Thursday, March 31, 2005
Jeans company hangs its hopes on teenage suicide

Controversial clothing designers “Red or Dead” have propelled the advertising industry into a new marketing age with a campaign to use real-life suicide ‘models’ as product placements.

The famous jeans company has agreed to pay the families of suicide victims up to $500 for each image of the corpse that is published in the media - on the web, TV or in newspapers – featuring their clothing.

For celebrity suicides, the company is willing to double its payouts.

Red or Dead first rose to prominence in the mid-90s when, in a radical advertising campaign for its clothing, it ran a series of posters depicting clearly staged teenage suicides.

Answering accusations that the company was employing inappropriate and mawkish methods for product placement, a company spokeswoman stated that the company was only taking the lead, to reflect similar developments across the advertising industry.

“Red or Dead have always been at the forefront of thought provoking, evocative advertising.” the spokeswoman said.

“Payment on targeted message output, which this campaign promotes, is the new direction for the advertising industry and celebrity placement and endorsement has always been a valuable asset”, she said.

“Red or Dead have traditionally been a niche fashion company. This campaign seeks to broaden our brand’s awareness by leveraging the media coverage of teenage and celebrity suicide.”

“Obviously we don’t wish the suicide rate to rise dramatically, but certainly an increase would directly benefit our campaign,” the spokeswoman concluded.

Red or Dead’s moves into viral product placement follows similar schemes by McDonalds and Malboro to promote their products.

In the USA, the hamburger giant has agreed to pay up to $5 each time one of their famous burgers is ‘name checked’ by a rapper on commercial radio across the nation.

Although the rappers will retain artistic control over the final use of promotional phrases, this deal has already lead to a big shake up in the rap music industry. Snoop Dogg’s “Gimme Big-Macs, Large Fries and Booty” earned the star around $5 million in the first week of its release.

This was followed up by Eminem’s “Maccas does it for me” and Ice Cube’s ballad-rap “Eat at McDonalds; its superior to the other hamburger restaurants” which reached number 3 in the Billboard chart in its first week.

In Australia, members of “The Wiggles” children’s entertainment group have recently signed a 5-year deal with Malboro cigarettes to light up on stage and urge children to do likewise. Each member of the madcap quartet will earn up to $1,000 every time they take a deep drag and sing “Smoke one of these kids, this will make your day.”

Malboro hopes the deal will increase their market penetration in the 8-14 age bracket by 25%.

Attacking this new wave of product endorsement, Dr Susan Linn, co-founder of US group Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood said "Even as food and cigarette companies pay lip service to the idea of responsible marketing, they increasingly turn to new and deceitful ways of targeting children. Red or Dead’s new campaign seeks to make suicide look cool.”

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Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Straddie Classic?

Well, not really. All in, it wasn't the best of Easter breaks. I knew the campsite (cabin) wasn't going to be great (they didn't take credit card bookings over the phone), but we were unprepared for just how bad it was going to be...... It was run by an old couple, who (I speculate now) opened what was probably a half decent place back in 1960. Since then they have neither modernised nor maintained the place. This, coupled with the almost constant ‘sounds of the 60s’ (Presley, Herman's Hermits, Sonny and Cher, Beatles et al) blaring from next door, meant it was like being stuck in a kind of timewarp nightmare.

There was no shop, in the cabin the taps fell off and leaked all over the bathroom, the chairs (only 3 of them) were broken, the bed was uncomfortable and the blankets were made of shark's hide - smooth in one direction, but capable of drawing blood when pulled the other way. I actually felt jealous of the people camping in tents - their area was all shady and secluded. That is, I felt jealous until a storm hit and we had torrential rain for the first time in more than a month.

On top of that, Dunwich (where we were staying) was 'closed' mostly; due to the public holidays. The only thing to eat was chips... with chips... with an optional meat pie. And ketchup.

