Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Missing George | Mar 31, 2005 12:23

Well, if you had the choice, wouldn't you put Rob Robinson up for a TV interview over George Hawkins? The Police Commissioner ("a civil servant!" hissed John Campbell) was clearly paying attention during media skills training, and handled an enjoyably energetic Campbell Live interview last night with aplomb. So much aplomb as to make me wonder whether to trust what he said.

The fact that 11 complaints "of a sexual nature" are unassigned in the Counties-Manukau police district is clearly unsatisfactory, but it's hard to know how unsatisfactory. Is it simply standard practice not to allocate a file until, say, DNA evidence comes back? Is there, historically or nationally, a typical number of such cases at any point in time that aren't assigned? Is this an out-and-out shocker? Or, as Robinson contends, a case of exaggeration for political ends? Whatever, I suspect police resourcing might now feature prominently in the Budget …

The matter raised by Winston Peters seems clearer to me. This is a terrible story, and it hardly matters whether the victim of an alleged assault by an off-duty police officer later died principally as a result of the incident, or as a result of his chronic sickle-cell anaemia. There is simply no way that any officer should be trying settle an argument with another member of the public by even laying a finger on them. We rely on the police to be better than that.

Fran O'Sullivan has a good story on the first claim under the Seabed and Foreshore legislation, and the role of Judge Joe Williams of the Maori Land Court. But is anyone else thinking that - with the claim lodged in the name of Whakatohea, but without the approval or even knowledge of the iwi's own trust board - this is shaping up as a potentially dreadful way of testing the new law?

Speaking of which, Michael Cullen needs to calm down. So does John Tamihere.

Reader opinions seem to vary on my focus this week on the Schiavo case. Some are grateful for the spadework, others think it's a distraction. As ever, I'm really just blogging about what interests me; and I find the wider story intensely interesting. Anyway, my mate Rob, a doctor, was in touch with a comment well worth repeating here:

I concur with your sentiments, but thought I would add a more philosophical approach, coloured with the background that I am a doctor.

Oddly enough, I concur with the Bush line of "always err on the side of sustaining life" but that needs to be tempered with the quality of that life, and the more philosophical argument about what makes us "human".

People have an intrinsic quality, which I will call "soul" for want of a better word, and this is the quality that give us a sense of who we are as people, our sense of being. Once that sense of being or soul has gone, I think from a philosophical point of view, so has true human life. Sure you can still have a heartbeat, or brain activity, but the vital things that define you as a sentient being are gone. And I think when those things are gone there is no point in intervening against nature's natural course.

I am against euthanasia as in my opinion it is completely unnecessary, there are always other solutions to the problem. And I think that sustaining human life is one of the core tenets of modern medicine. But the main aim can only be to restore people to where they have a good quality of life, and integral to that is the sense of being or soul. I think it is reasonable to give people every chance to recover from illness, and that it may take months for the body to recover.

But in Terry Schiavo's case this is really clear cut. She was treated appropriately, and has had lots of rehabilitation. There has been no significant improvement. Her head CT is awful. She is incapable of performing the all basic functions that define life on her own, ie, she cannot feed herself.

She has had adequate time for recovery (actually too long IMO), and most importantly the things that define her as a person, that "soul" concept does not exist for her. In philosophical terms her humanity is gone. Given this, there is no point in providing artificial means of sustaining here. It is not natural, and not "human".

And I guess the bits that really incense me are the politicians meddling to try and subvert the law for presumed political gain, and the crazy conservatives with their muddled philosophies about right to life. Oh, and as final note, this sort of palaver only ever happens with dysfunctional family groups (sensible people always work out an appropriate course) and that?s what this is *really* about. Rant over. Cheers, Rob.

Thanks also to Benita for her email. She has a husband in 24/7 care as a result of medical misadventure nine years ago, and is living the kind of thing the rest of us talk about:

We've learned new things about ourselves and the world around us. Humility in the face of something so big for one. The hysteria surrounding Terri's case is such a worry. I just wish people would afford this couple a little more dignity. Certainly it has been our experience that the support systems, doctors, caregivers, etc, and yes even ACC when it came on board; live that every day. If they (the doctors and caregivers and nurses) seem a little insular at this time, then the rest of the world should heed their example. There has been a loss and more loss to come, but this is where the healing will - or should - be taking place … one needs not to seek blame or anger; you go for realistic, honest and loving outcomes and get on with it.

