Blue Jasmine

Down And Out In San Francisco

Here comes another Woody Allen movie, headed straight for another Oscar accolade. Combined with a bravura performance by Cate Blanchett, you'd have to say somebody is going to collect the golden statue on the big night.

Here is the usual spoiler alert.

What's Good About It

Cate Blacnhett, Alec Baldwin and the script. The directing in this one is a bit prosaic, but that's not bad because it puts Cate Blanchett front and centre and lets her do her thing. It is well cast and zips along nicely. The guys from 'Boardwalk Empire' rock in this movie.

It's a very tidy Woody Allen film and I should like it more. But I don't like it as much as his other films.

What's Bad About It

Maybe it's a little too pat.

There were even more acid observations to be made about such characters but Woody Allen seems to go easy with the poison pen in parts. He could have been meaner. He's certainly meaner about the working class. The narrative contempt towards Bobby Cannavale's Chili is pretty mean, while Andrew Dice Clay's Augie is just as mean and a touch patronising. Yes, it's Jasmine's view, but it's also Woody Allen's view that is familiar to us from other movies such as 'Stardust Memories'. In Stardust Memories, he has the self-deprecating humour to say "It's all luck. Look at me. If I were born in Poland instead of Brooklyn, I'd be a lampshade by now."

There are no such re-balancing remarks in this film. It seems Woody Allen hates the lumpenproletariat even more than he hates the moneyed chattering classes.

What's Interesting About It

Woody Allen's unlike a lot of American directors in that he regularly shows class separation as a feature of American society. The traditional American cinema view of class is that it doesn't matter if you come from the wrong side of the tracks, if you do well in your chosen area, and you have exceptional talent and make it, then the success is what validates you. Woody Allen persistently pits the middle class and immigrant class against the wealthy and financially independent class. This trend was more pointed in the late American period of his work before he set off to make pictures in London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome and so on. Now, back in America with this picture, he's taken up exactly where he left off.

Both Jasmine and Hal inhabit a the rarefied world of high finance of Wall Street, with domiciles on Park Avenue. They are so rarefied it is not even clear they feel they have a cultural connection to any demographic except the defining characteristic of having money. It is this centripetal pull of money that essentially makes and breaks the marriage and thus sets the story in motion. It is clear through the flashbacks that Hal is willing to do dodgy and down right ethically wrong things to get ahead, and that Jasmine is entirely complicit with these choices by simply claiming ignorance and turning a blind eye.

On that level, Woody Allen's indictment of the hypocrisy of the moneyed class is pointed. The only reason Hal is undone is because jasmine is willing to go to the FBI and divulge what she knows. In a sense, they are beyond authority - and only the suicidal inclination of one of the members of the class will bring about justice. It reminds us of the observation that Rome didn't fall through its own chaos an corruption, that it took a barbarian horde to do it; and yet somebody let the barbarians through the gate.

Education As Part Of The Entitlement

Woody Allen is always pointed sceptical of the value of education. In various guises through his career, his characters have made pro-education speeches and gestures but ultimately they get undone by events in his films. It was the central feature of the dynamic in both 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan' and is a trope that gets repeated in countless other films. Thus, when Jasmine claims she wants to go back to school to become an interior decorator, there is something quite ironic about that desire. She feels she is entitled to live a certain lifestyle and do it through doing what she would like to do, and that these things are underpinned by something so simple as getting a qualification form an online course.

What is interesting in this assembly is that Woody Allen himself is a varsity drop out and clearly he hasn't had to go back to that machinery of entitlement, but he seems to be acutely aware that awarding of qualifications and degrees forms the foundation of the wealthy classes. You don't really get an education to better yourself; you get an education so you can fit into the moneyed society. While it is not a particularly revolutionary insight, the pointed manner in which Woody Allen shows us this trope suggests he is deeply critical of the institution of tertiary education in America.

That is to say according to the Allen ethos, education is a terrible thing, but the only thing worse than having education is not having an education.

The Problem With The Proles According To Woody

I mentioned above that he was rough on the working class. The contempt runs like this: Augie and Ginger win money in lotto. They lose that money to Hal who is essentially a corporate raider with no conscience. The film carries on as if the wealth Ginger and Augie dream of, are not only beyond their capability as human beings but that they do not deserve to even dream such dreams. Underpinning this notion is that true wealth can only be built through talent, hard work, and a touch of unethical behaviour. Luck, as represented by the lottery win, does no come into it. This may indeed be true. Nonetheless it seems to repeat itself in the story of Ginger's affair with a sound engineer who turns out to be married, that even aspiring for a better partner is beyond her station.

