good week when the ABC censors something and there's a circus on the internet. The Gruen Transfer put up a brief for "selling the unsellable" - except this time it was for selling being fat. Please note, that's got to be a joke about being fat, right?
So the ad agency The Foundry put together a pretty sharp, serious piece of advertising likening discrimination against fat people as being equivalent to discriminating against Blacks, Jews and gays. The ad was deemed so confrontational, the ABC censored it from broadcast.
If you want to know what the offensive jokes were, you'll have to click the link. I'm not reproducing them because it's not worth my while getting bogged down in discussions about taste. People, there is no such thing as a victim-less joke that works. Humour is sadistic. That's the point of humour. Somebody has to get it in the crotch, and when it hits you in the crotch, it hurts. But, that is point of the ad - that it's pretty bad discriminating against fat people, just the same as it is discriminating against other types of people. It's not exactly a difficult concept.
You can see how it got played out here.
Oh my word. Talk about a lame caveat, but there's no pleasing the extreme radical faction of the politically correct. And the discussion that follows the ad is just bizarre. Todd Sampson makes no sense. He says the ad doesn't work because it's too shocking and then might be perceived to be condoning other types of discrimination by mistake. I think his political correctness switch melted down during the first joke. God knows how he'll ever survive listening to Frank Zappa. To say the jokes are nasty, therefore the ad doesn't work is a crappy argument that lacks any understanding of what is laid bare by the jokes. As a result Todd comes across as being a lot less intelligent than I previously thought. Well-meaning but thick as 6 planks of wood.
Wil Anderson seems almost apologetic to have kicked off the segment with a fat joke, only to see an ad Agency that took the brief ultra-seriously and come back with a very hard-hitting product.
But here's the thing: Executive Producer Andrew Denton was quoted as saying The Foundry missed the point of the brief: "to sell being fat as a positive". ...and in the calm light of day, The Foundry missed that point. Their ad says end fat discrimination; it doesn't say it's good to be fat. The rest of the discussion about the nature of discrimination is somewhat tangential and redundant.
Me? I know what real discrimination is like. It's not the jokes they tell about your ethnicity or the way you look or the way your accent might betray your native tongue. The jokes in the ad might be shocking to some, but frankly, I've heard worse in every which direction. Jews in Nazi ovens, Blacks riddled with drugs, homosexuals being the object of scorn and ridicule, fat people caught in the eye of a needle, all being standard tropes for nasty commentary and stereotyping. These are all things that get said and hurt.
But real discrimination is a whisper you don't hear. It's the quiet agreement to lock you out of the 'mainstream'. It's the procession of blondes on TV in a multi-cultural Australia while all the 'ethnics 'get paraded on SBS; it's the coming second to a white kid at school because the duxe has to be a white kid - and if the 2 leading candidates are not white, heck, they just cancel the duxe that year - Yeah, I've seen that one somewhere. :) The jobs you don't get because the other candidate is white; the breaks or opportunities or the lenience from the law you don't get because you're not white; over and over and over again.
My point is, if those 4 white men thought those jokes were the beginning and end of discrimination - and I should include the ABC censors in on this, I have to say they have no fucking idea what discrimination is in this country. NO FUCKING IDEA.
The ABC Has No Balls
I'm trying to get my head around the ABC that censors that above ad, and the Four Corners they aired on Monday night where the trial-by-media circus has resulted in the public scapegoating of Matthew Johns.
I don't intend to defend what Johns did. My opinions on Matthew Johns are already stated in my previous entries here and here. He did a crappy thing. The way the media has been carrying on about it, you'd think he killed somebody. So far, the New Zealand police have said they won't re-open the case, and charges were never laid. The general public I've run into are of the opinion that this scapegoating is highly suspect and hypocritical.
The things I heard at the local lunch tuck shop today:
If you thought I was conflicted about Roger Clemens, these people were incredibly pissed off by the whole thing from Johns to Gallop to Gyngell to the Sharks to the woman 'Claire'.
So, hooray for the ABC who were too scared to air some racist jokes that were clearly portrayed as smug, but were brave enough to throw Matthew Johns under a bus without trial, devil may care.
I'm really, really unimpressed with the ABC this week.
That being said, I'm fascinated by the fissures that are being exposed in our society as result of these two things this week. Clearly the media on the whole is out of touch with community sentiment and I'm not alone in thinking they're fucked up.
UPDATE:
Oh, and then there's this:
Make of that what you will, but that's somebody corroborating Johns' version of the character of 'Clare'. The confusion alone suggests the public bonfire of Matthew Johns may have been set alight too quickly.
God, you know it's a good week when the ABC censors something and there's a circus on the internet. The Gruen Transfer put up a brief for "selling the unsellable" - except this time it was for selling being fat. Please note, that's got to be a joke about being fat, right?
So the ad agency The Foundry put together a pretty sharp, serious piece of advertising likening discrimination against fat people as being equivalent to discriminating against Blacks, Jews and gays. The ad was deemed so confrontational, the ABC censored it from broadcast.
IT was banned from TV last night, but hundreds online have watched an "insensitive" segment of The Gruen Transfer that jokes about Jews, black people and homosexuals.
And public and expert opinion is divided on whether the controversial ad produced for the ABC show was racist and discriminatory, as deemed by the ABC.
The powerful ad, part of a segment in which two ad agencies tried to sell "fat pride", has also forced the show's host, and comedian, Wil Anderson to reconsider his habit of telling "fat jokes".
Shot in black and white, the ad - produced by Sydney agency The Foundry - features three people each telling extremely offensive jokes.