It seems worthy of note that while some leading conservative bloggers seem uneasy with the Terri hysteria, their slippery contention that both sides are to blame doesn't really wash. Instapundit murmurs about "the excesses of either side". He points to a Reason opinion piece to support his contention. That concludes: "Reasonable people reading the evidence can differ as to what Schiavo would have preferred, but one thing they can't do is declare there's no question about what she wanted 16 years ago. In the last few weeks, alas, reasonable people have sometimes been scarce." Well, yes, the facts are in dispute. There wouldn't have been a story otherwise. But you people have a well-established and frequently-used way of assessing disputed facts. It's called your judicial system.

Inevitably, one of the dullards at Power Line blames liberals who "hate".

Um, excuse me, but I don't recall any liberals issuing contracts on the lives of judges, making apparently baseless accusations of assault and murder against those involved in the case or, in the case of former Republican party congressional candidate and New Jersey Party chair Hal Turner, declaring that Terri Schiavo should be "rescued" and that "I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue". That would be the police … And really, this is just a small sample of the outright insanity going on over there.

Also: a doctor tears into an MSNBC host who doesn't know what he's talking about. And Christopher Hitchens tells the same host he's a megaphone for fraud.

On the other side? Lately, some fairly vicious humour, as seen in Get Your War On. And of course you've seen Terri's Blog. Poor taste, certainly, but no one advocating mob rule and murder …

PS: A reader has pointed out that the comments in Terri's Blog - which I hadn't thought to read - contain some really obscene and unpleasant material. I guess having posted it, after being forwarded the link by quite a few readers, I should leave it up as an example of "the other side", but I think think any reasonable person would find those comments grossly offensive.

Digg this Scoopit!

Once more ... | Mar 30, 2005 10:09

I promise, I'll get off the Schiavo case and get local again. But I've been getting a few "you disgust me" emails from people in America. The thing that strikes me is that their perceptions are taking shape in textbook conspiracy theory style: start with a conclusion and work feverishly backwards. You decide that no plane hit the Pentagon on September 11 and you stare at grainy photographs until it becomes true.

In common with other conspiracy theories, the "facts" look good until you compare them with the, er, facts. Take the widespread idea that Terri Schiavo was denied rehabilitative care, as advanced by one of my angry correspondents, Diane:

Could you please provide me with the names of the therapist that have been seeing Terri's all this time? The Speech therapist, the physical therapist? I keep hearing all these claims she's been given all this therapy but no one has the names of these therapists. Who was given it to her Casper? How many doctors has she seen over the last 12 years, since we have afforded her all this medical care, could I also get that list?

Well, let's start with Dr Carnahan and Dr Alcazaren of the Mediplex Rehabilitation Centre, both rehabilitation specialists. The miami.edu timeline says that she was discharged from hospital to the College Park skilled care and rehabilitation facility (May 1990), then to Bayfront Hospital for "further rehabilitation efforts" (June 1990); returned to College Park rehabilitation facility because her family was "overwhelmed by Terri's care needs" (September 1990); taken by Michael Schiavo to California for experimental "brain stimulator" treatment, via an experimental "thalamic stimulator implant" in her brain (November 1990); moved to the Mediplex Rehabilitation Center in Brandon where she receives 24-hour care (January 1991); transferred to Sable Palms skilled care facility for "continuing neurological testing, and regular and aggressive speech/occupational therapy" until the end of 1994. That's three and a half years of intensive rehabilitation theory.

Diane also offered links to a blog which speculates feverishly on both the 1991 bone scan and the two CAT scans of Terri Schiavo's brain. No, I can't read CAT scans, but I think I'll go with the expert clinical evidence on this one, and it is not remotely similar to that offered by the blogger. There is some interesting discussion in the comments of this blog, which lines up images from Terri Schiavo's brain and a normal brain.

And the bone scan? The Schindlers' own medical witness was interviewed by attorneys for both sides in 2003 and produced nothing that proved traumatic injury, let alone evidence that Michael Schiavo had beaten his wife. The witness, who thought abnormalities in the scan looked like the result of trauma, had no case history and actually specifically deferred to the doctors at the Mediplex centre who took a completely different view of the bone scan results, and agreed that he had seen such injuries in bedridden patients, if rarely. The scan appears to have been unusual, but you'd have to be barking mad to accept the evidence in court as proof that Michael Schiavo beat his wife.

