Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Must-have Mayoralty | Aug 24, 2007 10:29

Local body office is definitely the must-have accessory for talkback radio hosts, isn't it? Radio Live duo Willie Jackson and John Tamihere appeared on Campbell Live last night to discuss their respective mayoral candidacies for Manukau City and Waitakere City.

Tamihere had a few right-wing slogans ("we've all had a gutsful of regulation all over us") but, it seemed, little or nothing in the way of actual policy.

Jackson certainly has an affinity with south Auckland (although his complaint that south Auckland Labour hadn't swung in behind his five-minutes-old candidacy was downright pissy), but seemed to think he could carry on his radio career too. Do either of them really have the substance for the job?

Watch the video and decide for yourself.

Herald readers seem highly polarised on the issue, with Tamihere's support coming, as you might expect, from angry conservatives.

There are a couple of new posts over at humans.org.nz. In the stories section, Hilary Stace has an inspirational post about life with her Asperger son, and I've written a tart little post about horrible people who administer electric shocks to autistic children.

Che Tibby ponders the British government's new blog-monitoring utility.

Over at the Fundy Post Paul Litterick has posted his review of Ian Wishart's brief best-seller, Eve's Bite, having taken the "we read this stuff so you don't have to" motto to new heights. He does not mock, but finds the book wanting:

For much of this book, Wishart's technique is not to engage in argument but to suggest guilt by association. He is convinced that there is a ruling elite of Marxists who control everything. To demonstrate this, he shoves great blocks of text into his narrative, quotes from infamous Marxists. So a diatribe against the content of the school curriculum is interrupted temporarily by a quotation from Trotsky about supporting atheist propaganda. Other than that, he has no real claim against what is being taught in schools. He just does not like children learning about Confucius or the Suffragettes, so he suggests it is all part of a Marxist plot.

The Nazis are everywhere in this book as well, quoted mostly for their views on propaganda and indoctrination. At one point Wishart even suggests a correlation between statements made about the Exclusive Brethren by Government Ministers and comments made by Hitler about the Jews. Far from being a telling argument, Wishart's analogies collapse into bathos, such as when he suggests that teacher training in modern New Zealand is "centralised at state facilities" and thus is similar to the Third Reich's requirement that all teachers belong to the Nazi Party.

Myself, I've been watching Richard Dawkins' new two-parter, The Enemies of Reason. It's not his best work, especially the first part, where, having surveyed various form of silly superstition, he agonises over why humans must ascribe significance to the series of random events that constitute their lives. Well, because that's how we define who we are.

When he declares that: "It all sounds very poetic, but it's not reality … There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality," it feels as if he wants not so much a world free of superstition as a world free of metaphor.

The second part, focusing on alternative healing, is better, and includes some interesting speculation on an evolutionary basis for the placebo effect. Someone should show it to Sue Kedgley.

Anyway, it's on Google Video: Part One and Part Two.

Other linkage: Kathryn Ryan interviewed myself and Dave Gibson on the future of television on Nine to Noon yesterday. I thought it went quite well. And, of course, Kathryn also interviewed Mr Brown on Wednesday, and that was excellent.

To further whet your appetite for the Great Blend next week (our all-new bigger venues mean you can still RSVP), there's a free track from their debut album, We Are the L.E.D.s waiting for you over at Amplifier. You just have to register and it's yours.

I'll get around soon to another Public Address Big Stereo Bundle with our Amplifier chums, but #1 is still available. It actually shipped enough in a week to nearly make the Top 20 compilations in the national sales charts, but that isn't quite as much as you might think …

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Pills, not so many thrills | Aug 23, 2007 10:01

The legislation making BZP a class C1 illegal drug has been introduced and will likely be law by Christmas. This in itself is not very interesting. What is interesting is the likely shape of rules for the release of new recreational party drugs.

As this useful story on The Press pointed out on Monday:

Rules are also being drawn up to make party-pill manufacturers prove their products are safe to stop them rolling out new psychoactive substances to replace BZP.

Most manufacturers have already developed second-generation, non-BZP pills, but are not releasing them until the new rules are decided …

Party-pill manufacturers and retailers – part of an estimated $35 million industry – have hired public law specialist Chen Palmer to fight the ban.

