Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Not off to bed | Jun 29, 2007 11:40

Damian already has some thoughts on the party pills issue - including a very good taxi-driver story - so I won't give it too much space. But I'm not entirely surprised at the decision. While the great majority of users of piperazine (or, as the pronunciation wallahs at Radio NZ have deemed it, "pip-razeen") based products will suffer no more than the infamous party pills hangover, a crucial few have experienced significant adverse reactions, not all of them related to overdose.

As I have noted before, it's just a shame that we happened to have the great social experiment of permitting a new recreational drug with BZP and TFMPP. Both of them were legal essentially because they were not clearly illegal, rather than through any particular merit. There may well have been better alternatives in the great acronymic playground of the "research chemicals". On the other hand, Matt Bowden's short-lived ecstasy substitute, methylone, was removed from the market not because it was deemed harmful but because, eventually, it was deemed to be an analogue of ecstasy itself, and therefore already illegal. It's a shite way of running things.

Jim Anderton is already copping the scorn of a generation - on the Herald's Your Views page at any rate - but I'm inclined to credit him for actually commissioning research in the first place. On the other hand, Ross Bell of the Drug Foundation is probably right when he says the government would have achieved more control of the BZP market through regulation than an outright ban.

Anyway, this is what will happen:

1. There will be a a rush on party pills (so to speak) before they become illegal at the end of the year. People will stock up, and they will be in use for as long as a year afterwards. The stockpiling may encourage overdose. I don't expect a long-term black market in BZP - it's just not that good - but I would expect it to start turning up unannounced in pills being sold as ecstasy. That could get ugly.

2. Party people will not suddenly start going to bed early. Some might soldier on with alcohol as a social lubricant, others will seek illegal drugs. Patterns of methamphetamine use may change, with P -- smoked methamphetamine -- retaining its social stigma, but snorting seen (with some justification) as a less risky means of consumption.

3. New quasi-legal substances will emerge. Anderton is talking about reversing the burden of proof, and making suppliers "prove" the safety of new substances. No one will know quite what that means. The promised revamp of the Misuse of Drugs Act will turn into a ghastly and unproductive bunfight in which National, New Zealand First and United Future will pick on the Greens. The fond idea that something should not be prohibited unless there is a reason to do so will not get much airtime.

Anyway, I recently became a "Moto-Ambassador". This is essentially a scheme for ensuring that I always have a cooler phone than you do _ whether I deserve to or not. It also means I occasionally get invited to Motorola ligs, as was the case on Wednesday night when I went along to a private gig by Hollie Smith at Orams Marine in Beaumont Street.

As configured on Wednesday night, Orams Marine is a groovy little lounge bar overlooking the marina - with the best foyer ever. It was a sci-fi experience entering through the vast hangar stacked 20 metres high on either side with leisure craft. And nipping outside where a Waiheke Island ferry was up in dry dock was pretty wiggy too. Oliver Driver and I proposed a news story whereby a drunken Campbell Smith had stolen the ferry after a big night at a Waiheke winery and woken up high and dry with no idea how he got there. I daresay the Herald on Sunday will be interested.

Anyway, in the lounge bar I got my first chance to see Hollie Smith play live. She really is quite extraordinary, and the music is intriguingly arranged and hard to pin to any particular genre. I can't help but feel that a year in, say New York (and away from Wellington) will render that music a bit harder and wilder, and that will be a good thing. But the gig itself fell prey to the perils of the promotional lig. By the time it ended fully three quarters of the people in the room were more occupied with yakking away at each other than listening to the music. That was disrespectful.

Elsewhere, Reason magazine has an astonishing story on the "troubled teen" industry in the US (with the odd Guantanamo-like offshore operation), which has seen well-intentioned parents commit their children to "tough love" camps run by frightening sadists.

The Guardian has a story about the "nuclear letter" that Gordon Brown must write, in his own hand, issuing instructions to submarine commanders in the case of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Possible options for the commanders include retaliation in kind, coming under the command of the US, if it exists, and "go to Australia". New Zealand appears to be missing out badly on the post-apocalyptic tourism market.

I watched part one of Andrew Rawnsley's The Rise and Fall of Tony Blair last night, and I can recommend it to those with the ability to employ Friends in England. It's cohesive and intelligent. Don't expect it to turn up on telly here.

If you have bought the new Metro you will be aware that (a) it contains a choice feateru on moving to Wellington by Damian Christie, and (b) it contains a picture and a little bit of text about me as one of the 47 "influentials". But here's something you probably don't know about the group shot in which I am seated next to David Cunliffe: it never happened. David, P Money and a couple of others sat for the picture at a different time and were Photoshopped in later (when I arrived, the photographer, Toaki Okano, even had a mock-up of the shot populated by multiple instances of his own asssistants). You can tell if you look very closely, but it's still quite impressive.