The film is hard on Jasmine. At the same time it is even harder on the working class. It echoes the remark made towards the end of 'To Rome With Love' that it is better to be a celebrity than not. If there is any conclusive comment to be made, it seems it is better to be wealthy than not, and that is the be all and end all.

The Charcoal Writing Is On The Wall

Cate Blanchett stumped for the cause of a carbon price and got a ripping from the Murdoch press. What followed was an admission by Dick Smith that he agreed with Blanchett but was too 'gutless' to front up for his beliefs for he feared exactly the sort of treatment Blanchett was receiving from the Murdoch press. Dick Smith even pointed to Murdoch's own words about climate change and implored the employer of these institutional climate change deniers. to come back and set them straight. Barnaby Joyce charged that Blanchett was unfit to comment as she was rich. Adam Bandt pointed out that so was Gina Rinehart and that it didn't stop her from campaigning for her own personal gain. Blanchett at least is campaigning for the common good - an important distinction.

Since then it's been a bit of a free for all.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, did not overplay Blanchett's involvement, saying she was as entitled as anybody else to have her voice heard on the issue.
Mr Abbott dismissed her as a celebrity who was out of touch. ''You do not give special weight to celebrities,'' he said. ''You do not give special weight to people who live half the year in Hollywood where there is no carbon tax.''

That last bit is a bit (pardon the pun) rich. It points to a deeply undemocratic vein in Tony Abbott's political outlook but I won't go into that too much. Barnaby Joyce's denunciations too reveal a largely patriarchal anxiety wherein he is acutely aware that the beauty bias runs against him. If he had to stump up next to Cate Blanchett, he can't win because she is far better looking, better known and liked.

Still, it's this patriarchal libertarian leave-me-alone-to-do-as-I-will entitlement of bloke-ishness that seems to glavanise around the political end of the carbon price debate; and it's the school-marmish restraint of women like Julia Gillard and Cate Blanchett who are arguiing strongly for restraint of carbon emissions and a means of setting price point to discourage excessive emissions. No wonder the barbecue-loving blokes are going flipper and tongs at Cate Blanchett, ad hominem.

Well this is not about Cate Blanchett's right to side with the Carbon Price. It's about where the debate will ultimately go, and should go.

The Carbon Price debate is going to crash over the line with a lot of screaming rhetoric, but in the end the big end of town knows it needs to be done, and that if the discussions go past 1 July, it will be the Greens who will control the debate in the Upper House. This would suggest that it is incumbent upon the Coalition to represent the big end of town and secure the best deal they can out of the wounded Labor party before they both get taken hostage by the Greens - but no, it's Tony Abbott at the helm.

It's not just me saying it.

Abbott's whole “big new tax” campaign shuns acknowledgment of the real point, as does his alleged alternative strategy of paying farmers to bury carbon. It has worked in scaring voters and perhaps raised the hopes of a few gullible cockies, but it's also created investment uncertainty and is contributing to wobbly consumer confidence.
Keep shouting that the Government is taking Australia down the drain, that our macro economic policy is a total failure, and some people will be silly enough to believe it. The mindless simplification of budget policy into “surplus good, deficit bad” has been effectively debunked by Ross Gittins but don't expect most of the media to understand it.

But the ructions of the past week within the Liberal Party might indicate the very people who gave Abbott the job somewhat by default (remember that Joe Hockey didn't stand) are beginning to realise there are limits to Total Opposition. More pragmatically, they know Labor is so on the nose, the Liberal Party can afford to be seen to have some principles again.

Labor presently thinks Tony Abbott is the best thing going for it. If they can implement their Malaysian boat people solution, their (rather simplistic) hope is that a very mild carbon tax then proves to be a non-issue upon implementation, leaving Abbott as the attack dog without a bone to worry.

Tony Abbott and his climate-change denying cohorts are an embarrassment.

Sydney's Creative Mojo

Thanks For Caring Anyway, Cate

Cate Blanchett put out a speech earlier this week. She was basically arguing that there could be an arts precinct in the new Barangaroo Walsh Bay development and that it would be great f government would open its purse to allow this to happen.