Also: the claim that her husband and the courts have colluded to prevent an MRI scan. I'm trusting what I've read here, but apparently an MRI scan can't be done because she has thalamic implants - to prevent tremors like those produced by Parkinson's Disease. Removing those implants requires difficult and dangerous surgery.

For further reading, Majikthise rounds up the various myths, medical and otherwise, that have sprung up around the case. And Raw Story offers a backgrounder on Michael Schiavo that depicts a different man to the one currently being vilified by people who never met him or his wife.

In a fairly bravura bit of blogging, Respectful of Others has examined the medical, ethical and religious dimensions of the Schiavo case.

Billmon notes the rather odd moral map of Bill Tierney, a US intelligence officer who is protesting outside the hospice in Florida - and who last month publicly admitted not just to practising torture in Baghdad, but to enjoying it. Wow.

Paul Krugman looks at what's happening and gets the fear. With some reason: a committee of the Florida legislature has approved a bill that could and would be used to require not just schools to teach creationism, but universities. Students could sue professors who questioned their beliefs on evolution, abortion, the Holocaust, or, indeed, anything. See also: The New Brown Shirts. In a lovely bit of doublespeak, this is being referred to as an "academic freedom" bill …

But it's all alright. Michael Schiavo has said through his lawyer that he will allow an autopsy of his wife's body to try and settle the various claims about her medical state. I guess that's a victory for somebody.

Although not for the likes of Pat Sebastian, who emailed to tell me that letting Terri die would expose America to terrorist attack:

You disgust me. Terri is an innocent person who is aware of what is going on around her. And, she is being given morphine for pain - the pain, the idiot "husband & his lawyer" and the ignorant "doctors" who want her dead say she doesn't feel. God have mercy on them.

Encouraging this country to be a country loving and encouraging death at the first opportunity is another big step away from God and a big encouragement for His to lift His hand of protection from Florida and this country as He did on 9/11.

Beware, God loves His children and Terri belongs to Him. Anyone a part of taking her life will surely feel the wrath of God.

One day each person - you, me, Jeb Bush, Greer, etc. WILL kneel before our Lord and judgement will be handed out. To GOD be the Glory - and may Terri enjoy relieve from the evil of this world.

I can't wait …

Digg this Scoopit!

Hysteria | Mar 29, 2005 10:57

Having only heard of Terri Schiavo five minutes ago, a surprising number of her "supporters" have found themselves able to not only declare that her husband (who appears to have provided more care for her than any other individual, and never stopped visiting her) is wrong, but to declare him a murderer, a liar and a Nazi.

Most notably, a claim that a scan found evidence of broken bones has swelled into a theory that Michael Schiavo beat his wife - and even, incredibly, that her death was the result of murder, rather than the heart attack deduced by doctors. And it's not just the Republican "base" loonies at the Free Republic, but people who can actually get things published in newspapers.

There's a small problem with this theory: no proof. No one has ever even brought these claims to court. Indeed, as part of this long, long process, a guardian was appointed by the Florida governor to specifically investigate this theory. His conclusion was that there was no credibility to the claim and that Michael Schiavo was a caring guardian.

So what then, to make of the fact that a man has now been arrested for "soliciting the murder" not only of Michael Schiavo but of a Florida judge who found in his favour? This goon couldn't even spell Terri Schiavo's name properly.

This New York Times comment seeks to explain the philosophical divide in attitudes to the case, all the way back to the Enlightenment.

I guess I'm on the Enlightenment side here. The medical evidence seems emphatic that the part of Terri Schiavo's brain that is "her" - the cerebral cortex - has mostly liquefied. Her brain shows no electrical activity on an EEG. The idea that, after 15 years, some additional form of "rehabilitation" might be employed to bring her back seems fanciful. Her body might be breathing, but in a very real sense she is simply not there. Instapundit linked to some useful statements on this, and even he concedes that "many on the right have succumbed to hysteria here." Dare I say "War on Expertise" again?

The expert medical evidence also holds that she will not suffer pain or distress after being disconnected from the feeding machine. (It's interesting to speculate as to whether if it had been another device sustaining her - say, a dialysis machine - the response would have been the same.) I'm listening to a woman called Kate Adamson talk to Linda Clark: she recovered after being declared in a "persistent vegetative state" and actually having her feeding tube removed, but the cases don't seem to bear detailed comparison.

Adamson was in a coma after a stroke, not incapacitated by critical brain damage. And she was able to communicate, by blinking - she passed the kind of test that Terri Schiavo "failed" - and I cannot see any way that she could have registered a flat EEG, had one been taken. I can see why advocates for the disabled would take up the Schiavo case, but it seems a poor one from which to draw general principles.