If you want to know what the offensive jokes were, you'll have to click the link. I'm not reproducing them because it's not worth my while getting bogged down in discussions about taste. People, there is no such thing as a victim-less joke that works. Humour is sadistic. That's the point of humour. Somebody has to get it in the crotch, and when it hits you in the crotch, it hurts. But, that is point of the ad - that it's pretty bad discriminating against fat people, just the same as it is discriminating against other types of people. It's not exactly a difficult concept.
You can see how it got played out here.
This segment of The Gruen Transfer was scheduled to appear on the ABC-TV program on May 13, 2009. It was not approved for broadcast by the ABC. We are grateful for the ABC’s consent for us to put the material on this website, as it facilitates further debate and discussion.
This is a confronting ad. We at Gruen feel that it may be offensive to some people, but we stand by the fact that The Foundry agency made it with a considered and legitimate intent to persuade Australians to reconsider their prejudices.
It is clearly an anti-discrimination ad, an argument for tolerance, not divisiveness. As road safety advertisements sometimes use horrific accident images to make a point, so too this ad uses shock to drive home the ugliness of prejudice. It was made by a highly experienced advertising creative, winner of a Cannes Gold Lion, one of advertising’s greatest honours, for a previous anti-discrimination campaign.
As a show about advertising, we feel that it is appropriate for an audience, with fair warning, to consider and judge the ad for itself. And so we are making it available for viewing through this site.
To provide a clear context for the ad,The Foundry and JWT agencies were asked to come up with a campaign for the idea of Fat Pride, to end shape discrimination and make overweight Australians feel less humiliated by the constant public disapproval of anyone who isn’t a size 10 or under.
The following video includes not only The Foundry’s ad, but also a panel discussion with its creator about the reasons for the ad’s approach.
If you are likely to be offended by issues of discrimination in race, religion, sexuality or body size, please don’t watch.
Oh my word. Talk about a lame caveat, but there's no pleasing the extreme radical faction of the politically correct. And the discussion that follows the ad is just bizarre. Todd Sampson makes no sense. He says the ad doesn't work because it's too shocking and then might be perceived to be condoning other types of discrimination by mistake. I think his political correctness switch melted down during the first joke. God knows how he'll ever survive listening to Frank Zappa. To say the jokes are nasty, therefore the ad doesn't work is a crappy argument that lacks any understanding of what is laid bare by the jokes. As a result Todd comes across as being a lot less intelligent than I previously thought. Well-meaning but thick as 6 planks of wood.
Wil Anderson seems almost apologetic to have kicked off the segment with a fat joke, only to see an ad Agency that took the brief ultra-seriously and come back with a very hard-hitting product.
But here's the thing: Executive Producer Andrew Denton was quoted as saying The Foundry missed the point of the brief: "to sell being fat as a positive". ...and in the calm light of day, The Foundry missed that point. Their ad says end fat discrimination; it doesn't say it's good to be fat. The rest of the discussion about the nature of discrimination is somewhat tangential and redundant.
Me? I know what real discrimination is like. It's not the jokes they tell about your ethnicity or the way you look or the way your accent might betray your native tongue. The jokes in the ad might be shocking to some, but frankly, I've heard worse in every which direction. Jews in Nazi ovens, Blacks riddled with drugs, homosexuals being the object of scorn and ridicule, fat people caught in the eye of a needle, all being standard tropes for nasty commentary and stereotyping. These are all things that get said and hurt.
But real discrimination is a whisper you don't hear. It's the quiet agreement to lock you out of the 'mainstream'. It's the procession of blondes on TV in a multi-cultural Australia while all the 'ethnics 'get paraded on SBS; it's the coming second to a white kid at school because the duxe has to be a white kid - and if the 2 leading candidates are not white, heck, they just cancel the duxe that year - Yeah, I've seen that one somewhere. :) The jobs you don't get because the other candidate is white; the breaks or opportunities or the lenience from the law you don't get because you're not white; over and over and over again.
My point is, if those 4 white men thought those jokes were the beginning and end of discrimination - and I should include the ABC censors in on this, I have to say they have no fucking idea what discrimination is in this country. NO FUCKING IDEA.
The ABC Has No Balls
I'm trying to get my head around the ABC that censors that above ad, and the Four Corners they aired on Monday night where the trial-by-media circus has resulted in the public scapegoating of Matthew Johns.
I don't intend to defend what Johns did. My opinions on Matthew Johns are already stated in my previous entries here and here. He did a crappy thing. The way the media has been carrying on about it, you'd think he killed somebody. So far, the New Zealand police have said they won't re-open the case, and charges were never laid. The general public I've run into are of the opinion that this scapegoating is highly suspect and hypocritical.
The things I heard at the local lunch tuck shop today:
- After all, there must be some TV journos who get laid just because they're famous. Why don't they get outed?
- There are some regular folk who go cruising for pro athletes for sex. What about those people?
- It's not just Matthew Johns, so why don't they out those other players?
- Has there ever been a sport like NRL where the sport just keep stabbing its supporters in the heart over and over again?
- how is this supposed to end? With the Johns marriage breaking up or as Johns as a drug addict, derelict and homeless and dead in the gutter?
- Who is this woman 'Claire' and why is she saying this stuff now? Got to be money, right?
- Didn't this woman know better than to hang around footballers?
- It was consensual, so why are they dredging this up now? If she can change her mind, can there ever be ever-lasting consent?
- Why is the media reporting about athletes' sex lives? Why do we need to know, even if there was a revolting culture in NRL?