Pleiades sent me this awesome link, Ben Eltham's reponse over at Crikey:

US academic Jane Jacobs observed in the 1960s that a key aspect of cultural vibrancy was old buildings and cheap space: things that Walsh Bay lacks, despite Upton and Blanchett’s fuzzy call for “assisted rent”. Artists need cheap housing as much as they need cheap workspace, but affordable accommodation workspace is unlikely to be available in a new development in the newest part of Sydney’s CBD.

For those who don’t happen to warm the benches of Walsh Bay’s arts venues, Sydney’s post-Olympic “quandary” is long over. The “new Trade Union Club” that Upton longs for might well be the Red Rattler, or an underground warehouse space in Enmore. New events such as the Underbelly Arts festival and the Imperial Panda festival are springing up to incubate a new generation of emerging practice. The Casula Powerhouse is showing itself to be far more connected and responsive to its local community than the Opera House, which is spending hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading its loading dock.

What is in Walsh Bay are a lot of subsidised arts companies, which rather suggests the motivation behind Cate and Andrew’s vision. If Australia has an epicentre for public subsidy of the arts, Walsh Bay is it. The STC itself enjoys public funding of more than $2.4 million annually, which could comfortably support dozens of independent theatre  producers or small start-ups. Now there’s an idea for Sydney’s “next adventure”.

I couldn't have said it better myself. It's interesting that Cate Blanchett, who is so successful out in Hollywood and therefore should understand how the market place works, could be pitching for more government subsidies.

Lately I've come to view government subsidies as the kiss of death for any industry in any country. The moment a government starts handing over money directly to its artists or novelists of film makers, they start making crap. It happens because without the market, there's no social meaning to the arts. It doesn't mean that which is populist is good, but that the requirement to at least please the market or a client or a sponsor adds to the discipline of whatever that is being done. it's a sad truth. The moment you stop wanting to wow people and can pull down a paycheck for churning out whimsy, you'll be making crap in no time.

Robin Hood

Free Tickets Hooray

Long time reader Bugle handed me some free tickets to the cinema so off I went, rushing to see Robin Hood. I am so grateful because really, it's a terrible thing to fork over money for a film that you suspect is a bit of a stinker.

So Bugle, thank you where ever you are for the tickets, they were most appreciated!

What's Good About It

It's sort of interesting and it's kind of entertaining. If you're into meaningless diversions, this film is for you. It's probably not the film to watch and take seriously after 'Come ad See'.

Mark Strong is good as the bad guy. He's making a lot of mileage playing bad guys and dark heavies lately. Sort of doing the Jason Isaac role from 'The Patriot', so to speak, but he has a much more brooding screen presence. It's one of the best thing going in this film.

The combat scenes at the beginning are interesting. It's always cool to see medieval siege action on the screen. This might be even better than the stuff Scott mounted for 'Kingdom of Heaven'.

The 'stylish medieval' is also quite good. The recreation of the Tower of London sitting on the Thames as Robin arrives back is also very well realised on screen. Not too much with the glossy makeup or the rich fabrics in the wardrobe. There's a lot of fine eye for detail filling out the edges of this film. It's worth it just to watch this stuff, forgetting the story - which I guess is damning with faint praise.

Also, 2 geese do some waddling action in 2 shots and the cuts match. It's pretty impressive that they got the geese to do that.

What's Bad About It

Russell. Cate. The script. The music.

I probably should go into it with a bit more depth but I feel so bad doing it. These superstar vehicles are a terrible danger for the director, but they're worse dangers for the superstars themselves. If you cast a big name, you're committed to using them for s certain amount of screen time so you end up generating meandering subplots and lousy narrative sections just to make space for their presence.

When Cate Blanchett's Maid ('Mad'?) Marion turns up on the beach dressed as a black knight leading a pack of kids on Shetland ponies, the film is fully groan-worthy. Some people are saying Cate Blanchett steals the show. In my opinion, they gave her too much stupid screen time instead of giving those moments to something to make more sense out of the meandering lugubrious story.

What's Interesting About It

Now that we've dealt with the good and the bad, it's thankfully time to deal with the ugly and interesting; and surprisingly there is much of interest in this film by comparison to that which is good or bad. It's a very strange film that way.

