Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Breaking up the Band | Jun 09, 2008 11:59

It surely takes something special to make a biography about another person as rampantly self-serving as Michael Bassett's new book about David Lange seems to be.

The book is likely to be objectionable in any number of ways, but Bassett's casting of Margaret Pope as the Yoko Ono of the fourth Labour government -- she broke up the band! -- likely comes top of the list. The idea that Lange himself might have possessed some actual political thought, rather than functioning as a mere mouthpiece for his lover.

If only the Devil Woman hadn't captured the Prime Minister's heart, Bassett seems to say, we'd all have made history. Huh.

Back over at the circuses, I thought the All Blacks' first outing for 08 was quite okay. Indeed, I feel better for having seen it. On a dry track they'd have put 25 points on the paddies, such was their dominance of all facets of the game. Dan Carter was the actual Dan Carter (and not the chap who's been playing most of the Super 14) for about half the time, Conrad Smith channelled Bruce Robertson for a few glorious seconds, and even our third-string prop didn't seem greatly troubled by the vaunted Munster front row. And Richie McCaw? Awesome.

So … there's a winning streak of one, and even Stephen Jones isn't predicting an upset in Auckand this weekend. It's a long time yet till a game against the Wallabies and the inevitable Battle of Coaches. So perhaps Chris Rattue could just shut up and stop pretending he can't bring himself to watch the Al Blacks.

And, staying with the getting-over-it theme, perhaps now that Hillary Clinton has made her lively and gracious speech of concession and thrown her support behind Obama, perhaps people like this woman who had her daft, petulant letter published on the San Francisco Chronicle website could get a grip, assuming they're not actually wingnut trolls:

We are homeless now and we are desperately seeking a home. We feel we have been ''abused'' by the Obama campaign and by the Democratic party.

Why would we go back to our abusers, especially when they continue to minimize our thoughts and feelings? The feminist in some of us certainly trumps any party loyalty we may have had and actually trumps any views we may have on Roe v. Wade or Iraq.

The more the party tells us how ''silly'' or ''stupid'' we are to ever consider supporting McCain, the more we become convinced of how we are not silly or stupid.

There is a message to be taken from this.

Continued scorn for Senator Clinton or my support for her is clearly not the way to get my vote. Continued pressure on Senator Clinton to get us into the fold is not the way to get my vote.

Obama himself needs to get my vote!

Continued denial by the party that half its voters just don't like their candidate is not the way to get my vote.

Any suggestion that I am bitter, delusional, should get over it because I lost, in mourning, desperate, or otherwise inadequate is not the way to get my vote.

What is the way to get my vote?

I don't know but, for me, it's not by making Hillary VP. For others, it seems to be.

Will it take sensitivity and outreach from Obama for me? A double team effort? Nah! I have no interest in seeing or listening to Obama.

Outreach from Hillary? Sure! But would it be with freedom for her to address women's concerns about sexism? I don't think so because the party wants me to just ''unite'' and forget how divided it really is.

Just like the superdelegate ''drip, drip, drip'' to Obama, there seems to be a ''drip, drip, drip'' of Hillary voters away from him. Understanding us may be the first way to stop the flow.

Thank you for listening.

So you'd vote for the anti-reproductive rights Republican over the NARAL-endorsed Democrat because your goddamn feelings are hurt? And Obama has to earn your vote "himself" but you're not interested in seeing or listening to him? I'm actually hopeful these people aren't really going to do this to themselves. Mostly.

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The Sutch Files | Jun 06, 2008 10:27

My contact with the work of Bill Sutch is essentially limited to seeing his books on the shelves of Wellington's second-hand bookshops. Most often, the book will be The Quest for Security in New Zealand it sold 100,000 copies after its first publication in 1942, and seems to have offended various interests over the years.

It also attracted the keen eye of the Security Intelligence Service, and one of the documents being released today as part of Sutch's SIS file is something like a review of the book.

I've uploaded a copy for your viewing here -- the scan is a little hard to read with the released notice stamped all over it, but one passage notes, with suspicion:

Page 380/384. References to Government conditioning the public for as long as possible to the idea that they were being saved by a strong Government from the "Communist menace". A footnote is as follows "This public conditioning originating with the Truman administration finally resulted in an acceptance of the guilt by association concept and of the action of security spies reporting on those who might have radical ideas about the economic system. The honour for press defense of civil liberties against the activities of Security Police goes to MH Holcroft, Editor of the New Zealand Listener.

See "The Investigators" in the issue of 8 July 1960"

Brian Easton has an extensive archive of writing about Sutch, including a biography and some thoughts on Sutch and security, with reference to the incident, in the final year of his life, that did so much to shape his image thereafter: his arrest and charge under the Official Secrets Act 1951 with the offence of obtaining information that would be helpful to an enemy, after several meetings with a Russian diplomat.

Sutch was acquitted of the charges by a jury, and there seems nothing in the documents that have been released to suggest that the jury decision was wrong.

Nonetheless the SIS target assessment on Sutch (3.85MB PDF) makes fascinating reading, not least in the light it sheds on the degree of speculative thinking that could be included in such a document.

Sutch's memory is being actively defended by his daughter Helen, a World Bank economist, and she seems as pleased as anyone that that the SIS papers have finally been released.

Bill Sutch had some ideas that resonate now, and others, around economic nationalism, that seem dated. But I'm minded to grab that book the next time my hands pass over it on a dusty shelf.

