'Hypocrisy For Consumption'

We Eat Chicken, Don't We?

If you've read this blog for any amount of time you'll know whaling's a bit of a touchy topic for me.

So... I'll just say this: I don't want to be told whaling is bad by somebody from Canada, a land where they club baby fur seals; and the indigenous population go whaling; and the said indigenous population buy their whaling harpoon guns from Japan; and Canada isn't even a member of the International Whaling Commission exactly because these very issues might come back to bite them. I get enough from Australians and New Zealanders on this topic. Honestly - it might seem abrupt because I do love your land but please - if you're from Canada... don't start.

With all due respect to you Canadians out there, unless you're Vegan, you've got no stake in this topic, no dog in this fight - because you've eaten your dog.
That is all.

This one is a very short instrumental to express how I felt about the above.




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View From The Couch - 25/Apr/2016

Sophie Miserabella Is On The Loose

Ugh. Sometimes politics selects for psychopaths and puts them on a pedestal. Sometimes it simply allows psychopaths to display their symptoms in public as a warning to all. Sometimes politics simply is the playground for psychopaths. And then there is Sophie Mirabella, a.k.a. Miserabella.

"I had a commitment for a $10 million allocation for the Wangaratta Hospital that, if elected, I was going to announce a week after the election," she said. "That is $10 million that Wangaratta hasn't had because [independent] Cathy [McGowan] was elected." 

A confession doesn't need to be intended by the confessor as a confession; confessors often don't realise their words have proved their guilt. 

And taking Mirabella at her word, this confession is something else, admitting to a galling example of a political offence rather than a criminal one, the gangrenous pork barrelling which infects Australian politics, which in this case presumably hurt only the sick people of her former electorate. Beyond Indi, the gangrene floods marginal electorates with taxpayers' money, diverting spending on public services according to the political interests of political parties. 

That Mirabella felt so comfortable saying what she did on national television indicates how routine it is. Yet the preference for spending based on electoral marginality rather than demonstrated need is utterly improper.

The clearest sign that the Liberals have learnt nothing from Mirabella's defeat in the 2013 election where hers was the only seat to go against the trend of voters going towards the LNP Coalition; oblivious to the national trend, they swung hard against La Miserabella. Now the Libs want to trot her out again in the same seat where she was trounced in the hopes that people of Indi have clean-forgotten just what an awful MP she was for their seat, and to sweeten the deal, dangle some pork-barrelling money. If this doesn't sound like an abusive partner, then your electors in Indi have rocks in their heads or are experiencing Stockholm Syndrome.

It's all kind of strange when you consider that the Liberals (presumably) want to win back government. Why in the hell would they want to load up with a liability in this seat? Wouldn't they want a candidate who was strong and presentable than trotting out the same La Miserabella who actively cost them the seat? What has this woman got over the party to let her keep running their good name down like this? It's actually indicative of a party that's really short on talent. Just as it struggled to remove Bronwyn Bishop from her entitlement of the seat of Mackellar, they probably don't have a ready alternative to run in Indi instead of Sophie the Miserable.

Malcolm Turnbull On The Hustings

Here's Malcolm Turnbull out on the hustings saying her won't change Negative Gearing.

Malcolm Turnbull has ventured deep into Sydney suburbia to announce, once and for all, his government will not make any changes to negative gearing or capital gains tax in next week's federal budget. 

From the front garden of a family home in the southern neighbourhood of Penshurst on Sunday, he claimed Labor's policy to limit negative gearing to newly built housing and reduce the capital gains tax discount would drive down home values, drive up rents and discourage investment.

"That's why we won't have a bar of it," Mr Turnbull said.

At least he's consistent - he's taking the side of the investors. In doing so, he's saying he doesn't need the votes of people under 30. Maybe that's a good thing for the Libs who have always courted older stodgier crustier folk. - but you'd thank that was a bit different to actively pissing off the under-30s demographic. Sometimes it seems Malcolm Turnbull is just a different flavour of stupid to that served up under Tony Abbott. For all the people's expectation that he'd be a great Prime Minister, he sold his soul to the rightwing nut jobs of his party and so is incapable of delivering any policy that would help people. There's not a day that goes by that doesn't underline Malcolm's deal with the devil.

It's pretty bleak in Australia. There's never been a more bleak and underwhelming time to be an Australian than the circumstances we find ourselves in today.

What Was Wrong With Tony Abbott?

There are some days where I don't even know where to begin writing here because there's just so much to bitch about. Try this.