A beneficial impact of the case is that Americans now seem to be rushing to swear "living wills" to avoid just such an unhappy situation. It does not appear that any of them are requiring that they be kept alive in such circumstances, but the reverse. The Christian Science Monitor interviewed a group of Florida senior citizens who were very much of a do-not-resuscitate mind.

I had a couple of reader responses to Craig Ranapia's question on living wills. Emma said:

I work as an admin for an online writing site, with Canadian, British, and US co-workers. The Shiavo case has been a big issue this week just in informal discussion. As a result, both my Canadian boss and I have downloaded kits for making 'living wills', specifically to ensure that, should something this awful happen to us, our partners will not have to go through this hell. It's really the only good thing to have come out of the whole revolting mess, I've seen a hugely increased awareness of the importance of getting your wishes written down. We've all talked about it with our partners at some point, but they need something to back them up, even if it's not legally binding, which a living will isn't.

Also, another of my co-workers, a devout Christian Republican from Seattle, had to comply with her mother's wishes just two months ago and withdraw life support. Seeing the TV coverage of the Shiavo case has been enormously distressing for her.

Ben Gracewood said:

We've never written anything down on paper, but it's something that comes up in discussion every once in a while - usually resulting from something like this current case.

The general sentiment between myself and my partner is if one or the other is totally incapacitated (coma, brain damage) for more than a couple of months, then it's time to move on - whether that requires a hospice, or pulling the plug.

Same goes for organ donation. Despite her qualms, I've basically demanded that my bits go to the most needy person(s) in the queue in the event that I no longer require them.

A couple of people queried my comment last week that the "futile care" law signed by Bush as governor of Texas was used to withdraw care from a six month old boy against the wishes of his mother, "who could not afford to arrange other care for him." That's what it adds up to. This is the relevant part:

If the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient is requesting life-sustaining treatment that the attending physician has decided and the review process has affirmed is inappropriate treatment, the patient shall be given available life-sustaining treatment pending transfer under Subsection (d). The patient is responsible for any costs incurred in transferring the patient to another facility. The physician and the health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment after the 10th day after the written decision required under Subsection (b) is provided to the patient or the person responsible for the health care decisions of the patient …

If you can't pay, and especially if you're on Medicaid, it's over. The part I did get wrong, and changed when I realised it, was saying that this was a historical case. It actually only happened a few days ago. Indeed, such cases have gone on around the Schiavo case the whole time. For some reason, they don't attract angry crowds.

The Lion and the Donkey blog listed what its author considered the most significant hypocrisies in the general Republican Party stance on Schiavo. Quite interesting.

Chris Banks has part two of his investigation of the Jim Peron allegations online. He concludes that "from what we now know, Jim Peron is at worst guilty of holding and advocating some extremely dodgy political beliefs at a certain time and place, something that all our sources acknowledge is his only tangible 'crime'."

I'd add a caveat even to that. Anyone who starts digging into libertarian feuding here or in the US will soon find that these people will say anything about each other. The ability of people to who lay claim to a towering high-mindedness to stoop so low tends to bear out a view of doctrinaire Randianism as a form of arrested adolescence.

And apart from anything else, Eric Garris (the former owner of the bookstore Peron bought in San Francisco in the 1980s) may not be a sound witness when it comes to Peron. Here is the Google cache of an old posting about Garris and his friend Justin Raimondo from the Reason forums (the original has, intriguingly, been removed since this business blew up). It claims that Garris and Raimondo set out to "destroy" Peron after a business dispute.

And, to conclude on a lighter note, I've been doing some BitTorrenting lately. I watched the leaked first episode of the new Doctor Who. Verdict: Excellent! And also the first episode of the American version of The Office. Verdict: Oh dear …

Digg this Scoopit!

Incipient Moonbats | Mar 24, 2005 11:35

David Cohen wrote an interesting column on the coverage of religious news and issues in last week's NBR. He's right: matters of the spirit generally get an even worse deal than matters of science in the papers, which is saying something.

He notes that The Press seems to handle this round more intelligently than other papers ("… on behalf of those readers who find the world of religion at least as interesting as the details of the latest sporting fixture or the thoughts of an autocue reader on the great questions of our time, one couldn't help but be impressed").

On the other hand, he takes issue with the reporting of the recent Destiny Church march in Auckland:

Are committed Christians in New Zealand as great a menace to civilisation as Islamic fundamentalism? It would seem more than a few reporters think they could be.