And, finally, I know there will be a bunch of you interested in this: bFM's Jose Barbosa scored an interview with Joss Whedon. An edited version aired on Breakfast this morning, but the full version is available on the 95bFM podcast here. Yowsa.

PS: Looks like I won't have time to update our own Public Address Radio podcast until the weekend, but we have a good show in the can for tomorrow: audio from the Google Press Day in Paris; an interview with Jason Paris about TVNZ's YouTube deal; a feature on mobile phones in Mumbai; and an interview with Mr Brown of Singapore. That's 2pm tomorrow on Radio Live.

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Not such as to engender confidence | Jun 28, 2007 09:47

I shuddered when I read that under John Howard's blitz on child sexual abuse in aboriginal communities, all aboriginal children are to be subject to compulsory medical checks - which will include examination of the anus and genitals. I shuddered because it reminded me of a particularly horrible episode of abuse hysteria in Cleveland, England, in which a bogus "anal dilatation test" was treated as conclusive proof that children had been sexually abused. Cleveland is not an isolated story.

The Australian federal government is acting on an official report into child abuse in aboriginal communities - but has substituted many of the report's recommendations in favour of its own solutions, including the compulsory medical checks. The potential for just that one part of the programme to go terribly wrong ought to be obvious. And, indeed, it is obvious to at least one expert:

Dorothy Scott, the director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia, and an expert adviser to the Northern Territory inquiry that produced the explosive report on child abuse, said such checks involved examining a child's genitals and anus.

She said the prospect of such mandatory checks left her "lost for words" and demonstrated the "lack of child protection expertise" in the Government's response to the Little Children are Sacred report.

"I hope the Government will not be asking doctors to force this upon children," she said, adding that examinations for sex abuse should be conducted only when there were grounds to suspect a child had been sexually assaulted, and where the examination would lead to protection of the child.

Professor Scott said the inquiry made 97 recommendations but mandatory checks for sex abuse was not one of them.

It's an indication of how poorly considered this very prominent part of the policy is that the aboriginal affairs minister already appears to be having second thoughts. The effect is hardly such as to engender confidence in the rest of it.

Panic in the targeted communities may not be warranted, but according to some reports, it has already taken hold:

Lesley Taylor, one of the Territory's most experienced child abuse workers, said: "They are scared stiff … This is creating very stressful environments that could lead to even more children being at risk."

Sixty to 70 communities will be targeted, and small teams of police, military and government officers will begin arriving today to audit people's needs. They would be replaced by teams who would stay to meet those needs, Mr Brough said. Public servants will oversee the programs, with a manager in each community responsible for what happens.

This is understandable. There are mothers alive in those communities who experienced their babies being stolen from their arms by the government. And yet, there can be no doubt of the critical nature of the problem, as laid out in the report, Little Children Are Sacred. It should also be noted that a senior aboriginal leader, Noel Pearson, has had input into the strategy. But for all that Pearson is being declared a champion against the Howard-hating left by the likes of Tim Blair, a proper reading of his much-quoted ABC interview suggests that he is not entirely confident in the federal government's response:

You know, the big danger for the Government, I think, is that they can't go marching in like cowboys. They've got to go marching in with humility, with support, not with arrogance, and they've got to enjoin the Aboriginal people of that community. Because you talk to me about one community that does not have within it sober grandmothers, sober mothers, sober men who are concerned about these problems and who would not welcome relief for their children and for their community.

Unfortunately, one of the first intervention visits appears to have been conducted in an arrogant and secretive fashion, with community leaders not even notified of the visit, let alone consulted, and officials trying to stop journalists taking photographs. Again, the effect is not such as to engender confidence.

The sexual abuse in these communities is associated with social breakdown, and the abandonment of norms. It happened amongst refugees in Australia's isolated detention camps. In fact, it is not going too far to say it was facilitated by the Howard government, through its refusal to change its policy when multiple whistleblowers went public.

So in the circumstances, it is hard to credit that the sweeping programme, which sidelines communities from their own welfare, is not a political move by a government in poll trouble (even Pearson more or less says so). This government has been known to pull campaign stunts involving, in Howard's words, "sickening behaviour towards children" before. The new intervention has already been characterised as "black children overboard". Doubt is less a matter of hating Howard than bearing in mind the brutal political cynicism with which he has acted in the past.

The implicit rollback of land rights in the intervention is also alarming. No Right Turn notes that a similar, smaller federal intervention in one aboriginal community soon went off the boil and was eventually basically a disaster.