While Mr Abbott stands by his approach to same-sex marriage, climate change, asylum seekers and national security, he admits to failings on economic policy, including his expensive paid parental leave scheme proposal and his decision to abolish the debt ceiling. 

However he largely stands by his deeply unpopular 2014 budget, saying there was a "moral purpose" to returning the budget to surplus because it would have allowed the government to create a better society. But he admits the government misjudged the public mood on spending cuts and he accepts responsibility for failing to properly sell the blueprint. 

Mr Abbott says his decision to only include one woman - Julie Bishop - in his first cabinet was an "avoidable error". He also admits he misjudged how the public would react to his catastrophic decision to award Prince Philip a knighthood. He also regrets his decision to abandon changes to section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Tony Abbott is trying to analyse his time in office and ends up assessing so many things incorrectly. What was so wrong about Tony Abbott? - we might ask rhetorically for empty effect. It might be that compared to other leaders in the world, he was incredibly lacking in an understanding of the world around him.
Before I start my castigation of the man again, I'm just going to start with this video clip here.



Yes, that's the Prime Minister of Canada right there showing he understands quantum computing and why it's important. Tony Abbott is still trying to deny climate change. You can't exercise leadership when you don't and won't put yourself at the cutting edge of knowledge. In the 21st century, you can't have a national leader who wants to cut budgets for science and deny climate change. Does Tony Abbott need to understand the basics of Quantum computing to be a better politician? Who knows? But if he did, he might view the entire enterprise of science funding in a different light. The absolute vacuity and meaninglessness of even his mea culpa tells everybody plainly that he simply wasn't a human being of any amount of intellectual integrity to be leading the nation and making decisions about science spending. And if he was so unqualified for science, it is indicative of his lack of consideration for other human endeavours that make up a civilisation; Naturally, it draws the equivalent scepticism that he is unqualified to consider questions about engineering or the arts or town planning or farming or mining or animal husbandry or medicine or law. For a man who has a tertiary education, he looks remarkably like somebody who was untouched by its enlightening effects. Stumbling in the dark as a Prime Minister then, he is still stumbling in the dark of his own making.

Be that as it may, the tragedy isn't just his; it was and remains to this day all of our tragedy that he was even in the office of Prime Minister for as long as he was.

Trudeau Wins In Canada

Canada's Generation Jump

And just like that Canada elected Justin Trudeau as their new Prime Minister, ousting longtime Conservative Stephen Harper. One does not want to comment too much about the people other people's nations elect but if there is one thing to be said about Stephen Harper is that his brand of conservatism enabled the likes of Tony Abbott to continue being a climate change denier head of government. Harper's Canada and Abbott's Australia were substantial holdouts in making any meaningful commitments towards curbing emissions or moving away from mining fossil fuels as the mainstay of exports in their respective countries.

Interestingly enough, Australia's Liberal Party ousted Tony Abbott to get some credibility back, and in so doing the right wing climate-change-denying end of politics in Australia has had to beat a retreat from the controls. It's probably not coincidence that Stephen Harper simply ran out of time, options and good grace as a new leader took control and won the election. There is something of Kevin Rudd who came to power after a long Howard Government, in Justin Trudeau's victory. Given that Canada has a Westminster system just like we do, whether we will see ructions developing as they have over here in Australia. It is quite possible that the long Harper Government has kept a handbrake on change for a long time, but now things are about to go into flux.

It's certainly hard to read the lay of the land in Canadian politics because there are 3 parties to the left of the Liberals including something called the New Democratic Party; they also have a Green Party; and they have a Québécois Party that caters to francophones; but only the Conservatives to the right. In the 2011 election the Liberals were decimated but now they've taken a solid chunk out of the middle ground, so much so they have a majority in their own right.

The even more notable thing is that Mr. Trudeau is a strapping 43 years old. Yes, he is Generation X, which doesn't mean anything about his potential competence as ahead of government; but it is remarkable in that Canada got there second in the anglophone nations (David Cameron was born in 1966, he is the first). You wouldn't have thought it was possible even 6 months ago. Just as the youth vote swung hard behind Kevin Rudd in 2007, one imagines the youth vote made a meaningful impact in installing a young leader.

It's doubly remarkable because it appears the Baby Boomers aren't going away in the upcoming US election - none of the Republican Gen-X candidates have a shred of appeal or credibility so far, leaving the leaders as Clinton, Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right; All 3 a bunch of old Baby Boomers. It's going to be a while yet before a Gen-X-er sits as President in the White House. Australia too has had a choppy few years of Prime Ministerial change but it appears to have been a musical chairs audition amongst Baby Boomers in Rudd, Gillard, Abbott and now Turnbull. As I've said before, if Turnbull is successful and stays a while, a Gen-X PM is going to have to wait in the wings indefinitely.