If you thought I was conflicted about Roger Clemens, these people were incredibly pissed off by the whole thing from Johns to Gallop to Gyngell to the Sharks to the woman 'Claire'.
So, hooray for the ABC who were too scared to air some racist jokes that were clearly portrayed as smug, but were brave enough to throw Matthew Johns under a bus without trial, devil may care.
I'm really, really unimpressed with the ABC this week.
That being said, I'm fascinated by the fissures that are being exposed in our society as result of these two things this week. Clearly the media on the whole is out of touch with community sentiment and I'm not alone in thinking they're fucked up.
UPDATE:
Oh, and then there's this:
A former work colleague of the woman at the centre of the Cronulla Sharks sex scandal involving Matthew Johns claims her co-worker bragged about the incident.
Tania Boyd has told the Nine Network that the woman in the ABC's Four Corners report, identified as "Clare", had boasted to her workmates about bedding several players and only contacted police five days after the alleged incident.
"She was absolutely excited about the fact. She was bragging about it to the staff and quite willing, openly saying how she had sex with several players," said Boyd.
"We were quite disgusted about it. There was no trauma whatsoever.
"I'm disgusted that a woman can all of a sudden change her story from having a great time to then turning it into a terrible crime.
"One minute she was absolutely bragging about it, she did not know names. These names only came to light to us in the last day.
"We all just thought it was hilarious until five days later the police came to work and were horrified she had now changed her story to say she was now a victim of crime.
"It was definitely consensual, absolutely.
"She is saying she is still traumatised et cetera, well she wasn't for five days, or four days at least, after that affair.
"I can't work out what's happened. Does it take five days for it to sink in?"
Make of that what you will, but that's somebody corroborating Johns' version of the character of 'Clare'. The confusion alone suggests the public bonfire of Matthew Johns may have been set alight too quickly.
2009/05/14
Men Feminism Forgot
Matty, You're An Animal!
This is so wrong on so many levels.
Would you look at that! I bolded that word 'discrimination' because it just popped off the page like a firecracker. I love how the language of the victim has been appropriated by these alpha male pituitary cases. They need to be told they're not being discriminated against, they're being told to control and master their libido to resemble societal norms.
Which brings me to the second point. David Gallop seems to assume that there are societal norms and that the NRL start players should know what these norms are. It's laughable that Mr. Gallop thinks these players are within cooee of that cognition. It just isn't the way they think.It's not like anybody knows, unless they run another Kinsey Report, and the NRL sure aren't going to pay for that.
Then there's the threat at the end by the star player that if he and his kind don't get what they want - i.e. 'Group Sex' - then there will be more violence. That had me cracking up in manic laughter. Who's stupid idea was it to market athletes as role models again? No wonder they keep getting betrayed by their very own players. These guys are cavemen.
More to the point, if you love your daughters, don't raise them to hang around footballers. You'll save your family a whole pile of humiliation.
This is so wrong on so many levels.
THE comments of one senior NRL representative player indicate how difficult it could be to change the sexual behaviour and attitudes of elite league players.
He warned group sex among NRL players would continue regardless of a warnings from chief executive David Gallop that unsavoury sexual acts would put their contracts at risk. The representative player told the Herald that his colleagues were left stunned by Gallop's hardline stance when no player had been convicted of sexual assault, adding that the caution would quickly be forgotten.
"It's fine for David Gallop to come out and say you can't have group sex but the last thing blokes will be thinking about on a Friday night at the club is David Gallop," said the player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "I don't know how a chief executive can come out and say we can't have group sex if it's consensual. It's like discrimination because that is a person's private life. It's like saying you can't be homosexual, or you can't have such-and-such sexual preferences. How can he tell us what we can do in our private lives? What if there's more women than guys, is that wrong, too?
"We already have so many rules: we can't drink on these days, we can't go to these places, now we can't have group sex. About the only thing we can do these days is go to club functions, and just hang around other players. That's just isolating us more from the rest of the world, and it could lead to even more violent acts."
Would you look at that! I bolded that word 'discrimination' because it just popped off the page like a firecracker. I love how the language of the victim has been appropriated by these alpha male pituitary cases. They need to be told they're not being discriminated against, they're being told to control and master their libido to resemble societal norms.
Which brings me to the second point. David Gallop seems to assume that there are societal norms and that the NRL start players should know what these norms are. It's laughable that Mr. Gallop thinks these players are within cooee of that cognition. It just isn't the way they think.It's not like anybody knows, unless they run another Kinsey Report, and the NRL sure aren't going to pay for that.
Then there's the threat at the end by the star player that if he and his kind don't get what they want - i.e. 'Group Sex' - then there will be more violence. That had me cracking up in manic laughter. Who's stupid idea was it to market athletes as role models again? No wonder they keep getting betrayed by their very own players. These guys are cavemen.
More to the point, if you love your daughters, don't raise them to hang around footballers. You'll save your family a whole pile of humiliation.
Roger Clemens' Denial
What To Make Of This?
He really sounds like he means it when he says he never did it. Either he's got extremely selective memory where he's totally blocked out the fact that he did do it. I don't think I've ever heard somebody have such conviction in their denial, but we all think he's a liar on this subject, right?
What a mess. I have no rational reason to believe he didn't do it, and I have no rational reason to believe he did do it. It's all circumstantial or bordering on hearsay, the accusations that are being made are simply staggering, and we just get to sit there and condemn the man in a kangaroo court of public opinion. It's even worse than A-Rod in the sense that Clemens' denial itself has become a some thing to ridicule - just as much as A-Rod' apologies on admission. They can't win. You can't win. The press can't win. The courts can't win. Nobody wins. What a friggin' mess!