I should have seen it coming, but not being superstitious, when my bike chain came off before even leaving the driveway, I just put it back on and rushed to the train, not aware that it could have been some kind of omen.

North Stradbroke Island is one a chain of sand islands on the southern east coast of Queensland, starting from the south with South Stradbroke and culminating 450km to the north with World Heritage Listed Fraser Island. For the most part they are made of sand, but they have been formed by various off-shore rocky outcrops interrupting the northward drift of sand. Most are densely forested and receive plenty of rainfall due to their elevation and oceanic loaction. “Straddie” reaches a peak of over 290m and Moreton Island is even higher. For a sand bar, that’s quite a height.

A colleague at work mentioned that once the ferry to the island pulls away from the ramp, you feel like you are leaving the stresses of mainland life ashore and are sailing off to holidayland. I must agree, that by this stage, notwithstanding trouble with the chain, with all public transport running on cue (not actually unusual here) I was beginning to understand what he meant. As ‘Australia’ (as Matthew said, who obviously considered the geographical implications of conceiving Australia as an island, rather than a nation), receded astern you really did begin to relax and look forward to a fine weekend.

On arrival at North Stradbroke Island, we found that Dunwich (main settlement leeside) wasn’t up to much and was on the most part closed, despite it being one of the busiest periods of the year. Silly me, expecting a parade of cafes, restaurants, pubs and shops and a lively trade in holiday fare.

We settled on chips for lunch (from a choice of chips) and considered our options for dinner later. On learning that the pub next door had closed down and the one grocery store and grog shop in the town were closed for the day, we banked on the RSL Club round the corner being open later.

Following our gourmet meal of salt, vegetable oil and potato, we headed for the campsite to be confronted by the second disappointment of the morning; no not the campsite (that was the third disappointment), but the hills. While a breeze for a mountain bike with 136 gears, for James, on his BMX and his short legs, they were a bit more challenging. This was going to severely limit where we could go.

Then there was the campsite disappointment.

That afternoon – still reeling from the shock of the scabby cabin - we headed north to Myora Springs, a freshwater spring, seeping out the ground into a steamy mangrove swamp: mildly interesting.

Later we pushed the bikes up the (very) steep (and long) hill to the east of Dunwich and down again to Brown Lake, a freshwater pool, brown in colour due to staining from leaf detritus – rather like a giant cup of tea, except stewed with eucalyptus leaves. Brown Lake is a gorgeous spot. A pleasant cycle through the bush reveals a small picnic area and a fantastic beach and swimming spot. As the water is still, the lake small and the weather warm, it was like swimming in a bath. (However, I couldn’t quite work out why a lake would form here. Surely sand is porous, therefore the island shouldn’t hold water above the water table??)

On cycling back into Dunwich we found the aforementioned RSL closed; it being Easter holidays and all. So unless we fancied either chips, chips or meat pie for dinner, we were stuck. In the end, we had pie and pop and cake. Then headed back to the hovel to listen to next door’s 60s music.

It wasn’t that they played it till late. By 8pm they turned it off and retired to the other side of us to watch American Idol at full volume. Now, I have never watched American Idol, Idol Australians or even Pop Idol, but I am sure there is a type of person that does. Viewing figures can’t be wrong, can they? So I accept that some people watch it. But what I cannot accept is that there are some people that both watch it and make vociferous critical judgements of the singers. Surely no one can take it that seriously.

Then it rained, heavily, for most of the night.

Unabashed, we woke the next morning with renewed vigour to enjoy our holiday. Today, the bikes would stay locked up and we would catch the bus to Point Lookout. Frustratingly, we missed the first one and had to wait an hour. But when the driver charged us a whopping $28 (total) it seemed any price was worth it to escape the caravan park.