The point is, Trudeau has possibly arrived at his political destination a little early in history. Stephen Harper is roughly a contemporary of Barack Obama and Julia Gillard. 12 years younger, Justin Trudeau is a contemporary of Winona Ryder, Ricky Martin and Sacha Baron Cohen. It's a big jump. How can Canada's Baby Boomers handle this sudden jump? Or are they less conservative than their counterparts in America and Australia and the UK? It's hard to imagine, but it might even be the case.

So it is with that in view I'm going to make a fearless prediction and say Canada's polity will necessarily be infected by the Australian disease and start chopping and changing leaders as polls go south. Trudeau will be fine for a while until he is forced to break one of his big promises. His poll will sink, his backbench will get restless, and voila! Chop-and-Change time will manifest itself. Some Baby Boomer is going to try and reclaim their moment in history.

Really, it's not just about the hair.

Defendor

Canadian 'Fight Back'

Canadians make great films. It's embarrassing how good their films can be when compared to Australian films. It's the flip side of Australia's cricket team thrashing their cricket team at the Commonwealth Games. When it comes to movie making, the Canadians just slay us.

There. I said it.

Nobody says it out loud, but Canada is the cultured, well-educated, bookish, serious  brother to the sporty, happy-go-lucky, pretentious Australia. Here's something for people to chew on: the film that kicked off the Australian film renaissance in 1970 was 'Wake in Fright', directed by Ted Kotcheff who is a Canadian.

Canada is the land of Glenn Gould and '32 Short Films About Glenn Gould'. Australia is the land of David Helfgott and 'Shine'. Their premier pianist defined the playing of Bach for generations to come. Our pianist is a guy who had a breakdown trying to play Rachmaninoff's third and went crazy. The movie about their guy is one of the most significant biopics of all time. Our biopic is an Oscar winner but really just another movie.

Another Canadian, John Ralston Saul is a front line top of the heap intellectual. We don't have anybody who can go toe to toe with John Ralston Saul. Canada produced Northrop Frye. We don't have a single literary critic that can hold a candle to Northrop Frye, then or since.

So you see, when it comes to cultural stakes, the Canadians just leave us behind. 'Defendor' is just another fantastic film in a long line of fantastic films that just slays us.

What's Good About It

Script. Acting. Execution.

Okay, there's more. The music is fantastic. It's an incessant ominous rumble of heavy minor key tones that in other movies would keep you on the edge of your seats, but in this on, serves to highlight the farce. It's a great work in irony.

Considering the near-glut of the comic book super hero movies in recent years, it's nice to see a down to earth ironic view of such cultural influence. Especially because we now know there are real people going out there donning costumes to do good these days, it seems like it's appropriate to take a shot at the growing influence of comic book culture.

What's Bad About It

Woody Harrelson is great, but he's such a ham. There a re moments watching this film and you think, "oh come on Woody, that's so close to being "the Full Retard". He's been playing a few hammy lunatics lately and this one had moments of being on the nose.

Also, you worry about narratives that feature stock characters such as the hooker-with-the-heart-of-gold. Maybe it's worse in a film like, say, 'Pretty Woman'. The point though is that the film is at its best when it is ironic about these characters and not when these stock characters push the narrative on by dint of being a stock character.

That being said, it's not a film with a whole lot of faults. Even the narrative no-no of the flashback didn't bother me at all.

What's Interesting About It

There once was a film called 'Hero at Large' starring John Ritter, about an actor who dons the costume of a superhero for advertising purposes, and on the way home from work one day, he ends up fighting crime on the New York subway. So this idea that somebody ordinary would don a costume and fight crime isn't exactly new or fresh. What's fresh about this one is that the main character is so intellectually challenged that he has problems distinguishing between literal meaning and metaphors.

One of the metaphors he mistakes is who he thinks his nemesis is in Captain Industry. Of course, there is no super villain calling himself Captain Industry. It is a garbled misunderstanding that takes place inside the head of a not-very-bright lad called Arthur. What the whole setup of the film evokes is 'Don Quixote'' where oblivious to the real world, a character decides to tilt at windmills as monsters.

The structure of the irony is exactly the same as Cervantes' great work as Woody Harrelson's Arthur explores the ramifications of taking up a life of crime-fighting in costume. What at the start seems absurd slowly transforms within the text to key moments where Arthur's delusions matter so much. It is precisely the dynamic in Don Quixote.