He really sounds like he means it when he says he never did it. Either he's got extremely selective memory where he's totally blocked out the fact that he did do it. I don't think I've ever heard somebody have such conviction in their denial, but we all think he's a liar on this subject, right?
The seven-time Cy Young Award winner also continued to deny that he was given steroids and human growth hormone by his former personal trainer Brian McNamee, saying it was "impossible" that drug paraphernalia supplied to federal prosecutors by McNamee has his DNA on it.
Clemens also said he still considers former teammate Andy Pettitte a friend, though he also held firm to his assertion that Pettitte "misremembers" a conversation in which Pettitte said they discussed performance-enhancing drugs.
"It's piling on, it's hurtful at times," Clemens said of the allegations that have been made against him. "I'm trying to move on."
Clemens, who is under a federal grand jury investigation for perjury following his testimony before Congress, said he decided to end his silence and react to the book because he plans to leave his Texas home for a week's vacation.
"I was informed this book was coming out and thought we ought to talk about it," Clemens told "Mike and Mike in the Morning." "It's important for me to do that."
What a mess. I have no rational reason to believe he didn't do it, and I have no rational reason to believe he did do it. It's all circumstantial or bordering on hearsay, the accusations that are being made are simply staggering, and we just get to sit there and condemn the man in a kangaroo court of public opinion. It's even worse than A-Rod in the sense that Clemens' denial itself has become a some thing to ridicule - just as much as A-Rod' apologies on admission. They can't win. You can't win. The press can't win. The courts can't win. Nobody wins. What a friggin' mess!
Less Money, More Angst
Money Is Shrinking
This is a portion of a Screen Hub article wherein they talk about the cuts in funding.
That is to say, the government is trying to wean the whole industry off the government grants model. This is going to be very interesting. Here's another portion:
The writing on the wall says if you're not the sort of film maker that the AFC would have gotten grant money for, then go find a real commercial career. This is going to be interesting as it plays out because the whole range of not-really-commercial-and-yet-not-really-art-house movies are going to get chopped at the knees and at the neck by this move.
This time had to come, and I think a lot of producers and directors and writers are going to be in for a shock when this thing plays through. Part of the problem is that if the government directly funds a film, there's no guarantee that it's going to fund something remotely marketable; besides which it has been established over and over again that the direct investment model always ends up with 10-15 films a year with an audience of 300,000 people.
This is a portion of a Screen Hub article wherein they talk about the cuts in funding.
According to the federal government's budget papers, Screen Australia's direct investment in film and television will fall from $71.74 million to $63.37 million (an 11% fall), and continue to decline to $56.43 million in 2011. Feature film will take the biggest hit.
Screen Australia's revenue from government will fall from $93.5 million in 2008-09 to $89.5 million in 2009-10 following the merger of the three original agencies, with staff costs projected to fall from $19.3 million to $15.6 million. Total staff will fall from 169 to 135.
According to the budget papers, "Reduction in cash payments anticipated from 2008–09 onwards result from the 2008 budget decision to decrease revenue from Government with the introduction of the Producer Tax offset. It is anticipated that an increasing source of funding to the industry will be provided by the Producer Tax offset measures. Accordingly revenue from Government to the agency is planned to be reduced."
That is to say, the government is trying to wean the whole industry off the government grants model. This is going to be very interesting. Here's another portion:
In a prepared statement, CEO Ruth Harley said, "Screen Australia welcomes the Federal Government's commitment to increased funding for Australian content on ABC and SBS. We look forward to building on our work with both national broadcasters so that audiences can continue to enjoy quality programs made by the Australian screen production industry," said Ruth Harley, Screen Australia's Chief Executive. "The funding will also provide an important stimulus to the industry in difficult economic times."
The allocation to Indigenous investment will rise from $3 million to $4.6 million, marketing from $9.5 to $10.2, while "Developing screen business and talent" (which includes the Enterprise program) will fall from $11.5 million to $10.1 million.
The writing on the wall says if you're not the sort of film maker that the AFC would have gotten grant money for, then go find a real commercial career. This is going to be interesting as it plays out because the whole range of not-really-commercial-and-yet-not-really-art-house movies are going to get chopped at the knees and at the neck by this move.
This time had to come, and I think a lot of producers and directors and writers are going to be in for a shock when this thing plays through. Part of the problem is that if the government directly funds a film, there's no guarantee that it's going to fund something remotely marketable; besides which it has been established over and over again that the direct investment model always ends up with 10-15 films a year with an audience of 300,000 people.
2009/05/13
Orangutan News
The Orangutan At Adelaide Zoo Was On The Loose
Smarter than your average ape.
Good for Karta!
A New Orangutan Population
The Orangutan population in the wild is estimated at 50,000 to 60,000, so finding any new population is big news.
All very good to know there are still colonies out there, but if they're cut off from other populations, it makes their survival that much harder. Still, as the article says, if there are still population groups coming to light, then it means there's still a chance at conserving them.
Whistling Orangutan Releases CD
This is priceless:
Apparently the ape also paints:
Talent is everywhere if you only look, my friends!
Smarter than your average ape.
ADELAIDE, Australia (May 10) - A zoo in Australia was evacuated Sunday after an "ingenious" 137-pound orangutan short-circuited an electric fence and hopped a wall surrounding her enclosure.