On my computer screen as I type are the results of a Google search of news items on this month's street march in Auckland by perhaps as many as 15,000 members of the Destiny Church. Almost without exception the reports portray the participants as incipient moonbats, intolerant to a man, itching for a theocratic cleansing of the secular status quo.

Add to this the spectre of a "dangerously" charismatic frontman - with a taste for business suits, yet - and it all starts to look less like a summer day on Queen St than a bad day in Gaza.

In other words, the local "religious right" really is no different from the Mideastern variety: its adherents talk the same, they look the same. If it wiggles it's gotta be fat, right?

But of course this isn't the Middle East and the Destiny folk cannot be seriously likened to Islamofascists (as indeed countless millions of Muslims shouldn't be either). They're ordinary working-class New Zealanders, albeit ones who until recently might have felt left out of the political scene and now want to make their point the old-fashioned way through organisation and persuasion.

Perhaps there are a few extremists among their ranks, but this has yet to be backed up with any serious evidence. In the case of the recent march, what does remain in evidence is the spectacle of a fairly normal democratic day in the antipodes.

He's right to the extent that, just like the Hikoi organisers, Destiny has every right to emphasise its point and force itself into the headlines by marshalling supporters onto the streets. But it's a bit of a straw man argument to focus on apparent (but unquoted) characterisations of Destiny Church as just-like-Islamic fundamentalists.

Tamaki has been known in sermons to directly compare homosexuals to murderers and rapists. GayNZ.com collected a few more of The Words of Brian on that topic. He famously declared women leaders to be "the work of the devil" and promised his flock they would "rule" New Zealand within four years. I had not personally heard him say these things, however, so I thought it reasonable to spend some time listening to at least one sermon.

I chose Vipers of Religion, the first of several sermons in MP3 form linked to from the home page of the Destiny Church site. Clearly, this is one Brian wants us to hear.

Be warned that it is long and tedious, and that the Lord did not bless Pastor Brian with a lyrical tongue. In fact, feel free to skip through to just about halfway, where the really nasty stuff starts. He describes Islam as "that devilish thing" and the construction of a Buddhist temple in Botany Downs as "opening a door from Hell", and then goes on to link both with "immigrants ... who won't change their demon religions" and are "pouring in" to New Zealand as a result of a "demon" looking around the world for openings where God has been pushed out. They are, he claims, bringing with them the economic and social degradation that their wicked faiths have wrought on their countries of origin.

That sounds quite "extreme" to me. Indeed, you probably couldn't get away with this sort of ethnic vilification anywhere outside a church. Thereafter, Tamaki goes on to emphasise that he was appointed by God, declare that "democracy is a lower order of government that theocracy," and declare, after serially trashing the various mainstream churches, that if he had half a million followers, he would "rule" New Zealand. Presumably, there is further idiocy but I felt it wasn't really worth my time sticking around to listen to it.

I raised the issue with Cohen, who was good enough to reply (and send me a copy of the column, so I didn't have to retype it). He informed me that my qualms about Destiny's practice of tithing 10% of the income of its working-class followers, whether they can afford it or not, showed my "lack of biblical knowledge … Tithing is as old as ancient Judaism, and as historically widespread; indeed it has been said that the origins of progressive taxation lie with the practice. Incidentally, it is tautological to speak of a '10% tithe,' because the word tithe (ma'asrah, in the original Hebrew) literally means 'one tenth.' I imagine all or most religious groups expect their followers to tithe or something approaching it, in order to make ends meet, spread their word, do good works, etc. Destiny is hardly unique in this regard!"

No, but Destiny may be unique here in the energy with which it looks to extract money from its followers. This mystery worshipper was repelled by the emphasis on the money collection at a Destiny service, and Tamaki's regard for family values does not stop him taking his cut of solo mothers' DPB payments. There have been a number of reports of former members claiming to have been harassed for money. I don't think most churches do that, or see why I shouldn't regard it as exploitation of the vulnerable.

And the stuff about immigrants? Cohen:

So that's his opinion. Some people compare the Tamakians to fascistic pollyannas, which is tantamount to the same kind of cheap invective.

