Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Ready to Fly | Mar 31, 2008 09:37

This is how busy I am: for the past two weekends I have forgotten to make my Virtual Super 14 picks. The system has instead chosen "home teams by 13 and over" for me. As a consequence, I have cascaded down the rankings. I was comfortably in the top 10,000 -- this morning my dizzying descent finds me at 37345 on the table.

But it's worth it. Really. I have a TV show called Media7 debuting this week on TVNZ 7, and most of the surprising number of small tasks that do not directly relate to the content of the programme have been completed.

We have lined up an interesting discussion on the role of the media in high-profile criminal cases, Simon Pound has a story on why four pages of your Sunday magazine were missing a couple of weeks ago (what do you mean, you didn't notice?) and we have a really cool TV ad to show you.

My fellow bloggers will be on deck this week, and you won't get the usual unlikely torrent of prose from me. I'll pop in on Thursday with links to the various internet iterations of our work, on the main site, TVNZondemand and, yes, even YouTube.

In the meantime, I'd like to invite some of you to our first recording, early evening tomorrow in the Auckland CBD. So there are three double passes for the first three people to hit "Reply" and RSVP to me. (If you miss out, don't fret: this will be happening every week for most of the year.)

UPDATE: All gone, sorry! There's always next week.

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New on the Street | Mar 28, 2008 11:55

View the gallery for this post

My buddy Ant Timpson texted me a couple of nights ago. He was excited. Understandably so. After "four years of the worst broadband ever" up towards the end of the peninsular in Pt Chev, he'd just been the recipient of the first connection to Telecom's new cabinets, which have debuted in our suburb, the land where DSL has been barely alive.

The technician had done a speed test after installation: 21Mbit/s downstream. The techie said it was the fastest residential connection ever measured in New Zealand, then called his mates to tell them about it.

This morning, I popped around the corner to see the official opening of the cabinet at 281 Pt Chevalier Road that made Ant so happy. I was impressed. There are three cabinets installed so far, with another 12 to come online. Fibre runs from each cabinet to the Mt Albert exchange, via the existing ducting. Anyone on a DSL connection with an unlimited speed account and a reasonably new DSL modem will, as their cabinet comes online, go up to ADSL 2+ speeds by default.

There are about 1500 such cabinets to be rolled out in other areas over the next couple of years. Telecom's competitors regard cabinetisation as a dodge by Telecom to get around local loop un bundling, and it is, in part.

But as you can see in the pictures in the gallery for this post, half the space for DSLAMS in the cabinets is set aside for "access seekers" -- that is, the likes of Orcon and Vodafone, who may wish to place their kit in the cabinets the way they are in the unbundled exchanges.

At present, access is a matter of commercial negotiation with Telecom Wholesale, rather than regulation. We'll see how that goes, but I did think the Telecom Wholesale people I talked to on the roadside were speaking in good faith. They have products in the pipeline: dedicated IP bandwidth for third-party IP phone services, IP Eft-Pos connections, and even new fibre runs from the cabinets. It really does look pretty cool.

I think a good deal of credit should go to the Business In Servce of Community group, who staged the original, infamous public meeting about broadband service last year and kept hammering away on the issue. This is a great result for them, and for the 600 businesses, including mine, that operate out of the suburb.

There was a coverage map at the launch. The cabinet that serves my street comes online on April 18. Cool.

Telecom's CEO Paul Reynolds said at the launch that the rollout "represents a more open Telecom". Given the history, most people will want proof of that. But today, I'm inclined to give Dr Reynolds the benefit of the doubt.

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Slumpy Cashflow | Mar 27, 2008 09:53

Yesterday's news of a slump in consumer confidence as measured by the Westpac survey drew many and varied responses from readers of the Herald website, some of which made more sense than others.

The story itself quoted Westpac's economist on the difference between the present slump and the last time confidence dropped sharply, in 1998. That being: in 2008, we enjoy historically strong employment and terms of trade, and very sound government accounts. We seem relatively well protected from global financial problems.

On the other hand, anyone who does the shopping knows what's happening to food prices -- I've done a double-take at the number on the till a few times lately. There are people who have lost their savings, and people sitting on potentially very unhappy property investments. They'll try and reap more from rents to make up for a lack of capital gain, and something will have to give. It looks like we're back to residential overcrowding, in Auckland, at least.