The ape, a 27-year-old female named Karta, jammed a stick into wires connected to the fence and then piled up debris to climb a concrete and glass wall at the Adelaide Zoo.
Zoo curator Peter Whitehead told reporters Karta sat on top of the fence for about 30 minutes before apparently changing her mind about the escape and climbing back into the enclosure.
"I think when she actually got out and realized where she was ... she's realized she shouldn't be there so then she's actually hung onto the wall and dropped back into the exhibit," Whitehead said.
Karta came within a few yards of visitors, who were the first to notice the animal's escape bid.
Whitehead said the animal was not aggressive, but the zoo was cleared as a precaution, and veterinarians stood by with tranquilizer guns in case of trouble.
Good for Karta!
A New Orangutan Population
The Orangutan population in the wild is estimated at 50,000 to 60,000, so finding any new population is big news.
Conservationists have discovered a new population of orangutans in a remote, mountainous corner of Indonesia — perhaps as many as 2,000 — giving a rare boost to one of the world's most endangered great apes.A team surveying forests nestled between jagged, limestone cliffs on the eastern edge of Borneo island counted 219 orangutan nests, indicating a "substantial" number of the animals, said Erik Meijaard, a senior ecologist at the U.S.-based The Nature Conservancy.
"We can't say for sure how many," he said, but even the most cautious estimate would indicate "several hundred at least, maybe 1,000 or 2,000 even."
The team also encountered an adult male, which angrily threw branches as they tried to take photos, and a mother and child.
There are an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia and the rest in neighboring Malaysia.
The countries are the world's top producers of palm oil, used in food, cosmetics and to meet growing demands for "clean-burning" fuels in the U.S. and Europe. Rain forests, where the solitary animals spend almost all of their time, have been clear-cut and burned at alarming rates to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations.
The steep topography, poor soil and general inaccessibility of the rugged limestone mountains appear to have shielded the area from development, at least for now, said Meijaard. Its trees include those highly sought after for commercial timber.
All very good to know there are still colonies out there, but if they're cut off from other populations, it makes their survival that much harder. Still, as the article says, if there are still population groups coming to light, then it means there's still a chance at conserving them.
Whistling Orangutan Releases CD
This is priceless:
With only days to go before the Eurovision Song Contest, Germany has found the ideal candidate: a whistling orang-utan.
Sadly, entries are closed for Saturday's competition in Moscow but the long-haired, 14-year-old ape is still tipped for stardom. His CD, Ich Bin Ujian ("I Am Ujian"), is due out next month and today he was preparing for the big time by picking lice out of his fur in front of spectators who had gathered at his cage in Heidelberg Zoo.
Ujian has a large lower lip which he learnt to purse when the keeper was slow to dish up his daily supply of fruit and vegetables. Having apparently heard humans whistle, Ujian let out a long irritated piping sound to speed up the serving of his dinner.
The whistling became a habit, and a star was born. “I heard him first when I was visiting the zoo with my son,” Christian Wolf, a music producer, said. Mr Wolf decided to record the ape. Together with the head ape-house keeper, Bernd Kowalsky, he found that Ujian could generate an wide range of whistling sounds — usually before feeding time.
The sounds were recorded and now form the backdrop of the song put together by Tobi — the human singer Tobias Kaemmerer — and the Ape-Band. The proceeds of the CD will go towards building a bigger ape and monkey cage at the zoo.
Apparently the ape also paints:
Ujian appears to be a Renaissance orang-utan, and his paintings are going on auction this week — something to fall back on if the musical career does not work out.
Talent is everywhere if you only look, my friends!
2009/05/12
White Elephant Infrastructure
"More Infrastructure", They Say
The reasonably big news is that Rudd won't fund Rees' infrastructure projects. That is to say, Nathan Rees asked for about $2billion and Rudd gave him about $100million. Part of the problem is that NSW seems unable to cost these things properly, given that we're out of practice in judging which and what kinds of infrastructure are required.
Instead we've built a fair few things like the Cross City Tunnel which has already claimed one operator and the Lane Cove Tunnel which has been given a reprieve by its underwriter after falling short in payments again. Not content with that, the road builders now have the desire to expand the Iron Cove Bridge against the wishes of almost everyone,
The Iron Cove thing is perplexing:
And of course this is not surprising. The sheer wrong-headedness of the RTA is comical. But, it sort of goes hand in hand with the construction companies that need lots of random big projects to keep feeding itself - which inevitably means building these white elephant infrastructure all over the place. And by now, we all know it was money better spent on more rail instead of lining the pockets of these builders, all along. Thank you Bob Carr and Morris Iemma and Michael Costa and the rest of you weasel-y bastards, for your fine acumen - NOT!.
The bit that caught my eye about the Lane Cove Tunnel is this bit:
Who in great-googly-moogli's name forecast 100,000 trips per month? Isn't this the model under which the Cross City Tunnel was also built and sent the operator to the wall within months?
If I were an investor in BrisConnections, I'd be worried about the forecast of trips in the prospectus because this is clearly where the builders are duping people. Even if the project survives the ructions of the unit trusts and the gyrations of the market, in the long term it's going to be a loss-generator if the forecast was grossly exaggerated to get you to invest in the first place.
So the $64,000 question ASIC should be asking is, is it, or isn't it an unrealistically inflated forecast on that prospectus?
The reasonably big news is that Rudd won't fund Rees' infrastructure projects. That is to say, Nathan Rees asked for about $2billion and Rudd gave him about $100million. Part of the problem is that NSW seems unable to cost these things properly, given that we're out of practice in judging which and what kinds of infrastructure are required.