It bloody well is not. In that sermon, Tamaki is not simply mocking other faiths. He is describing (to followers who presumably believe what he says) immigrants with minority religious beliefs as an actual social evil, who will "flood in" and ruin their country. I would have thought, given his own background, that Cohen might be a little more sensitive to that. Onwards:

Not being a practising Christian, I'm not terribly interested in Tamaki's views per se, which from a cursory glance appear more akin to the bromides of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, but ... I still don't believe you're fairly representing the appeal his movement. Have you ever bothered to interview one of these revivalists? Has anyone in the downtown media? The answers could turn out to be more complex than you what you suggest.

But was Cohen seriously suggesting that the content of that sermon - and presumably many others like it - was not extreme?

Depends on what you mean by extreme. Extreme opinions? Sure, on the face of it. But extremism also suggests a kind of antisocial behavior that the Destiny followers, to the best of my knowledge, don't engage in. Underneath the bubbling rhetoric, what we're really talking about here is a movement of poorer, largely working-class social conservatives looking for a way into the polity. They deserve to be treated seriously by the media. Again I'm reminded of the Farrakhanites in the U.S., whom I don't much care for, but who have been extensively analysed in the American media--as for instance when they staged a Million Man March on the Mall in Washington back when I lived there. Where's the serious local analysis of Destiny?

So far as I can see, "a serious analysis of Destiny" might look at the followers as "working-class social conservatives", but it would also look at whether they actually brought their political beliefs with them into the church, or whether they're just parroting the Pastor. Rank-and-file followers have occasionally been interviewed, and they sometimes post to discussion forums, but I've yet to see one utter anything much like a coherent political philosophy.

But the main point, in my view, is that you can't have it both ways. If you're going to take Destiny "seriously", then surely you're obliged to take seriously what its followers are taught in church. Dismissing it as mere "opinion" is equivalent to not taking it seriously, to, in fact, dismissing the Pastor as a moonbat, incipient or otherwise.

Speaking of religious zealotry, President Bush, the self-styled defender of the sanctity of life in the Schiavo case, in 1999 signed a Texas law giving spouses top priority in making decisions such as those in the Schiavo case. As the Los Angeles Times story makes clear, he didn't just initial something that passed across his desk, he made a special trip back from a campaign roadshow to do it. The law that Bush signed was used to withdraw life support from a six month old boy, against the wishes of his mother, who could not afford to arrange other care for him. John Stewart nailed this issue, again: here in QuickTime.

On the same issue, Craig Ranapia of NZ Pundit asked me to ask you whether any of you have recorded specific wishes as to what you would wish to happen if you were in the same position as Terri Schiavo. Has anyone in the readership done anything like this?

Nick Turner was in touch:

Can I drag you back to foreign policy? Isn't it a pity Helen vetoed the purchase of those F-16s that the US decided it couldn't sell to Pakistan and wanted to find another home for? Now Condoleezza is apparently relenting and they may be sold to Pakistan after all! Which is making the Indians demand several times as many to protect themselves. So did Helen spark a subcontinental arms race that Max Bradford was trying to prevent?

Lawdy!

Anyway, I have lunch beckoning. Have a nice Easter break wherever you are or whatever you believe. (I always enjoyed Easter most when I lived in London, when it really did seem to signal the arrival of Spring.) Me, I'll be working a good part of the time on a new business venture that I will tell you about after April 1 …

Digg this Scoopit!

Front page next day | Mar 22, 2005 10:47

So how was, ermmm, Licencegate for you? It won't be the story of the year, but the investigation on which TV3's Campbell Live based its debut programme was competent and at times even stylish. And at least there was an investigation, albeit one pinched from 60 Minutes, as the presence of Melanie Reid indicated. The contrast between this debut and those of the Herald on Sunday and Paul Holmes, which, in journalistic terms, both staggered into existence, is notable.

So having Max Cryer reading from the Brash biography was better as a clever idea than a reality, and the live cross to Carol, in the dark waythehellout at WestGate, was ill-advised, but I thought it was a fairly strong debut.

Public Address reader Keith Ng begged to differ:

This is hardly a killer story, when it seems that the corruption is happening right at the bottom. And even if it is, I can't believe how much they're stringing it out! 25 minutes, and all they got was the one "driving instructor" they started off with!

And they're giving us part 2 tomorrow? So they nicked the story from 60 Minutes - but did they have to take the 60 minutes part so *literally*?

The whole "under-the-hood" style of journalism feels like more like an out-takes reel.

I'm tempted to start watching taped Simpsons episodes at 7 in protest...

Adam Hunt was also unimpressed in his blog.

But Morgan Nichol was happier:

Wow, being nice to your guests - yet still getting the whole story.