Ironically, our household was in quite good shape in the late 90s. That was when, after five years' saving, we borrowed money and bought our house, for $40,000 less than the original list price. Interest rates were high and there had been a long, hot summer of slow house sales.

We're looking okay this year too (and a lot better than a couple of years ago), although I'm self-employed now, and more exposed to a downturn in the advertising market. I don't think I can work any harder than I am now. Renewing the mortgage will be dispiriting, but we expected that. And we did just buy a new TV.

What do you all think? Are people just spooked, or are there really hard times ahead?

Meanwhile, in other crisis news, No Right Turn has more coverage of Paul Hutchison's sudden interest in absinthe as the new scourge of youth -- now that party pills are off the market. I/S points out that "all absinthe does is make you drunk", largely because it has little or no thujone in it now. I'd debate that thujone has no psychoactive properties, though. These guys seemed to get pretty high on their wormwood hash. For, like, months. But that's not the same thing at all.

And, finally, thanks to Brendon Li at Samsung for noticing and swiftly undertaking to sort out my Mum's problems redeeming an offer to claim her free DVD player. Nice work. If you can't use your blog to help out your Mum, then what use is Web 2.0, really?

Anyway, now is the time for my usual belated invitation for y'all to vote for us in the Netguide People's Choice Web Awards. I figure, if you're minded, you could enter publicaddress.net for Best Blog Site, and Public Address System (publicaddress.net/system) for Best New site, Relaunch, Innovation. Tell a friend.

And finally, Pete Darlington came out of the digital hat for the MarchFest prize pack. Pete is not a stranger to me, but I can assure you, the draw was purely random. Thanks to our other Nelson readers -- nice to know you're there.

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Electrickery | Mar 26, 2008 10:25

Where possible, we've been watching our real-time TV via the Freeview HD decoder in the past week. The pictures are so good we can do without the benefits of a PVR. And yesterday, my darling switched on the TV in anticipation of the news. She turned to TV3, where Home and Away was supposed to be on. It wasn't.

TV3 was trialling a broadcast of Bones, one of its initial HDTV offerings. The scene was an autopsy: a very hi-res autopsy. It was gross (indeed, it might have breached the watershed). But awesome.

Then they switched back over for the news, where Hilary Barry's words were not in sync with her lips. This may have been a sign of the apocalypse.

Further on the TV tip: I've noted in the past (and more than once) the weird and unsatisfactory service to be found at Noel Leeming stores. As I explained to the manager who contacted me last time, it's (mostly) not the people: there's something wrong with their system. It's just hard to get help when you want it, because staff seem to be tied up forever in sales, and even then (this happened to me while I was out price-comparing there last week) the person on the shopfloor may not know much about the product.

Well, now my Mum has had the same experience. She wanted a new TV to watch her son's TV show when it launches on TVNZ 7 next week. She spied a Samsung that, with a $200 trade-in for her old set and a free HDMI-capable DVD player, seemed like a reasonable deal. She'd had a little trouble getting help in the shop, but I told her to go for it, and I'd buy her the Freeview box to go with it. She went back the next day in and signed up for their terms -- a process that meant she spent an unbelievable two hours in the store.

That wasn't the end of it. She paid the delivery and installation fee, and the drivers turned up and had to borrow a screwdriver from her to do the job. And there was no DVD player. To get that, she had to fill in another form and wait for Samsung to email her with a link to the offer, and when that was fulfilled, Samsung would send her the DVD player.

But my Mum doesn't have email. She doesn't have a computer, and doesn't want one. So she gave my email address. Days later, I haven't seen the email (yes, I've looked in the spam folder in my webmail). Why can't the retailer and the supplier simply cut out the pointless email step and have the DVD player delivered to the address supplied? This seems quite hopeless. And people, this is my mother. I'm not impressed.

The famous Muldoon Toby jug, the prize for the when-Muldoon-was-Prime-Minister quiz at our Christmas party with the Wellingtonista last year, is up for sale on Trade Me. This should be an auction worth watching.