Social Tonics Association chairman Matt Bowden said the group was working with Chen Palmer on its select committee submission and proposals to the Law Commission and Ministry of Health on a regulatory framework for new pills.

"When everybody is happy with a system, we'll roll forward with our new product."

The story also quotes a range of interested parties predicting that, in the interim, thwarted party pill users will turn to the products that are already illegal. Of course. I can't see a lot of demand for bootleg BZP -- which doesn't mean that unscrupulous suppliers won't try and slip it into pills that are meant to be something else.

But assuming that the new structure isn't completely unreasonable, we will see something quite novel: an approvals system for new, legal, recreational drugs. This makes more sense than the way in which BZP entered the market: it was legal because it wasn't illegal.

Meanwhile, panic in Limerick over BZP-based party pills in Ireland's head shops. It's a reasonable guess that they are New Zealand-made products.

Meanwhile, Pete Hodgson tries to bag John Key over his variety of residential addresses; maintaining that Key may have breached the Companies Act. It's petty in the same way that David Parker's supposed Companies Act scandal was petty (so the wingnuts who still occasionally scream blue murder about Parker should STFU), and it may not even be a breach at all. An address for service under the Companies Act doesn't have to be residential, does it? But it's interesting to see Labour now acting like an Opposition party and employing the same slow-drip attempt to erode its opponents' credibility as has worked so well for National.

Finally, I thought I might download John Pilger's new documentary, The War on Democracy, which looks as the filth and blood on US hands in Latin America. But after reading Pilger's screed on the Guardian website, I thought I wouldn't. Pilger is a fully signed-up member of the Hugo Chavez personality cult.

While any sensible person would have qualms about Chavez' recent actions, Pilger rages against his critics: " That he is the authentic product of a popular awakening is suppressed," by "the old Iran-Contra death squad gang" and their fellow travellers. Pilger simply smears any Venezuelans who do not support Chavez ("they remind me of white South Africans," he sneers).

Yes, Chavez has used oil revenues to transform the old plutocracy, opening up health and education services to people who never had them. The proprietors of Venezuela's (relatively) free press use their publications to attack him on a daily basis. By comparison with certain vile Central Asian dictators who have been given the full White House hospitality treatment in recent years, he is an absolute saint. His international clowning does not -- as so many wingnuts believe -- make him a security threat to the US.

On the other hand, Human Rights Watch faults him for attacking the independence of the country's judiciary, restricting freedom of expression, presiding over a police force reckoned to have conducted more than 5000 extrajudicial executions in five years, and persecuting members of human rights NGOs, among other things.

The 2006 World Press Freedom Review entry for Venezuela includes a list of journalists prosecuted for criminal defamation after they questioned government practices. A Venezuelan Pilger wouldn't be at large for long.

Pilger chooses to ignore or dismiss all of this. And, as the discussion under his Guardian piece indicates, he's not alone. You could certainly argue that on he has improved the welfare of his country's stricken masses (although this recent Economist story points out that income inequality has actually slightly increased under Chavez) and that his state is better than the exploitative one that preceded it, and better than many the US calls friend.

But surely even the Pilger crowd should be given pause by this statement this week from Chavez' former mentor over the leader's latest moves to entrench himself:

Earlier Tuesday, former Chavez mentor Luis Miquilena urged Venezuelans to reject the proposed constitutional changes, saying the president would use them to govern indefinitely.

Miquilena, who headed a popularly elected, pro-Chavez assembly that drafted Venezuela's existing constitution, called his former ally's new reform proposal "a constitutional fraud" aimed at giving him "perpetual power."

"The essential point of this reform is based on the idea of permitting Mr. Chavez to continue in power indefinitely," Miquilena told a news conference.

Miquilena, an 88-year-old former labor leader, once was commonly referred to as Chavez's closest adviser. But he quit his Cabinet in 2002 and has periodically criticized the president since then.

Apparently not.

MEANWHILE … Don't forget to RSVP for next week's Karajoz Great Blend events in Wellington and Auckland. I've just confirmed a little video preview that you will love …

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KGB yeah! | Aug 22, 2007 12:03

It's Karajoz Great Blend time again, and this might just be our best round yet. As ever the events are free (koha most welcome on the night), the wine is kindly priced, the Karajoz coffee is free, the talk is lively and the vibe is relaxed.