So it turns out you don't need to get all snarky like Linda Clark to get the facts.

I've only caught Holmes on Prime a couple of times (the late at night reruns), it' ok, but I don't watch that RUBBISH -- "This is what's happened, and this is exactly how you feel about it." -- on One any more

Campbell is in an easy lead -- he's so nice, he must be a hit with the (old) ladies.

I think, in the end, when your debut story makes the front page of the Herald the next morning you can fairly claim to have pulled it off. There is also a Campbell Live website. Damn shame it's one of those ropey Microsoft-based sites that won't work in my web browser of choice …

I thought one interesting element of the licence scam story was the fact that this sort of thing appears to have been advertised, with varying degrees of frankness, in the local Chinese press for years. There is a whole side of life in Auckland that is lost on us in our English. Ditto for the fact that a letter, in Mandarin, on a Chinese website called Skykiwi, has provided police investigating the kidnapping of Kelly Zhao with some very useful evidence.

GayNZ has conducted an investigation on the origins of the Jim Peron slur. And it's one that - so far - reflects very, very badly on his one-time admirer, Lindsay Perigo. It also make the local libertarian movement look ghastly.

Jordan Carter comments on the Labour list released yesterday.

Bloodbath in Baghdad. Not an insurgency, just civil chaos and daily murders. The two-year anniversary of the US invasion was marked with 45 violent deaths. Fisk speculates that Qatar's first terrorist car bomb attack is only the beginning. The Bush administration caught flat-out lying to its allies about North Korean nuclear exports.

The political manoeuvring around the right-to-life case of Terri Schiavo has been, frankly, quite disturbing. I presume I wasn't the only one who listened to her parents' lawyer passionately describe to Linda Clark yesterday her apparently responsive behaviour and hopes for recovery and thought: if that's the case, why has the system found otherwise?

The truth is that Terri Schiavo has no hope of recovery. Her cerebral cortex, the seat of consciousness, has largely dissolved over the last 15 years; the space filled by cerebral fluid. The case has been ploughing through a success of courts for nearly seven years. In 2000, a judge ruled emphatically that there was no hope of recovery and clear and convincing evidence that she would have chosen to be removed from life support.

The same judgement also repeatedly questions the credibility of witnesses on the parents' side, suggests they may have a conflict of interest regarding Terri Schiavo's estate and notes that Michael Schiavo had continued to be his wife's "most frequent visitor" in hospital. It cites expert medical testimony, "supported by CAT scans in evidence", that "her movements are reflexive and predicated on brain stem activity alone, that she suffers from severe structural brain damage and to a large extent her brain has been replaced by spinal fluid." The only medical evidence to the contrary was, said the judge, given by a witness "so biased as to lack credibility."

As this sober and balanced summary of the matter explains, the case has been through six courts in seven years, during which time the parents have alleged Terri Schiavo was physically abused before her death and called an obscure osteopath as a medical witness, the Florida House and Senate passed "Terri's Law" (subsequently declared unconstitutional in two courts). And still, on the evidence and in line with the law, the courts have found for Michael Schiavo.

Yet now, the US House has been suddenly reconvened to pass new law over a case in which virtually none of the legislators are actually familiar with the evidence. Just another day in the War on Expertise.

And why? Political mileage, according to a Republican Party memo obtained by the Washington Post:

An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo, which was reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."

Other observers have noted that its suits Republican House leader Tom DeLay to wade into this sad family dispute, because it distracts from the flurry of corruption issues around him. Cynical is hardly the word. An LA Times editorial speculates on whether "this is the new front in what began as the abortion war, an effort to translate religious dogma into law under the right-to-life banner." Meanwhile, an ABC News poll indicates that mainstream Americans don't really think the way their representatives have voted.

And finally, I haven't had the chance to assess National's policy launch of "parenting orders yesterday" (although the scorn from the nigh-untouchable Celia Lashlie, in the One News report last night seems a poor start), but an observation. If National is going to use policy launches to boost the leader's profile, it should make sure the leader is actually properly briefed on the policy. Don Brash's performance in his interview with Mary Wilson on Checkpoint last night was absolutely lamentable. It's clearly Tony Ryall's policy, and if Brash can't discuss it chapter and verse, then he damn well shouldn't be fronting it.

Digg this Scoopit!