Point Lookout is a much larger town on the north east tip of the island. It sits atop the rocky outcrop onto which all the sand on the entire island is banked up against. It was named in 1770 by one passing James Cook, charting the east coast of Terra Australis Incognito. Cook was never renowned for his imaginative naming of places. There are “Ship Cove”s in most places in the Pacific at which he anchored his ships and many other places are named after famous Admirals and politicians; Cook was acutely aware of the subtle system of patronage required to fund such voyages, flattery was everything, hence his “greatest discovery”, the Sandwich Isles (now Hawaii) was named after the chap who invented the sandwich, and was also an important decision maker in the Admiralty. Indian Head, on Fraser Island, is perhaps the one exception to Cook’s banal nomenclature, this being a headland on Fraser Island on which Aboriginals gathered to watch the Endeavour sail by. It was really the first time indigenous ‘Australians’ had really ever paid any attention to him. When you stand in front of the plaque (erected in 1970, 200 years post-Cook) gazing out to sea, you can begin to imagine how the coast must have looked to the crew of the Endeavour.

Presumably Cook so named Point Lookout as it was a good point from which to lookout from. Had a sailed passed today, he might well have named it Point 4WD, due to the plethora of these huge vehicles pounding the streets, causing the pedestrians to ‘look out’ lest they get flattened against the roo-bars, or dare cross at a zebra-crossing.

Point Lookout has some fantastic vistas and wonderful beaches. We spent the morning lying on one before embarking on the obligatory walk around the headland and through the North and South Gorges. From here, at whale migration time you can see the water spouts. If you are lucky you get to see dolphins, sharks and manta rays. We settled for the half-dozen turtles playing in the surf before retiring to a smart(ish) restaurant for a fine lunch and a couple of beers. Now, I was beginning to feel on holiday.

Post-lunch we headed back to another beach (oh, the beaches) before the storm clouds rumbled into action. North of Brisbane got hit badly, with golf-ball sized hail stones but Stradbroke just got very wet, and really only very briefly. In the evening we headed to Dunwich and the Easter fair; a load of rides for the kids and chips for the hungry. The kids enjoyed it, despite the constant threat of deluge and the prospect of cycling 4km back to the caravan site in the dark and in the wet. (But bare in mind, it is still 25 degrees.)

By this stage we decided to head home a day early, so the next morning we packed up (not much of a chore when cycling and only carrying three small bags) and boarded the ferry back to Australia. Before scurrying back home, we spent the afternoon pottering around Cleveland – a pleasant enough olde-world place, which the huge sprawling canal developments have failed to completely ruin. Public transport to time, again.

Straddie would be great with either bikes or kids. Just never both. Oh and don’t stay at Myora Caravan Park either.

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Thursday, March 24, 2005
Sharks head for Straddie
This spectacular shot is of hungry sharks enticed in towards the beaches to feast on shoals of pilchards, north of the Gold Coast.

The murky grey in the water is not an oil slick, but thousands of these fish dicing with death. They are commonly seen in shallow waters in late summer and can ususally be spotted by looking for diving seagulls.

Hopefully the massive shoals seen at South Stradbroke Island (picture right) will have drifted north in time to treat us with similarly spectacular sights on North Straddie this Easter weekend.

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Queen Camilla will rule over the Commonwealth
The BBC’s Have Your Say posed a novel question today; “Should Camilla become queen?”

A question on Tuesday, in UK’s House of Commons, from a backbench MP raised the issue (again), and the Minister for Constitutional Affairs repeated his best lawyers advice: when His Royal Highness, Charles, the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland (...take another breath, lots more to go…) and Earl of Chester, Vice-Admiral (RN), Lieutenant-General (Army) and Air Marshal (RAF) becomes His Royal Highness, King Charles VII, Head of State of Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, (....nearly there....) Head of the Commonwealth, Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith of the Church of England, Commander-in-Chief of the UK Armed Forces and Lord of Mann, Camilla Parker-Bowles will become Queen.

When Kings are married, they make Queens. You will have read it in all those fairy tales.

Alas, ‘queen’ is not apparently to Camilla’s liking; she wishes to be named after that great, slightly sporty looking, family car from the 1970s, the “Princess Consort”.