And this story from last weekend's (British) Observer amply details the background of official neglect and underfunding that Howard is not acknowledging while he sends in the army on these communities. It also notes budding self-governance of a sort that might well be erased by the federal intervention.

And yet, it seems clear enough that something big had to be done. Whether Howard's government is doing the right something, and with what motivation, remains to be seen.

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Unflattering stereotypes about the record industry | Jun 27, 2007 09:23

One advantage of travelling for stories is that you get to focus on a few things. The downside is that you can totally miss things like this. Simon Grigg has a thrilling summary of Andrew Dubber's run-in with a board member of the global record industry body, the IFPI.

Once you've absorbed the story, you can download Andrew's fascinating new e-book The 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online as a PDF or, if you prefer, read the 20 original blog posts that make up the book.

And on his other blog, The Wireless, Andrew notes a nice new music marketing idea that treats the consumer as a grown-up and can be used on any blog or website.

Meanwhile, as I suspected, TVNZ's announcement that it has negotiated its own YouTube channel - with revenue-sharing deal - is only half the story. In three months' time, YouTube will extend its new regionalisation strategy to this part of the world. The company would have preferred that TVNZ hold its channel announcement till then, but the lure of being the first broadcaster in Australasia to do a deal with YouTube was just too great.

The channel is at www.youtube.com/tvnz, by the way. There was already a tvnz username held by a member of the public, which is why the username for the TVNZ channel is TVNewZealand, but the broadcaster decided not to sweat it.

Happily, it appears there may eventually be potential for sites like ours to embed video and share revenue from pre-roll advertising (which fetches a most appealing rate) as part of TVNZ ondemand's phase two. I'm impressed. And keen.

Meanwhile, the Open Source Consortium is threatening to take the BBC to the regulators over its choice of Windows Media (for the DRM) for its long-awaited iPlayer on-demand application. (Apparently, there's a Mac solution, but I don't know if that's some third-party DRM perching on Windows Media.)

This isn't just theoretical. A conversation I had at ComunicAsia suggests that the BBC service is intended as a global one. You'll be able to watch those BBC 4 documentaries, for a fee. Any such service will be pressed to match the performance of the Friends in Britain services though: the fastest download speeds I ever get are all via BitTorrent.

Meanwhile, some more TV legitimately on YouTube: the Attitude TV item on our family has been uploaded by the producers. I've put it in OurTube.

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Here and There | Jun 26, 2007 10:32

I had mixed feelings reading the Guardian's comprehensive coverage of Glastonbury Festival over the past few days: on one hand I lamented the fact that the whole thing has become so respectable - nearly $400 a ticket respectable - as to warrant blanket coverage in the daily papers. And the rain and the mud didn't look at all appealing.

On the other, I thought: I'd be there again like a shot. I had some of the more memorable times of my life in those fields: joining some mechano-pagan-art event with the Mutoid Waste Company though the night, then walking further up the hill with my buddy Greg to watch the new morning's sun strike brilliant white sheets of fog in the valley; watching Elvis Costello play a solo headline spot then burst back on for an encore with the Attractions to play a momentous version of Abba's 'Knowing Me, Knowing You'; seeing New Order and deciding they were probably more out of it than I was; visiting spooky old Glastonbury Tor on the way home; and generally just feeling part of some vast gathering of community that made Sweetwaters look like a barbecue at the beach. I always liked pagan England when I lived there, and that paganism was never more out to play than at Glastonbury.

Best pic from the coverage: the she-pee in action.

But I'm not there, and I'm not in South East Asia either: I'm back in New Zealand, where it is cold, with a fritzed computer and a whole lot of work to do. You'll forgive me if I don't pitch straight back into local politics.

Still, there was the All Blacks. I didn't get out of the airport until 1.30pm on Sunday, but I managed not to hear the result of the test match, and thus was able to experience the thrill of the comeback against the Boks. Do we have one of the great loose forward trios, or what? How sweet was it that after Rodney So'oialo had swerved and stepped his way up the field and was finally held in a tackle, Jerry Collins was there, right there on his shoulder, to take the ball up?

I'd have been complaining about some of the bizarre refereeing if the All Blacks had lost (that carried-back decision!), and the cheap shots from Burger and others, but it's enough now to pay tribute yet again to the great Carl Hayman. How can a man so large run, tackle, lift, drive and, above all, scrum for so long? And all with such silent intent? Truly, he is a giant in more than one sense.

PS: Tracey Nelson's game stats are up if you're interested. Excellent effort at the breakdown from Flavell - enough to make anyone but a hard-arse forgive him his lapses.

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