Pew has interesting media numbers on Barack Obama's A More Perfect Union speech on race. And one of Obama's bloggers writes that along with the higher-resolution version, the speech has racked up nearly four million views on YouTube. He points out:

That means Obama's speech has been seen more times online than the original Wright clip -- by a factor of six. More people have watched Obama's speech online than have watched every single clip on McCain's YouTube channel -- for the entire campaign.

Even if you don't think the speech got Obama off the hook over his former pastor's unfortunate raving, surely there is something remarkable in a politician responding to a campaign emergency with a sophisticated, positive and thoughtful piece of oratory, rather than the usual risible damage control.

Anyway, we have another giveaway for you, this time from our new friends at MarchFest, which is staged in Nelson this Saturday. It's a right old bundle:

- A large rigger of beer of one of the special festival beers, which are made usuing only locally-grown hops. (you can pop through to the MarchFest site to read the details on each).
- A MarchFest t-shirt
- A double pass to MarchFest this Saturday
- A copy of Songs from a Dictaphone by SJD, who are headlining the festival.

The idea is that you'll only enter if you actually plan to go -- and I know we have readers in the area. Go ahead, hit "Reply", then, and I'll randomly choose a winner this afternoon.

PS: Speaking of SJD, guess who's done the theme music for Media 7? Cool, huh?

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Misquote Unquote | Mar 25, 2008 10:30

I actually laughed out loud when I read the concluding lines of the Star Times' story speculating that National might have been chivvied into bringing forward its tax cut programme:

Key appeared confused when speaking to the Star-Times about what he had already announced on the timing of tax cuts. He disputed he had said 2010 was the earliest tax cuts could take effect. Instead, he told the Star-Times last week: "We said that was the last date, so we obviously have got some flexibility.''

When reminded an August 2007 report in the Dominion Post quoted Key as saying 2010 was the earliest date for tax cuts, he said: She "must have the wrong date''.

For goodness sake. Just say "circumstances change" or something. That's perfectly alright. But please, don't make a claim to have been misquoted your standard response when it's suggested that you've changed your mind. It's not a very good thing to say to a journalist.

The SST also had the story of Nick Smith's prospective bankruptcy in the face of a huge lawsuit from the timber company Osmose. I've been sued by a corporation -- it was intimidating and I wouldn't envy anyone in that position, especially given that this company seems determined to spend what it takes.

On the other hand, you can read the gist of the matter in this Broadcasting Standards decision on the disastrous Close Up programme at the heart of the case. Smith's conduct in pursuit of a political score seems extraordinary, and it's not the first time he has found himself in such a position. Last month Steven Price noted an angle the SST left out: that its publisher, Fairfax, had, along with TVNZ, chosen to settle in the same action.

I tried through various media to school myself up on the Tibetan issue over the weekend, but I'm no nearer a firm view on what ought to happen. It still rankles when I hear people frame this like it's our game: plucky-little-New-Zealand replaying the 80s: the America's Cup meets the Springbok Tour.

Reader Bob Munro noted CNN's interview with James Miles of the Economist, who had been in Llasa:

What you say you saw corroborates the official version. What exactly did you see?

What I saw was calculated targeted violence against an ethnic group, or I should say two ethnic groups, primarily ethnic Han Chinese living in Lhasa, but also members of the Muslim Hui minority in Lhasa. And the Huis in Lhasa control much of the meat industry in the city. Those two groups were singled out by ethnic Tibetans. They marked those businesses that they knew to be Tibetan owned with white traditional scarves. Those businesses were left intact. Almost every single other across a wide swathe of the city, not only in the old Tibetan quarter, but also beyond it in areas dominated by the ethnic Han Chinese. Almost every other business was either burned, looted, destroyed, smashed into, the property therein hauled out into the streets, piled up, burned. It was an extraordinary outpouring of ethnic violence of a most unpleasant nature to watch, which surprised some Tibetans watching it. So they themselves were taken aback at the extent of what they saw. And it was not just targeted against property either. Of course many ethnic Han Chinese and Huis fled as soon as this broke out. But those who were caught in the early stages of it were themselves targeted. Stones thrown at them. At one point, I saw them throwing stones at a boy of maybe around 10 years old perhaps cycling along the street. I in fact walked out in front of them and said stop. It was a remarkable explosion of simmering ethnic grievances in the city.

Did you see other weapons?