Instead we've built a fair few things like the Cross City Tunnel which has already claimed one operator and the Lane Cove Tunnel which has been given a reprieve by its underwriter after falling short in payments again. Not content with that, the road builders now have the desire to expand the Iron Cove Bridge against the wishes of almost everyone,
The Iron Cove thing is perplexing:
Having practised on the Alfords Point Bridge, Georges River, the RTA mob now wants to duplicate that duplication at Iron Cove.
The natives, however - the woad-wearers of Leichhardt and Canada Bay - are revolting. They noticed early on, as it's hard not to, that the RTA duple-bridge proposal was ugly, messy, profligate, pollutive and slow. It would disturb riverbed toxins, chop up through heritage, overshadow Drummoyne pool, shrink lovely Brett Park, and spell probable curtains for Dobroyd Sailing Club.
One native, architect Michael Morrisey, sketched a quick alternative. Forget the second bridge. Forget the poisons and the piling and the digging and destruction. Forget the whole dopey duplicity - sorry, duplication.
Simply fix broad steel beams to the existing art deco piers, cantilevering both sides - and there's your three new lanes (two bus, one car) plus pedestrian, cycle and maintenance ways.
This, with the help of some seriously bright engineers (including Arup's Tristram Carfrae, of WaterCube fame, and Sydney Uni's Professor Robert Wheen) was then developed into a serious alternative of such blinding simplicity it might be from Occam himself.
Largely prefabricated and with no new piling, it's constructible, estimates Carfrae, in half the time and for two-thirds of the cost, saving $65 million.
But does the RTA give this so much as a sideways glance? Not at all. What it does is rebadge, reallocate and regurgitate for a quick approval. What was the Victoria Road Upgrade becomes the Inner West Busway project (public transport being ipso facto climate friendly). There's a corresponding ministerial switch from Daley (Roads) to David Campbell (Transport). And, with barely a whisper of proper consultation, there it is, done and dusted, complete with the rubbery stamp of the Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally. Presto.
This, like the Firepower scam, leaves you rubbing your eyes. Why would they do that? Why knowingly ignore a cheaper, quicker, cleaner, prettier, more heritage-minded, more intelligent proposal for the dumb doppleganger? Could it relate to the 150-page contract signed back in 2007 by the RTA and Baulderstone Hornibrook (of the M5, Cross City Tunnel and Spit Bridge screw-ups) for, inter alia, the "duplication of Iron Cove bridge"?
And of course this is not surprising. The sheer wrong-headedness of the RTA is comical. But, it sort of goes hand in hand with the construction companies that need lots of random big projects to keep feeding itself - which inevitably means building these white elephant infrastructure all over the place. And by now, we all know it was money better spent on more rail instead of lining the pockets of these builders, all along. Thank you Bob Carr and Morris Iemma and Michael Costa and the rest of you weasel-y bastards, for your fine acumen - NOT!.
The bit that caught my eye about the Lane Cove Tunnel is this bit:
Connector Motorways is expected to be given its fourth stay of execution from the guarantor of the road's bond facilities, MBIA Insurance Corp, which will provide more time for a possible recapitalisation of the road.
It will also save the NSW Government further embarrassment over the latest infrastructure white elephant to dot Sydney's landscape.
Connector and MBIA have yet to agree formally to extend the latest standstill agreement on the debt, which expires on June 30, but it appears a foregone conclusion.
"Market conditions have not sufficiently improved, and it's likely an extension of the Standstill Agreement will be executed in the near-term," Connector said in an emailed statement to the Herald. "The Standstill Agreement allows the financial position and commercial prospects of the company to be maintained and preserved, and for the toll roads operations to continue as normal."
MBIA declined to comment. But sources close to the talks said it would be fruitless for creditors to move in. One problem is finding a buyer for the road in the current economic climate, or even a new investor willing to tip in more equity.
Another problem is that unlike other corporates that sell assets to pay off debt, Connector Motorways has only one asset, its toll-road. The major investors in the road - Cheung Kong Infrastructure, Mirvac and Leighton - have already written down their stakes in the road to zero.
On Friday the tunnel reported the average daily traffic for April had fallen to the lowest level since January, in part because of the Easter holidays. The average number of cars using the tunnel in the month fell 120 a day to 56,085. Including the Falcon Street Gateway, the tunnel had 70,711 average trips, which was up more than 3000 on the year, but still well short of the 100,000 trips originally forecast.
It is clear the tolls it is collecting fall short of covering its interest bill. In its accounts for the 12 months to December 31 Connector collected $48.7 million in tolls and paid $84 million in interest on its bonds. The road had $41.4 million in its "debt service reserve account" at the end of 2008.
Who in great-googly-moogli's name forecast 100,000 trips per month? Isn't this the model under which the Cross City Tunnel was also built and sent the operator to the wall within months?
If I were an investor in BrisConnections, I'd be worried about the forecast of trips in the prospectus because this is clearly where the builders are duping people. Even if the project survives the ructions of the unit trusts and the gyrations of the market, in the long term it's going to be a loss-generator if the forecast was grossly exaggerated to get you to invest in the first place.
So the $64,000 question ASIC should be asking is, is it, or isn't it an unrealistically inflated forecast on that prospectus?
2009/05/11
Shark Attack 10/05/09
Shark Attacks Boat
It sounds like a scene from the Jaws franchise of movies but a West Australian man was attacked by a shark while in his boat.