First off, this is the second time Ridley Scott is dealing with the Crusades. While 'The Kingdom of Heaven' was rather bombastic and mixed with a dose of orientalism, the Crusades in this film are more prosaic and much less romantic. In a blunt way Ridley Scott's imagining of the Robin Hood story tries to encompass the complexities of the Norman Kings of England, especially with the passing of Henry II and into the reign of Richard I the 'Lion Heart'. The depiction of Elanor of Aquitaine and Richard's brother John is nice, and almost segues off the 1968 classic 'The Lion in Winter'.

You wonder if all this is really necessary to talk about in a movie about Robin Hood, but Scott and company belabor the point. And belabor they do as the story winds its way through the background to the Magna Carta; the film manages to wind its way through the events surrounding Phillip II of France's attempt to invade England. Now, this is where the fiction takes over from history because what really happened was the Phillip II of France actually sent his son, who landed in Kent and marched on to London unopposed.  The colossal whallopping on the beach we see in the film has no historic basis. The question then is, why did they have to come up with this stuff?

It's quite bizarre because the French disembark on Dover with boats that resemble the ones used in WWII to land in Normandy. The picture quickly loses all credibility to realism but what can you do? It seems really unfair that the picture presents so much historic stuff, only to retreat into fantasy land, using the excuse that Robin Hood after all is a fictional character. If you ask me,it's cheating.

Max Von Sydow

One of the treats in this film is the presence of Max Von Sydow. Yes, I know I recently said he sometimes phones in his performances these days, but he is and always will be the Knight Sir Antonius Block - the original disenchanted knight who returns from the Crusades - in 'The Seventh Seal' for me. This time it is this fine venerable Swede who gets to play the donor figure to Russell Crowe's Robin Hood - which is a re-play of Richard Harris' Marcus Aurelius in 'Gladiator'. Yet, almost lost in the mists of time also is Max Von Sydow's turn as King Osric in 'Conan the Barbarian' who is a sort of donor figure to Arnie's Conan. I kept thinking, this is so strange how Max Von Sydow keeps on giving to these Hollywood heroes. The distance between King Osric to Sir  Walter Loxley is actually longer than the distance between Sir Antonius Block  in 'The Seventh Seal' to King Osric. I just thought I'd mention that.

I also forgot to mention, he also played another donor figure in Dr. Liet Kynes in David Lynch's 'Dune' staring opposite Kyle McLachlan's Paul Atreides. He also plays Frederik in 'Hannah and Her Sisters' by Woody Allen with the classic Line: "They always ask about the Holocaust 'how could it have happened?' when the real question should be asking is 'why doesn't it happen more often?'"

I mean, really, Max Von Sydow is the gift that keeps giving if you're a Hollywood movie hero. He's so typecast but I never feel bad about seeing Max Von Sydow on screen. I realised during his scenes that I am in fact a besotted fan. It's a little embarrassing, but it was interesting to me.

The French As Bad Guys

Movie French  in these medieval England movies are always so damn sinister. They have goatees and brood and plot to take England. In reality most of the Hundred Years' War was fought on French soil. But the anglophone world keeps making these movies where the French are on the receiving end of much cinema-humiliation. Having seen 'Henry V' and the various Joans of Arc, I sort of wonder why the Anglo Saxons are so paranoid about the French. Even in the Normandy landing, it was the Anglophones landing on French beaches.

The French - bless their frog-eating souls - can't be simultaneously the most sinister forces in medieval Europe as well as cheese-eating surrender monkeys. There are any number of these movies where the medieval French get a good beating. Why the heck did they have to beat up on the French in a movie about Robin Hood? Why couldn't the bad guy be the Sheriff of Nottingham and be done with it?

I can only put it down to the the perverseness of the English.

Doing the Robin Hood Thing

Still, you have to love a Robin Hood movie. There's something fundamentally suspenseful with letting fly an arrow and waiting for the moment it pierces the target that makes good cinema. The Kevin Costner 'Prince of Thieves' Robin Hood was also awful, awful kitsch but it did have the essential beauty of letting loose with an arrow. Who remembers arrow-cam, where the shot travels with the arrow, straight into the target?

Considering it is Robin Hood, I was a bit surprised at how seldom Crowe's Robin Hood let loose with an arrow. Instead, this film sees him on Horseback, hacking away like he did in the first battle sequence in 'Gladiator'. It's as if both Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe missed the point of the character, in pursuit of some bogus realism that doesn't matter. Robin Hood is an archer, damn it, not a centurion!