As there is no written constitution in the UK and these things are established by convention and there is no convention here, she can really call herself anything she likes. As part of the settlement, it ought to be that we get to call her anything we like. But we can only do this in private.

Many subjects of the Commonwealth have raised objections; does Charles marital situation compromise the constitution; is Charles fit to b king; should it matter, as long as they are in love?

But of course, none of this – the BBC’s bulletin board included – matters. It doesn’t matter that Nicholas Orr from NSW posted “Is it not all too obvious to everyone that the real issue is not the marriage itself but the succession to the throne?” or that Janet Somerford from Mozambique posted “Of course if Charles becomes king she should take the place of queen at his side. The title is irrelevant as long as they are happy together.”

We do not ‘choose’ in a Monarchy. We cannot decide whether Charles stands aside for William, or whether Camilla is called queen, consort or trusty stead. A canny royal family will gauge public opinion up to a point, but that will only inform how they will break the news to the subjects (ie the ‘media strategy’) of what has been decided for us. They will have a tough job, 87% of BBCi respondents were against it.

But as a concession to the times, I do think that the monarchy should be considering new ways to relate to 21st Century subjects. If we gotta live with ‘em, but ought to be able to enjoy having them as our

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Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Clutching embarrassment from the jaws of sympathy
It read like a fairy tale reunion of father and long lost son…..

Commonwealth Health Minister, Tony Abbott recently thought he had rediscovered his son, given up for adoption some 27 years ago. He had remained friends with his ex-partner since, but neither had attempted to track down the son, until now.

Abbott reportedly held his son, Daniel O'Connor, as a baby for a just few minutes when first born, only then to hand him over as both he and his partner - both young - considered themselves incapable at that time of bringing up a child.

For extra romance, it transpired that his long lost 'son' was actually working in the very same building; as a sound recordist in Parliament House, employed by the ABC.

All seemed like it was heading towards a happy ending until a man contacted the mother, Kathy Donnelly, declaring that it was he who was the father of Daniel O'Connor. Paternity tests were taken and Tony Abbott was left "shocked and numb" on discovering the news that he was not, in the end, Daniel's father.

What a sad story…….

But it is typical of a politician to milk as much mileage out of a story of their own personal misfortune. It was also typical of a politician to then cock it up.

Here is Tony Abbott being interview on ABC radio this morning:


LOUISE YAXLEY: What was that inkling that you got?

TONY ABBOTT: Oh, I believe that Kathy had been contacted by someone who said that he thought he might be the one.

LOUISE YAXLEY: Do you know why she didn't warn you either 27 years ago or now, that this possibility was there?

TONY ABBOTT: I think it just never occurred to her that it could ever have been anyone's child but mine. We were very good friends back then. We've been good friends ever since and I expect that we'll continue to be good friends.


WHAT???

"Never occurred to her"? Was the sex with the real father really such an unremarkable event that she couldn't even remember? How can it not occur to her? Was she drunk?

This is really clutching embarrassment from the jaws of sympathy!

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Monday, March 21, 2005
Global dimming
Despite the almost Biblical (I don’t mean fictional, but ‘dramatic’ or ‘apocalyptic’) representation of a flooded Trafalgar Square, BBC’s programme on ‘global dimming’ underlined the precarious nature of the environment we are creating for ourselves.

Essentially, global dimming is thus: increased levels of particulates in the atmosphere - ‘smog’ - and vapour trails from jets, prevent solar radiation from reaching the planet’s surface, therefore having ‘cooling’ effect on global temperatures.

This does not imply that the ‘greenhouse effect’, from increasing CO2 concentrations, is not occurring and we are immune from global warming. Au contraire, it suggests that the impact of anthropogenic CO2 has been masked by human pollution and the damage caused so far is far worse than we realise.