Yes, yes, a fisherman and "the one that got away". This report is interesting because the man was not in the water but on a boat to begin with, and it's also rather unseasonal. Summer is long gone so it's a little curious this big Great White is doing this right now. Having said that, the article points out it's not far from where Brian Guest was taken in December 2008.
It sounds like a scene from the Jaws franchise of movies but a West Australian man was attacked by a shark while in his boat.
A FISHERMAN came face-to-face with a massive great white shark after falling from his dinghy in Cockburn Sound in Western Australia yesterday morning.
PerthNow reports that the Rockingham man, aged in his 30s, fell into the sea as he tried to defend himself against a 4.5m shark that rammed his small aluminium fishing boat from behind at 7am.
In a terrifying chain of events described by sea rescue volunteers, the man tried to deter the shark from chewing on his outboard motor by hitting it on the nose with an oar.
But the man-eating monster grabbed the oar and as the fisherman attempted to retrieve it, he toppled into the water.
The boat, which the man was preparing to anchor, was still in gear and motored away from him towards shore, preventing him from climbing aboard.The shark circled the man four or five times before he was able to flee. He began a frantic two nautical mile swim to shore and was picked up by a fisherman after half an hour.
Yes, yes, a fisherman and "the one that got away". This report is interesting because the man was not in the water but on a boat to begin with, and it's also rather unseasonal. Summer is long gone so it's a little curious this big Great White is doing this right now. Having said that, the article points out it's not far from where Brian Guest was taken in December 2008.
Afghanistan And The Heroin Trade
That's Heroin, Not Heroines
Here's another interesting article about Afghanistan and the poppy fields sent in by Pleiades.
That's about as clear as I've read about it anywhere.It's really not more soldiers they need. It's more infrastructure and state-sponsored education, health and welfare that's needed. I think it's a good sign that Richard Holbrooke thinks the drug policies as they stand are a waste of money. People have been saying this for years, and have fallen on deaf ears in Washington DC. It's good to see somebody on the inside not only sees it, but is willing to say it on record to the press.
Here's another interesting article about Afghanistan and the poppy fields sent in by Pleiades.
Instead American policy-makers, preserving the mindset of Afghanistan as a "failed state," persist in treating the drug traffic as a local Afghan problem, not as an American one. This is true even of Holbrooke, who more than most has earned the reputation of a pragmatic realist on drug matters.
In his 2008 Op-Ed noting that "breaking the narco-state in Afghanistan is essential," Holbrooke admitted that this will not be easy, because of the pervasiveness of today’s drug traffic, "whose dollar value equals about 50% of the country's official gross domestic product."[41]
Holbrooke excoriated America’s existing drug-eradication strategies, particular aerial spraying of poppy fields: "The … program, which costs around $1 billion a year, may be the single most ineffective policy in the history of American foreign policy….It’s not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan."
Yet Holbrooke’s main recommendation was for "a temporary suspension of eradication in insecure areas, as part of an on-going campaign that "will take years, and … cannot be won as long as the border areas in Pakistan are havens for the Taliban and al-Qaeda."[42] He did not propose any alternative approach to the drug problem.
Washington’s perplexity about Afghan drugs became even more clear on March 27, 2009, at a press briefing by Holbrooke the morning after President Barack Obama unveiled his new Afghanistan policy.
Asked about the priority of drug fighting in the Afghanistan review, Holbrooke, as he was leaving the briefing, said "We're going to have to rethink the drug problem." That was interesting. He went on: "a complete rethink." He noted that the policymakers who had worked on the Afghanistan review "didn't come to a firm, final conclusion" on the opium question. "It's just so damn complicated," Holbrooke explained. Did that mean that the opium eradication efforts in Afghanistan should be canned? "You can't eliminate the whole eradication program," he exclaimed. But that remark did make it seem that he backed an easing up of some sort. "You have to put more emphasis on the agricultural sector," he added.[43]
A few days earlier Holbrooke had already indicated that he would like to divert eradication funds into funds for alternative livelihoods for farmers. But farmers are not traffickers, and Holbrooke’s renewed emphasis on them only confirms Washington’s reluctance to go after the drug traffic itself.[44]
According to Holbrooke, the new Obama strategy for Afghanistan would scale back the ambitions of the Bush administration to turn the country into a functioning democracy, and would concentrate instead on security and counter-terrorism.[45] Obama himself stressed that "we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."[46]
The U.S. response will involve a military, a diplomatic, and an economic developmental component. Moreover the military role will increase, perhaps far more than has yet been officially indicated.[47] Lawrence Korb, an Obama adviser, has submitted a report which calls for "using all the elements of U.S. national power -- diplomatic, economic and military -- in a sustained effort that could last as long as another 10 years."[48] On March 19, 2009, at the University of Pittsburgh, Korb suggested that a successful campaign might require 100,000 troops.[49]
This persistent search for a military solution runs directly counter to the RAND Corporation’s recommendation in 2008 for combating al-Qaeda. RAND reported that military force led to the end of terrorist groups in only 7 percent of cases where it was used. And RAND concluded:
Minimize the use of U.S. military force. In most operations against al Qa'ida, local military forces frequently have more legitimacy to operate and a better understanding of the operating environment than U.S. forces have. This means a light U.S. military footprint or none at all.[50]
The same considerations extend to operations against the Taliban. A recent study for the Carnegie Endowment concluded that "the presence of foreign troops is the most important element driving the resurgence of the Taliban."[51] And as Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute told the Orange County Register, ""U.S. military activity in Afghanistan has already contributed to a resurgence of Taliban and other insurgent activity in Pakistan."[52]
That's about as clear as I've read about it anywhere.It's really not more soldiers they need. It's more infrastructure and state-sponsored education, health and welfare that's needed. I think it's a good sign that Richard Holbrooke thinks the drug policies as they stand are a waste of money. People have been saying this for years, and have fallen on deaf ears in Washington DC. It's good to see somebody on the inside not only sees it, but is willing to say it on record to the press.