Going Live | Mar 21, 2005 10:42

The rumour is that Campbell Live has a killer story lined up for its launch programme on TV3 tonight - which is, of course, exactly the sort of rumour you'd want to be circulating at this juncture. Indeed, it's surprising how many media ventures have launched in the past year (Paul Holmes, the Herald on Sunday) without such a killer story.

It was certainly all the goss at TVNZ last week; spiced with the suggestion that the story was poached from 60 Minutes, where the team was a bit miffed. I have no idea what the story might be, but I guess it's not telling tales to report that John and Carol spent days in Dunedin a couple of weekends ago waiting for a key interview. Mark Jennings told me I'd find that story "interesting".

You can also expect to see a series of interviews from a preparatory road trip through New Zealand, Australia and the US strung out across the first two or three weeks of the programme. Personally, I'm encouraged by what I've been able to glean about the programme. Like John Campbell, I'm finding Close Up almost unbearably po-faced lately; sort of the North & South of early evening television.

Indeed, it would be a fine thing if Close Up ever displayed the pungent wit of the man in charge of it: TVNZ news chief Bill Ralston. I'm all for Ralston taking the opportunity to lord it a bit in the HoS yesterday. He has a lovely line in scorn, and, with 3 News taking a fairly sharp dip in audience share since the loss of the John and Carol Factor, he holds all the cards, for now. The subsequent telling off of the lot of them from the Prime Minister was quite funny.

On the other hand, I'm watching the flap over the televising of Parliament with a degree of bemusement: not least at the way that Rodney Hide, Winston Peters and Don Brash have been allowed to style themselves as defenders of freedom when all their parties were on the select committee that unanimously recommended the (ahem) "camera ban" in the first place. The background, I understand, is as follows:

A review of Parliament's Standing Orders was conducted by the Standing Orders Select Committee in 2003. It presented a report to the House in December that year. Its recommendations were unanimous and unambiguous. Members of that committee included representatives of New Zealand First (Peter Brown), Act (Richard Prebble), and National (Gerry Brownlee and John Carter). The select committee report reads:

The Parliamentary Press Gallery suggested to us that even if the in-house facility is established, television companies should still retain their free access to the Chamber to film proceedings. We consider this unacceptable. Having multiple sets of camera equipment in the galleries is physically intrusive. It has been tolerated only because the House has not produced its own feed until now. We are aware of no other Parliament that broadcasts its proceeding and, in addition, allows television companies to set up their own facilities in its galleries. We would not contemplate allowing that to continue once a feed is being provided to broadcasters.

So, attacks of amnesia notwithstanding, what is proposed is this: the job of providing a television feed of all Parliament's proceedings will be contracted out. There will be much more coverage of Parliament available than before, but individual news cameras will no longer be allowed. What won't change, as Tom Frewen pointed out in his Mediawatch comment yesterday, are the rules about the nature of coverage, which must focus on the debate at hand, rather than going for novelty or spectacle. This, of course, is a constraint on news organisations - and, it could be argued, an unfair one - but it actually has nothing to do with the new arrangement for collective coverage, as is provided in Australia, the UK and, well, most places.

In a column that has mysteriously disappeared even from the Google cache, John Armstrong ventured that National would be watching Sunday's One News Colmar Brunton poll with some trepidation - on the assumption that if it's not making ground now, it can't hope to close the gap on Labour in the six months before the election. Well, the news was pretty bad: in what is usually the friendliest of all the polls, National is down to 35% support and Labour up to 46%, wiping out National's gains in a promising poll last month. Labour will presumably feel it can manage a drop in economic confidence - and approval of its performance in government - given that, grumpy as they are, the people are even less inclined to see National as a solution.

More piercing wit from the Daily Show: this time on the White House's arrogant, insulting decision to propose Paul Wolfowitz as the new head of the World Bank. (On the basis, presumably, that he, er, has a bank account …). I see this as another episode in the war on expertise. I know that Hard News has in the past had readers at the World Bank - any anonymous comment on the mood inside the organisation is, of course, welcome.

BTW: Word emerging of a local take on the Daily Show (it had to happen), with Te Radar fronting …

And finally, people seem to be greatly enjoying The Expat Files. Volume 1, posted on Friday, is here, and I've added Volume 2 this morning. Probably two more to come … And I thought Rod Oram had a very good point to make talking to Linda Clark last week: that even working for a large company in New Zealand is likely to be a matter of being a skilled generalist rather than a narrow specialist. And that even if it means some sacrifice, being a skilled generalist has its distinct compensations. Yes, I reckon.

Digg this Scoopit!