The other text the film evokes is of course 'Le Morte D'Arthur' by Thomas Mallory simply because of the chivalrous quest of the main character Arthur, who by name alone evokes King Arthur, but also because the chivalry ends with a conflict that is at once material but also existential. One of the crucial problems for Woody Harrelson's Arthur is whether he can ever be defined by his actions, and he can only define himself by donning the costume of 'Defendor' to fight crime. To that end he must fight and so he fights to the end. The symmetry in meaning is actually managed quite well.

The film also parodies the recent Batman 'The Dark Knight' film where a motivated but low-powered vigilante by the name of Brian gets killed by Heath Ledger's Joker. Woody Harrelson's 'Defendor' is indeed that guy with the hockey pads, but the film goes to great pains to demonstrate his cause is no less noble than Batman's. It's a splendid riposte to the borderline fascism of 'The Dark Knight'. As such, the film is filled with a fundamentally humanist and democratic impulse.

All in all, this one is very much worth watching.

WBC Update

My Goodness The Dominicans Are Out

If it happened once, you say it's miraculous. The second time the Dutch beat the Dominican Republic, you have to scratch your head and wonder at the marvel that is the WBC. The Dutch even got close to toppling Puerto Rico. They're not beating about the bush, these Dutch 'honkballers'.

They don't have a big time fully pro-league in the Netherlands - just a bunch of sport nuts, very much like us Aussies. And here they are beating one of the treasure troves of talent. It's a little like... like if the Dutch beat the Windies of the 1970s and 1980s vintage in cricket, 2 one-dayers in a row.

“These guys, they did it,” David Ortiz said. “They beat us. I tell you, the whole world is shocked now. Even in Japan, they’re like ‘What the heck?’ in Japanese.”

The Dominicans were considered one of the favorites to win the event, but they could not overcome a team with a modest baseball tradition. The Dominicans had a speedy chance for redemption against the Netherlands, who jolted them, 3-2, on Saturday, and they did not grab it. After falling behind by 1-0 in the 11th, the Netherlands rallied with two runs in the bottom of the inning to grab the game.

“It’s a miracle,” the Netherlands Manager Rod Delmonico said. “That’s all I can tell you.”

As Ortiz stood near the first base dugout, he said that the players were in “in shock” and were pained by how difficult the jolting losses would be for their relatives from the Dominican. The Dominican fans did not expect their heroes to lose to the Netherlands, a country where soccer and swimming are more popular than baseball.

“Oh, God, thank God I don’t have to go back home for a while,” Ortiz said. “I’m telling you right now, in the Dominican, there had to be a blackout right now.”

That one tells that tale of the tape. I guess they can't blame it on A-Rod if he didn't play a single game.

Italy Upsets Canada

Mike Piazza is helping out the Italians. It seemed unlikely, but they've managed to win one for Mike, eliminating Canada.

Third baseman Alex Liddi, a native Italian who played for Seattle’s Class A team last season, was 2 for 4 with two runs batted in. Center fielder Chris Denorfia, a Connecticut native who plays for Oakland, was 4 for 4 with three doubles and two runs batted in. Both players sparkled on defense.

The loose eligibility rules of the World Baseball Classic recall the “Simpsons” episode in which the boss stuffs the company softball team with major leaguers to win a bet. The Italian team is stocked with players who were not born or raised in Italy.

Very quickly, though, the group has come together. The public-address announcer gives each name an Italian flourish, and players born in Royal Oak, Mich., like the veteran reliever Jason Grilli, sense a brotherhood.

“The guys who joined the Italian nationals, and the other guys they’ve compiled so wonderfully, you just could tell that this team was going to get along,” Grilli said, adding later: “I always say it the same way: when you are around Italians, you become more Italian. And you see why we take such pride in who we are.”

Grilli, who has worked more major league games than anyone else on the staff, was the pitching star on Monday. The loser on Saturday against Venezuela, Grilli blanked Canada for the final three and a third innings.

I'd hate to be the Canadians right now. Eliminated by Italy is a bit like being eliminated by Zimbabwe at the cricket World Cup. Then again I think that has happened to the Canadians in cricket too.

Aussies Fail To Upset Cuba

Fidel's boys squeaked by the Aussies 5-4. It's a lot closer than it's ever been between the two nations. The loss sends Australia to go back and face Mexico in an elimination round. You sort of hope the Aussies get a bit of Dutch mojo going and can repeat their thumping win against Mexcio.

UPDATE: Australia got an almighty shellacking from Mexcio in the return match and were promptly sent how, It puts into stark relief just how amazing the Dutch accmplishment at this tourney happens to be.