I saw them carrying traditional Tibetan swords, I didn't actually see them getting them out and intimidating people with them. But clearly the purpose of carrying them was to scare people. And speaking later to ethnic Han Chinese, that was one point that they frequently drew attention to. That these people were armed and very intimidating.

Ethnic Tibetans certainly have a grievance. But so, arguably, do native Fijians, and we'd hardly be comfortable with them wreaking ethnically-targeted havoc on Indian businesses in their towns. (Or would the better comparison be with the Israeli-occupied territories? I don't know.)

Miles goes on to surmise that the Chinese security forces, mindful of the Olympics, initially stood off the "unrest", fearing that their intervention would result in bloodshed:

So in effect what they did was sacrifice the livelihoods of many, many ethnic Han Chinese in the city for the sake of letting the rioters vent their anger. And then being able to move in gradually with troops with rifles that they occasionally let off with single shots, apparently warning shots, in order to scare everybody back into their homes and put an end to this.

It clearly hasn't quite worked out that way. But it seems there's a stronger case with respect to China's long-term actions in Tibet than there is to its actions in this particular case.

The other common belief is that Tibet was some earthly paradise before the tanks rolled in in 1959. It was nothing of the kind: it was a feudal theocracy whose elite practiced routine and hideous authoritarian cruelty on its people. Michael Parenti's oft-quoted Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth is instructive:

In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master's cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away

Parenti advises:

To welcome the end of the old feudal theocracy in Tibet is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in that country. This point is seldom understood by today's Shangri-La believers in the West. The converse is also true: To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. Tibetans deserve to be perceived as actual people, not perfected spiritualists or innocent political symbols. "To idealize them," notes Ma Jian, a dissident Chinese traveler to Tibet (now living in Britain), "is to deny them their humanity."

I wonder if what we see there is a cataclysmic failure of imagination on the part of the Chinese leadership. Hu Jintao earned his advancement in the party as the author of a harsh crackdown on the last major uprising, in 1989, when he was the party's chief in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (he apparently hated the place). His earlier, modest moves towards greater cultural freedom don't appear to have won him the same political capital. But forcing state atheism on a people who, within living memory, spent one day in five on religious festivals is effectively the same thing as erasing their cultural identity.

The leadership's ethnic problems aren't confined to the TAR. They extend to the nearby provinces, whose cities are now under lockdown. The response is like something from another century: feeble missives directed at the "Dalai Lama clique"; risible proclamations in the state-owned media of "broad international support" from political pariahs and African client states. There may be a real fear of breakdown and more serious ethnic conflict if Tibet is allowed to get away -- but there doesn't seem to be any sign of imagination in addressing that fear.

Again, I don't know what our response ought to be on the far side of the world, beyond calling for restraint, which is effectively what the West is doing en masse. The denunciation of a "preferential" trade relationship doesn't make much sense given the massive extent to which our economies are already entwined. Nobody's going to be doing without Chinese goods any time soon.

I'm not sure what the impact of an Olympic boycott would be: reading China's human rights record, it's hard to understand how it was awarded the Olympic PR opportunity in the first place -- the long case against a Beijing Olympics seems stronger to me than one based on this week's headlines. Yet a leadership with less to lose might be more inclined to take retribution on errant provinces. (The Moscow Olympic boycott over Afghanistan certainly didn't moderate the subsequent post-Soviet Russian government's genocidal brutality in Chechnya and elsewhere.)

Anyway, when Michael Laws approaches moral certainty in his column, and rails against "this foreign country, foreign culture and foreign moral code", with its dirty toilets and all, it's probably time for the rest of us to take stock.

PS: Some more ...

A group of Chinese intellectuals has appealed to the Chinese government "to admit that its policy of crushing dissent in Tibet and blaming the ensuing violence on the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was failing." Many young Chinese, on a strictly governed media diet, can't understand why the world is picking on them. They believe the West is glossing over the deaths of ethnic Chinese.

The Times interviewed people in Sichaun province, who were nervous and despairing:

"I believe they can never win their independence, because no big country backs them and they have no army," said a shop owner, "and I believe we cannot win their hearts."

This story from a Canadian paper underlines the fact that the problem is not purely territorial. Ethnic Tibetans in China proper feel the same grievances as those in the TAR; grievances that won't be satisfied by political reform in Tibet itself.

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