2009/05/10
The Right Man At The Right Time
In Praise of Helicopter Ben
There's a really diverting article here about the role of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, in stemming the impact of the current Global Financial Crisis - otherwise known as the GFC, or Globally fried Chicken.
In other words, he was ready to abandon principles and do what's right. All those people talking about moral hazards were in essence arguing that we should go down the path of the Great Depression in order to preserve our principles. It's a hard pill to swallow if it is the size of a watermelon folks!
An Article About The US Republican Party
Back in the day when Time Magazine was WASP and North Eastern USA in its bias, I don't know if it would have published an article like this one here. It's a bit far-reaching in its claims; but it is an interesting read.
More juicy bits here:
That bit had me in stitches. It's a little late to wake up to that notion now. Part of the horror of the Bush years - and you can count in his old man's term with it - is that the repeated coddling of the rich while continuously cutting back what government offered was really going to hurt a lot of people. It's a little harder to argue a case for the big end of town when the current President is going to be busy cleaning up the mess from the rampant deregulated orgy left behind by those years where the rich got their way, all the way. If you're the party that enabled it, then you're stuck with that bill.
There's a really diverting article here about the role of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, in stemming the impact of the current Global Financial Crisis - otherwise known as the GFC, or Globally fried Chicken.
In the world of financial pain and recrimination after the panic of 2008, it is easy to miss a central point: the US Federal Reserve has, so far, saved the American economy from a precipitous collapse.
Even easier to miss is the Federal Reserve's role internationally; no country likes to issue a press release with the title, "The US central bank saved our butts".
The Fed put up massive amounts of dollars, more than $US620 billion ($821 billion), including some $US20 billion for the Reserve Bank of Australia, to meet the dollar demands of banks throughout the world. It played a vital role as international lender of last resort and averting a global financial catastrophe (see breakout). "The Fed story is a revolutionary story because, in my book, they avoided a tremendous calamity", says a Columbia University associate professor of finance, Martin Cherkes.
Prominent New York mergers-and-acquisition lawyer Rodgin Cohen, the chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, says: "What you will never know and can only guess is how much worse it would have been if the Fed had not played this role. It would have been a lot worse. One will never know but we could well have been thrown into a Great Depression very quickly".
These views are not the popular perception amid the welter of post-crisis regulator bashing. It is hard to use a word like "saved" when the US economy is in such a parlous state: unemployment numbers are at their highest level since 1983, climbing to 8.5 per cent in March and the US gross domestic product is falling at an annual rate of 6.3 per cent.
But so far it is a recession and most economists believe it is unlikely to become a depression. Unemployment grew more quickly in the Great Depression and peaked at 25 per cent. GDP fell more quickly too in the 1930s, before bottoming more than 30 per cent below its peak.
Sure, there is pain. But this time around there is still a functioning banking system. There were 25 bank collapses last year. In the first 10 months of 1930 there were 744 bank failures, in the next three months there were 761 bank failures.
The Fed has pulled off this rescue of the financial system with actions of a size and scale that are hard to comprehend. It has continually upped the stakes until it has committed to lending or spending $US2 trillion to address the full force of the panic, using many programs it has invented out of thin air. It has moved from a strict money supply role, advocated by monetarist economists and championed by Milton Friedman, to outright spending to support failing markets, a role closely aligned to the views of John Maynard Keynes.
In other words, he was ready to abandon principles and do what's right. All those people talking about moral hazards were in essence arguing that we should go down the path of the Great Depression in order to preserve our principles. It's a hard pill to swallow if it is the size of a watermelon folks!
An Article About The US Republican Party
Back in the day when Time Magazine was WASP and North Eastern USA in its bias, I don't know if it would have published an article like this one here. It's a bit far-reaching in its claims; but it is an interesting read.
As the party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base's biases, insisting that the New Deal made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine for the environment and tax cuts actually boost revenues — even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree. The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence — and the death spiral continues. "We're excluding the young, minorities, environmentalists, pro-choice — the list goes on," says Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of two moderate Republicans left in the Senate after Specter's switch. "Ideological purity is not the ticket to the promised land."
More juicy bits here:
Big Government is never popular in theory, but the disaster aid, school lunches and prescription drugs that make up Big Government have become wildly popular in practice, especially now that so many people are hurting. Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party — and he's the bull's-eye of its target audience. But he also said he wouldn't support any cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid — which, along with debt payments, would put more than two-thirds of the budget off limits. It's no coincidence that many Republicans who voted against the stimulus have claimed credit for stimulus projects in their district — or that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal stopped ridiculing volcano-monitoring programs after a volcano erupted in Alaska. "We can't be the antigovernment party," Snowe says. "That's not what people want."
That bit had me in stitches. It's a little late to wake up to that notion now. Part of the horror of the Bush years - and you can count in his old man's term with it - is that the repeated coddling of the rich while continuously cutting back what government offered was really going to hurt a lot of people. It's a little harder to argue a case for the big end of town when the current President is going to be busy cleaning up the mess from the rampant deregulated orgy left behind by those years where the rich got their way, all the way. If you're the party that enabled it, then you're stuck with that bill.
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