Global dimming may also result in huge changes in weather patterns, resulting in widespread trauma from too many people living in what could become an inappropriate environment. It has even been blamed for making Bob Geldoff more famous than he ought to have been, had his reputation been based on his musical ability alone. The Ethiopian famine in 1984 may well have been a result of these changing weather patterns.

So all we’ve got to do is keep on polluting, right?

Err no, actually. As we begin to burn our fossil fuels more cleanly, we generate fewer particulates, which will reduce the main cause of global dimming and intensify the effects of global warming. None of this has yet been adequately modelled, but the early postulations are quite alarming.

Worse, increasing the levels of both particulates and CO2 has amplified climate instability, meaning small changes in one will be hugely magnified.

Therefore the programme’s conclusion is that combating the effects of global dimming (cutting particulate pollution, for example) cannot be considered without tackling the causes of global warming – ie burning fossil fuels and clearing vegetation.

Personally, I think the researchers and the scientists have it all wrong.

I conclude that ‘global dimming’ can be attributed to the prevalence of reality TV on commercial television channels.


See:
www.realclimate.org (Global Dimming II)
www.realclimate.org (Global Dimming I)
Program symopsis at BBCi

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“Just hit the little bastards,” says Beattie
Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie has lashed out at pinko liberal parents, telling them to “get a bloody grip”, in response to criticism over juvenile crime rates spiralling out of control.

At a special Community Cabinet meeting at Redbank Plains, near Ipswich, the Premier went on the offensive, letting parents know that he had smacked his own children and its about time other parents started smacking theirs.

“Its no use blaming the government, the council, Playstations or Eminem. Parents should get a bloody grip, instil some discipline and if need be, just hit the little bastards.”

“Is it my fault your 12 year old kids are out on the town at 2am dealing speed? Is it the councils? No, the parents need to stop blaming everyone but themselves,” Beattie said.

“If the TV is showing a program of a violent or aggressive nature, tell your kids to stop watching and play some scrabble. If the computer games your son enjoys features shooting, ask him to play Minesweeper. If your kids are dealing crack, tell them they can’t go out at night.”

“Its very simple, its not that hard,” he said.

Beattie was responding to public questions raised at an open Cabinet meeting. Angry parents had demanded that surveillance of Ipswich town centre be upgraded and the police presence at key times of the day and night be boosted.

Residents are becoming increasingly alarmed over the numbers of marauding feral kids roaming the streets. Vandalism is up, theft is increasing and fear strikes the very heart of the community. Many old people are afraid to open the door to their homes and lone pedestrians complain of feeling threatened.

But Beattie was to having none of it.

“We have increased police numbers. There are now more coppers on the streets of Queensland than ever before. We are the most watched State in Australia and we have some of the toughest criminal codes on our side.”

"We have kept our part of the bargain. I have done my job as Premier. Now we need parents to actually do their job as parents," he said. "A swift clip round the ear, or leather belt across the buttocks is normally sufficient.”

“My Dad did it to me, and I turned out OK,” he concluded.

Peter Beattie’s son, was contacted but refused to comment.

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Saturday, March 19, 2005
Banning Koala dog food
Some months ago, passport in hand (for we were heading south of the river) we visited the Daisy Hill Koala Sanctuary, only to find it closed in the aftermath of a storm. Authorities had declared that falling branches were a danger to walkers.

Unperturbed we headed back the next week with the expectation of breaking our koala duck. As we were to discover, authorities were definitely not concerned about the dangers of falling koalas.

We spent three – not wholly unpleasant – hours, necks craned and ears strained, hacking through scrubby bush on the lookout for Australia’s most famous furry icon. I had read that South East Queensland is home to some 70,000 koalas – the densest population in Australia. As Daisy Hill is an integral part of the ‘Koala Coast’ protected area, I reckoned there was a good chance of bagging a wild one.

That is, until we reached the Visitor Centre at the end of our walk, where we learned that this 70 hectare forest is home to just 60-70 koalas. Seemingly, even in their most productive areas, they are somewhat thin on the ground (or in the trees).