Our two overseas guests are Mr Brown, Singapore's groundbreaking, irreverent blogger and podcaster, and Dr William Cooper, formerly head of interactive at BBC Broadcast (and before that head of new media operations) and now of publisher of informitv, a news site dedicated to the future of television. You can see an interview with him here.

Joining them in Wellington next Thursday will be Tom Cotter, general manager of content and delivery in TVNZ's emerging business division (and other BBC alumni), another panellist or two and - yes! - the band of the moment, the L.E.Ds, playing their first North Island show.

In Auckland next Saturday (Sept 1), we'll have William Cooper and Mr Brown again, along with the wicked Nat Torkington from O'Reilly Media and TVNZ's head of emerging business Jason Paris and digital content chief Eric Kearley. Again, the L.E.D.s will bring the goodness.

There will be video and one or two surprises. It's going to be a lot of fun, and I'm really happy with our new venues.

I'm particularly grateful to our sponsors: Karajoz Coffee Company (of course), TVNZ and the British Council, and to Monteith's for the beer and Hatton Estate for the fine wine. Thanks also to the Asia:NZ Foundation for help with Mr Brown.

WELLINGTON
Thursday Aug 30, from 6pm at the Overseas Terminal
• Chat and show-and-tell with Tom Cotter, TVNZ
• Mr Brown Show: Mr Brown introduces various of his audio and video works for the audience.
• Digital futures Panel featuring Dr Cooper, Tom Cotter, Mr Brown and Mark Cubey of Radio NZ
• The L.E.D.s!

AUCKLAND
Saturday Sept 1, from 6pm at the Dalmatian Society ballroom
• Onstage interview with Eric Kearley and Dr Cooper
• Mr Brown Show
• Digital Panel featuring Jason Paris, Dr Cooper, Mr Brown, Nat Torkington of O'Reilly Media
• The L.E.D.s!

You are all warmly invited, until such time as the rooms fill up. To RSVP for Wellington, click here, and to RSVP for Auckland, click here. Be quick.

PS: Oh, and I've just confirmed the very cool Clare O'Leary for both the Auckland and Wellington panels. She's currently the strategic analyst at NZ On Air and has a background in film-making, digital content policy and work with the computer gaming industry. Some of us also remember her band.

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This just in: Sky over Tasman Sea not falling | Aug 21, 2007 09:51

Yes, I would say this, wouldn't I, but wasn't the line crossed in the current trans-Tasman flap when Alexander Downer saw fit to haul our High Commissioner in for a bollocking, summarily ban Air NZ from any future troop flight charters, and let at least one journalist know he'd done so?

Our senior ministers were in a purely domestic tizzy about being kept in the dark over a flight to Kuwait that everyone else seemed to know about. It was Downer who raised the stakes, surely.

So this morning, we get the front-page headlines Tasman war of words worsens and Clark tells Aussie minister to stop meddling in NZ. Don't bother going to look for similarly dramatic stories across the Tasman - you won't find them. It has been briefly reported, but there are bigger fish to fry over there.

Like, of course, the Kevin Rudd and the strip club episode, which has a new instalment in the Murdoch press today: Rudd related to former stripper. Translation: years ago, Rudd's sister in law, who is now completing a masters in psychology, worked for a few months as an "exotic dancer" in Brisbane.

The funny thing is, if an equivalent story to the Rudd one had broken here, it would not have centred on any alleged moral failing, but on the fact that this was a taxpayer-funded trip; and thus one on which politicians should have retired early every night with milk and cookies, lest they provoke envy and resentment amongst a demanding public. That hardly seems to have been an issue in Australia.

It will have formed a part of Clark's political calculations that Downer wouldn't be fronting up to discuss her bite-your-tongue advice yesterday, because if he did, Australian journalists would immediately ask him not about that, but about his alleged part in seeding the Rudd story. She also knows that by the end of the year there is very little chance that she'll be dealing with Downer as Australia's foreign minister.

So yes, it was political: just like the National Party sinking a major trans-Tasman regulatory agency last month was political, and I know which one of those I think will have a more lasting impact.