Also suspect was how the whole film is couched as the beginning of the Robin Hood legend when in fact it sells the legend downstream for a bunch of political claptrap. The Robin Hood thing is best summarised by this parody here. If Rusty's not willing to wear the green tights, is he even doing the right movie, I ask you.

The Australian Thing

That being said, and with all that was tossed out with the bathwater, it was curious to see two Australians on screen playing Robin and Marion. It kind of felt like a bastard menage-a-trois lovechild between 'Gladiator', 'Braveheart' and 'Elizabeth: The Golden Age'.

It would have been enough to make Errol Flynn proud. And we know how much there was of Errol Flynn's pride.

More seriously, the weirdness of the performances of Messers Crowe and Blanchett are such that you wonder what exactly they thought the narrative mode of the film might be. The lovingly method-acted gruff gutteral grunts of Russell Crowe clashing awkwardly with the highly mannered mimesis, minted in the halls of NIDA performed by Cate Blanchett simply looked positively weird.

Through out was the ol' Aussie love of realism come hell or high water, so much so that Russell Crowe walked out on an interivewer who insinuated his accent might have been less than authentic. Lighten up Russell, you're playing the medieval equivalent of a comic book character for fuck's sake.

As for Ms. Blanchett, this was the first time I thought her acting was so mannered I couldn't see the character at all. I just saw the doyen of Australian actresses doing *something*, but I had no shot at getting the character.

Misplaced Realism

Did you ever meet a guy who wanted to compare Superman and Mighty Mouse and then would insist Mighty Mouse was a cartoon and therefore no contest for Superman? This film has that sense of appeal to realism about it. Authenticity and an eye for detail is nice but misplaced realism is as bad as playing a major key tune with an insistent minor key bass line.

Yet, you can just hear the director demanding more and more period authenticity for things 1215 AD. A mug here, a table there. All the while I kept thinking if any of this was making the story of Robin Hood richer, or not as the case may be. It's one thing to make a history picture and going for authenticity. One really wonders if such a posture was necessary in doing a Robin Hood movie. It's troubling in the same way the successive 'Batman' movies seem to take on more and more moral-philosophical quandaries. Do we really need these trappings of pseudo-seriousness in order for us to enjoy our fiction these days?

On Ridley Scott

All of this brings me to Ridley Scott. I don't think this man fulfilled his early promise. I don't think he's really made an excellent film since 'Alien' and 'Blade Runner', and this film is probably on the bad side of his score sheet.

I don't know what to say because I keep watching his films in the hope I'll see something as profound as 'Blade Runner' but I'm also sick of being disappointed. I get more joy watching Woody Allen sliding down the other side of the hill than Ridley Scott in his decline phase. Woody Allen to his credit still had 'Match Point' and 'Curse of the Jade Scorpion' in the last 10 years. If it's 'Gladiator', 'Kingdom of Heaven' and 'Robin Hood' for Ridley Scott, it's actually a little sad. Maybe my expectations are too high.

Still, there are days that I think his brother Tony is making more interesting films in the last few years. Ridley Scott's big films in the last decade and a bit have been more bombast than spectacle and his technical excellence only betrays the degree to which his films are ponderous affairs. The problem with 'Robin Hood' is that it's better than any old crud, but it's not good enough to rival his best work. it just sits in a zone of arbitrary action for the sake of arbitrary action.

Another point to be made is that he's beginning to repeat himself a lot, and it is more than just his signature stylings that pop out. There are mini-sequences in the climactic battle scenes that are reminscent of shots from both 'Gladiator' and 'Kingdom of Heaven'. There are the repeated motifs of absent father figures and brothers in conflict, which incidentally are also in 'Blade Runner'. Maybe these are deep-seated themes that stem from his childhood or are infra-psychic structures that come out in his narratives. I would be interested to see if he can break free of his own tastes a little more, but this is an unfair ask to an artist who has made some true classics of cinema.

News That's Fit To Punt - 23/02/10

China As The Next Dubai

Here's a joyful little article.

The township of Huaxi in the Yangtze River Delta is a proud symbol of how Chinese communists embraced capitalism to lift 300 million people out of poverty during the past three decades.

Its leaders took a farm community with bamboo huts and ox carts in the 1970s and transformed it into an industrial and commercial powerhouse where today many of its 30,000 residents live in mansions and most have a car. Per-capita income of 80,000 yuan ($13,000) - almost four times the national average - allows Huaxi to claim it's China's richest village.