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Debating Clydesdale | Jun 05, 2008 10:01

This week's Media7 focuses on the commotion around the 'Growing Pains' paper by Massey economist Greg Clydesdale, since it was deemed front-page news by the Dominion Post, in a story that said Clydesdale claimed Pacific Islanders were "a drain on the economy". (Those words, despite appearing in quotes in the Dom Post's headline, don't actually feature in Clydesdale's analysis, but they're not an unreasonable summary of that part of it.)

I was joined on the show by Dom Post editor Tim Pankhurst, One News' Barbara Dreaver, and Oscar Kightley, and I think we had a frank and useful discussion. I'm particularly grateful to Tim Pankhurst for fronting up, even though he knew he'd cop some criticism. Let me put it this way: not all editors of major daily newspapers are as willing to account for themselves as he is.

My personal view is that this is a story about the reporting of academic work, and the Dom Post pulling a news story (in a week when the Mary Anne Thompson debacle was in the headlines) out of a statistical analysis that hadn't been peer reviewed, was out of date and, quite frankly, was not even finished.

In the circumstances, I think Clydesdale's action in sending out a press release touting his "discussion paper" was questionable (especially when, as it transpired, he wasn't willing or able to discuss it afterwards), and that the Dom Post should have exercised much greater diligence before sticking it on the front page. Other media organisations did.

Pankhurst's follow-up editorial, playing the PC card and accusing the Race Relations Commissioner of "intellectual poverty", just plain protested too much.

On the other hand, Clydesdale, an immigration sceptic, was repeatedly namechecked last year in a speech by Lockwood Smith. If there's any sense in which he's informing policy, then it's as well we know who he is, and the furore since the original news story has certainly shed some light there.

But you can decide for yourself. The Media7 blog includes links to some of the stories and the editorial, the Clydesdale paper itself and to two fairly scathing peer reviews conducted at the behest of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs.

And, of course, you can watch the show. The ondemand version is here, the Windows media clips are here, the podcast is here, and the Media7 YouTube channel will doubtless be updated real soon now.

Discuss.

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On a completely different tip, I gave a brief interview to Nightline's David Farrier about the police getting involved after alleged online harassment of the singer Yulia and her husband/manager Glyn MacLean.

Short version: poking of fun about a couple of Yulia TV appearances (and MacLean's attempt to auction her personal effects on Trade Me) got out of hand, and eventually some silly boys on two punk-rock discussion boards said stupid things. But this is a situation where even the grown-ups haven't behaved like grown-ups. MacLean seems to have been a complete oaf throughout, and his actions clearly escalated matters.

I certainly have some sympathy for the owners of the sites. There are scant protections for people running discussion forums in this country, and having a policeman call you at 4.30am following a complaint about an unacceptable post made without your knowledge at 1am isn't fun. On the other hand, both moderators seem to have let stand comments that should have been instantly deleted.

The TV3 story (in which I'm referred to as "Russell Baillie"!) is here, and there's an interview with Glynn and Yulia here.

There's also a discussion on the Out of Kilter record label site, and a thread in response to Farrier's story on Punkas.com.

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Don Paul | Jun 04, 2008 09:57

It seems faint praise to say that Ruth Laugesen's interview with Don Brash for the Sunday Star Times was fascinating. It captures a man who seems honest and vulnerable, unreconstructed and ideologically extreme. He'd have been a disaster as Prime Minister.

It's telling that Brash sees his failure at National Party as a lack of conviction: if only, he muses, he'd had the nerve to announce policy unilaterally. And what policies! Brash cleaves still to the cancellation of the welfare state, the radical reorganisation of the heath services along commercial lines, electronic tolling on roads, flattening of taxes. It is evident to him that radical measures will restore the nation; much as the virtues of radical measures have seemed evident to him since he was a teenage Marxist.

And yet, he bitterly regrets his "gutlessness" when the National caucus debated Iraq, and he kept quiet about his opposition to the war. He's the Ron Paul candidate. He'd have made a fine leader of the Act Party. But mainstream political leadership? What were they thinking?

Left mercifully unexplored in the interview are the personal impulses that find him in the setting where he spoke to Laugesen: surrounded by hired furniture, his books in storage, lonely, back on the corned beef. The driest thinker condemned by the wettest urge. You really can't hate him.

Meanwhile, an LA Times analysis of media spends in the presidential primaries underlines the fact that the true beneficiary of the American system is the broadcast industry.

I suppose the sensible thing would be to disapprove of the antics of thousands of Londoners making the most of the last night of drinking on public transport -- the new mayor, Boris Johnson, has banned it -- but, 17 arrests notwithstanding, it looks like it was, for the most part, a right laugh. The Guardian has more pictures. The organiser of one of the Facebook-driven Tube parties is now a bit worried about losing his job with a city bank.

And finally, Chris Bourke's Distractions blog continues to provide delights. There's simply nothing else like it in the local sphere. He continues his background to EMI's local history, with a look at the old HMV studio, home of the hits, and an interview with Shane. And, as a perspective on Hoodie Day, Chris recalls the teenage attire that scared people in the 1950s.

PS: I'll link to all the video and other resources as usual tomorrow morning, by I think we did a pretty good job of the episode of Media7 that screens tonight on TVNZ 7. We discussed the Greg Clydesdale paper that claims an economic drain on the country from the Pacific Island community. If you have a Freeview box, feel free to tune in at 9.30.

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