Anyway: contrary to reports, the sky over the Tasman Sea is not falling.

And now might be a good time to share (with his permission) this email sent to Air New Zealand last week by Public Address reader and frequent flyer Paul Campbell:

Dear Air NZ:

I find myself sitting in the departure lounge in Auckland airport tonight wondering whether I should get on my flight to LAX in a couple of hours - I regularly travel across the Pacific for business, this is my 4th flight this year already, and at this rate probably not the last one, I've already booked my family to travel at xmas - in the past we've chosen Air NZ because we've felt that as NZ's carrier we were safer travelling with you, less of a target for terrorists.

Now I hear on the news that you've been taking American and Australian [troops] to Iraq - how dare you do this and NOT tell us - your prospective customers so that we can make informed choices about our own safety.

As a NZ citizen, a taxpayer and one of your owners I demand more accountability - I hope to hear you announce that it was a mistake and that you will never do it again

Paul Campbell

Meanwhile, The Press has picked up (naturally, without attribution) on Rob O'Neill's scoop about an Air New Zealand employees editing the article on the ill-fated Erebus flight -- and rather missed the point. It's not Wikipedia saying so, and it's almost certainly not the airline's PR department: it was a single employee with a bee in his bonnet making alterations to the article that were actually not without merit, but which contained his own opinion about the likelihood of pilot error. It's interesting, and it was hotly debated at the time, but, as I noted yesterday, it would be wise not to go off the deep end.

And finally, lots of people seem to have found yesterday's Salon guide to the sub-prime mortgage crisis useful. Reader Hamish McKenzie recommended this one from Asia Sentinel, which harnesses the gumdrop metaphor, and Karla Hill liked Liar's Loans by the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston.

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More Wikipedia Scanning | Aug 20, 2007 09:16

Someone at Air New Zealand has excised chunks of the Wikipedia article on Flight 901 to Erebus, and at least two people from an IP address range associated with Telecom have removed text critical of Telecom or Xtra. But it would be wise not to go off the deep end about it.

The Erebus edits, made in 2003, were picked up by Rob O'Neill at NZBC with Wikipedia Scanner. The first, in June, replaces quite a bit of text about the post crash investigation and the Mahon report, but actually improves the sense of the article. But the addition in December of "It should be noted, however, that pilots are divided to this day as to whether the responsibility for the accident should rest with the pilot or with the flight planning department," seems like someone's opinion. There was fairly heated discussion about it at the time.

The Telecom and Xtra edits, to which a reader has drawn my attention, might be seen as reasonable, given that previous versions were often ranty: case in point on the Xtra article. Here, a reference to Telecom's poor service is moderated with the words "in some people's opinion". This is a reasonable update.

One of the IP addresses (146.171.254.66) was blocked for being a shared address, and a registered user on that address describes him/herself as being " an IT Specialist in the Telecommumications [sic] Industry in New Zealand." There's also a list of edits from an adjacent address.

Given the lack of disclosure, a couple of these sail a bit close to the wind, but these are not edits from the Telecom PR department, and appear to have been made in good faith by people who contribute usefully to Wikipedia - in most cases anyway. Here, last month, one of the Telecom users warns "To the poster of the sick comment, I will ask for this to be investigated, as this is a dismissable offence."

The IP address that was the source of the "sick comment" (146.171.254.66) was blocked for being a shared address, a decision endorsed by a registered user on that address who describes him/herself at being " an IT Specialist in the Telecommumications [sic] Industry in New Zealand."

If nothing else, the transparency afforded by Wikipedia Scanner is useful, and to the good of the project.

On Friday, I also listed edits from BNZ/National Australia Bank (where someone is big on comparative religion), Treasury (the natural home of the pedant, it would seem), Qantas (including the priceless ""Changed NZ Island references around. The South Island is colder than the North"), Lion Nathan (including minor vandalism) and Fonterra.

Meanwhile, Salon has an extremely useful lay guide to exactly what happened and why in the US sub-prime mortgage market. If you read nothing else today …

Matt McCarten has an interesting column on the Auckland mayoral race. I think Alex Swney will be worth watching.

And Spare Room has a very funny clip speculating on how it would be if business meetings were like blog comments.

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