Huaxi is also emblematic of the country's construction and real estate boom. Communist Party officials there are building one of the world's 30 tallest buildings, a 2.5 billion yuan, 328-metre tower. The revolving restaurant atop the so-called New Village in the Sky offers sweeping views of paddy fields, fish ponds and orchards.

Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, says China is overdoing it. "It does not make sense for China to build more empty buildings and add to capacities in industries where you already have overcapacity,'' Faber told Bloomberg Television. "I think the Chinese economy will decelerate very substantially in 2010 and could even crash.''

Huaxi has an even more ambitious project coming up: a 6 billion yuan, 538-metre skyscraper that would today rank as the world's second tallest. The only loftier building is the new Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The rest of the article explores how China's economy is a bubble that's waiting to burst. When it bursts, you can bet your bottom dollar and the fair few above it that the commodities market will collapse and with it, Australia's shares, and then property and then its much-vaunted banking system. There's a chain reaction waiting to burst Australia's property bubble right there. Mightn't be such a bad thing if it didn't come with massive loss of jobs and all the ugliness that would entail. One thinks the current situation is merely a prelude to the dam walls bursting and this time Australia's right in the way of the on-coming flood. Oh joy.

Although this column flies in the face of this article in the same paper here.

The central bank has already got a head start on inflation, lifting its key cash rate by 75 basis points late last year while most developed nations held their rates at record lows. RBA Governor Glenn Stevens last week made it clear rates had further to rise this year should the economy strengthen as he expected.

Indeed, mining is a major reason for the RBA's upbeat economic outlook as insatiable demand for Australian commodities from China and India fuels a surge in investment.

In today's speech on "Mining Booms and the Australian Economy," Mr Battellino said past booms had not lasted more than 15 years before petering out. He dated the start of the current boom to 2005 but said this episode could last longer.

"On this occasion, the growth potential of countries such as China and India suggests that the expansion in resource demand could continue for an extended period, though this will depend at least to some extent on the economic management skills of the authorities in these countries, not to mention our own," he said.

He noted that mining investment as a share of gross domestic product was much higher in this boom than in the past and that the boost to Australia's terms of trade had been much larger. Both the price and volume of Australian exports, like iron ore and coal, had risen strongly during the current upswing.

So, until the wheels fall off China, we stand to make a lot of money, I guess.

More Fear And Loathing In China

Here's an interesting article.

China has so far survived the global economic downturn with hardly any of the agitation many once feared it might cause among unemployed workers or jobless university graduates. The economy grew at a very robust-sounding 8.7% last year and is predicted by many to be on course for similar growth in 2010.

Sweeping changes are due in the senior leadership in 2012 and 2013, including the replacement of President Hu Jintao and of the prime minister, Wen Jiabao. But if a struggle is brewing, signs of it are hard to spot. An unusually high-profile campaign against organised crime by the party chief of Chongqing municipality, Bo Xilai, has raised eyebrows. Some speculate that it is part of a bid by Mr Bo, who is a Politburo member, to whip up popular support for his promotion to the Politburo’s all-powerful Standing Committee in 2012. An online poll by an official website chose Mr Bo as the “most inspiring voice” of 2009.

But Andrew Nathan of Columbia University in New York does not see this as a challenge to the expected shoo-in for Xi Jinping, the vice-president, as China’s next leader, despite Mr Xi’s failure last year to garner the leading military post analysts thought would form part of his grooming. Li Keqiang, a deputy prime minister, still looks set to take over from Mr Wen in 2013.

Against this backdrop of political stability and economic growth, the most credible interpretation of the government’s recent hard line is that the forces pushing its leaders towards greater liberalisation at home and sympathetic engagement with the West are weaker than had been hoped. Nor is there any sign that the next generation of leaders see their mission differently. As Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based political analyst, puts it: “The argument in policy-making circles where reform is concerned is ‘how much more authoritarian should we be?’ not ‘how do we embark on Western-style democracy?’”

Hmmm. It really comes down to control and China's Communists are trying to retain their Totalitarian stance on civics while trying to go capitalist on the finance which is inevitably leading to these kinds of issues. It would be nice if China could come off the ledge a bit and be more tractable but the Communist Party is essentially using the threat of the West to keep its control going which in turn means it benefits greatly from being intractable.

I guess it's a kind of massive irony that the free market world has come to depend so much on what is essentially a 1930s-style totalitarian regime.

Climate Change Articles

Another cool entry in The Economist.

Phil Jones did not say there had been no global warming since 1995; he said the opposite. He said the world had been warming at 0.12°C per decade since 1995. However, over that time frame, he could not quite rule out at the traditional 95% confidence level that the warming since 1995 had not been a random fluke.

Anyone who has even a passing high-school familiarity with statistics should understand the difference between these two statements. At a longer time interval, say 30 or 50 or 100 years, Mr Jones could obviously demonstrate that global warming is a statistically significant trend. In the interview he stated that the warming since 1975 is statistically significant. Everyone, even climate-change sceptics, agrees that the earth has experienced a warming trend since the late 19th century. But if you take any short sample out of that trend (say, 1930-45 or 1960-75), you might not be able to guarantee that the particular warming observed in those years was not a statistical fluke. This is a simple truth about statistics: if you measure just ten children, the relationship between age and height might be a fluke. But obviously the fact remains that older children tend to be taller than younger ones, and if you measure 100 of them, you'll find the relationship quite statistically significant indeed.

What's truly infuriating about this episode of journalistic malpractice is that, once again, it illustrates the reasons why the East Anglia scientists adopted an adversarial attitude towards information management with regard to outsiders and the media. They were afraid that any data they allowed to be characterised by non-climate scientists would be vulnerable to propagandistic distortion. And they were right.

There's this really cool one in the SMH.

If there were a typo in The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, would that nullify the theory of evolution? If an email were stolen from one lung cancer specialist that showed frustration with tobacco lobbyists, would this prove that all cancer specialists around the world were in a conspiracy to destroy cigarette companies? If a tennis ball is filmed only after it bounces and is moving upwards, does this disprove the law of gravity?

Obviously the answer is no, no and no. Yet the deniers of climate science desperately hang on to a few drops of so-called proof to claim the entire ocean of evidence is flawed.

These minor errors do not invalidate the work of scientists from around the world who are screaming from their combined rooftop that human activity is warming the planet. Hundreds of scientists from more than

100 countries whose work is peer-reviewed by hundreds more are apparently all in a global conspiracy to make us pay more for electricity. The insects they study that are migrating earlier or travelling higher up mountains due to enhanced global warming must be in on the conspiracy, too.

Do people who question climate change science do so in other areas of their lives? Do they refuse a doctor's advice when seriously ill? Do they question aeronautical engineers before they board a plane? Or do they mistrust science only when it points to global catastrophe?

Witty dude, this guy.

Cate Blanchett Says...


... The arts is more than just another industry. Here's the link.

Anyway, what else do we know, and have studied and measured? We know that countries with strong cultural identities demonstrate greater social cohesion and on and on and on. Basically, all sorts of studies have been done, key-performance indicators, measured and indeed graphed.

But there is more. We do more than all that. We must remember the arts do more than just that. We process experience and make experience available and understandable. We change people's lives, at the risk of our own. We change countries, governments, history, gravity. After gravity, culture is the thing that holds humanity in place, in an otherwise constantly shifting and, let's face it, tiny outcrop in the middle of an infinity of nowhere.

What I'm saying I don't think anyone would deny, and yet no one seems prepared to constantly value that we give people the chance to make sense of the experience of their lives, their brief lives, and the tool to communicate that unique sense in another person or people.

This insistence on the importance of experience itself is a feature of these witnessing books and these witnessing lives, an insistence that history is not a concept or a force, but the brief, limited, unimportant lives of ordinary men and women involved in the business of just getting from one day to the next, just this, repeated a million times over.

Nice shot, Cate, but it isn't terribly convincing.

This country is about growing stuff and selling it, or digging stuff up and selling it or about building houses and living in it while we keep jobs to do with growing, digging or building. The rest of Australia is just servicing these simple needs. Anything above and beyond that, like a cultural industry is for wankers and should not be tolerated. Such pretensions are considered part of the old world and are considered part of the evils of the class system and more toffee-nosed wankers getting by without doing a hard-day's work growing or digging or building. That's the Australia I know, and that's the way most people want to keep it as far as I can tell; so Cate, your observations are falling on deaf bogan ears.

You're lucky you don't get killed like you were some stray dog in Leichhardt, like this poor sod.