But Queensland was once home to millions of these animals. When a ban on hunting koalas was temporarily rescinded back in 1927, to help break the economic depression, in just one month of open season, 584,000 koalas were killed for their fur. Compare this now to the current population, estimated to between 100,000 and 300,000. In the Brisbane environs, there are just over 10,000.

This current population no longer faces the threat of the huntsman’s gun, but is under assault from ‘development’ and the houses, cars and dogs which comes along with it.

Late last year, the Queensland Government bit the bullet and finally classified the Koala as ‘vulnerable’ in the SEQ Bioregion. This kicked started the legislative process that led to the promulgation of the Koala Conservation Plan.

The Environmental Protection Agency rushed to print with Draft State Planning Policy 1/05 and received Cabinet sign-off on wide ranging conservation strategies. The planning policy has designated areas where new development will be prohibited and other areas where future and current approvals will be subject to assessment against strict koala friendly criteria, such as retention of corridors, phased clearing, native landscaping and roadkill mitigation.

The development prohibition designations are not overly contentious. Much of it lies within watershed areas already protected or in the ‘Regional Landscape and Rural Production Areas’ as designated in the Draft SEQ Regional Plan. Only small areas of new prohibitions have been identified.

The biggest battles will be fought over dog management. Approximately 12% of all koala deaths are a result of dog attacks and nearly all of these are from dogs greater than 10kg.
But dog management does not sit neatly within a planning scheme, apart from on leasehold land, where conditions can be applied which require the freeholder to impose a statutory covenant to restrict dogs.

Therefore dogs must be managed through a range of local laws, enforced by councils.
Most dog management issues are related to the problems of ACCEPTABILTY, ENFORCEMENT and EFFECTIVENESS of any restrictions imposed.

A number of strategies have been put forward for consideration, each with strengths and weakness as far as the three issues are concerned: EDUCATION – acceptable, easy to implement, but has so far not worked.

• MUZZLING – onerous on dog owners, difficult to enforce (especially at night) but effective in reducing koala deaths
• SCALED REGISTRATION FEES – may increase rates of non-registration and non-reporting of koala attacks; many people would simply accept the fees and so it would not necessarily prevent continued koala attacks
• INCREASED FINES FOR KOALA ATTACKS – will reduce reported incidences of attack and will not prevent koalas from being attacked
• CAGING OR RESTRAINING DOGS – nearly impossible to enforce; it will be a huge cost to owners and reduce the role of dogs as security; yet will prevent koala attacks
• EXCLUDING KOALAS – again big costs on owners through installation of fencing, difficult to enforce on existing development and restricting koala movement impacts health of local population
• PHASE OUT KEEPING OF (LARGE) DOGS IN KOALA HABITAT AREAS – (top of EPA’s wish list) probably unacceptable to voters, certainly difficult to enforce, but likely to save koalas

All development tends to bring dogs and dangers to koalas, even ‘appropriate development’. Animal management issues will therefore become more important in protecting koala numbers as deaths from other factors are reduces through better designed planning schemes and the protection of key koala sensitive areas.

But pets engender emotive debates. Telling people they can’t have a dog will raise howls of objection from those who assume that owning a dog is some kind of ‘right’. And surprisingly, many property owners consider the backyard is no place for a koala.

Fortunately, most people are reasonable and councils – who will probably bear the brunt of resourcing the regulations – are supportive of the broad aims of the conservation plan, if somewhat nervous of the implications of enforcement.

It remains to be seen whether koalas and any development are in any way compatible. So far even development incorporating wildlife corridors has seen rapid declines in koala densities and increasing numbers of infertile or diseased animals. But with luck (and it is certainly not for sure), such development when combined with effective animal management strategies and roadkill mitigation may at least allow a reduced density population to survive.

If not, the million extra people coming to the Brisbane region in the next 20 years will undoubtedly see the extinction of the koala in SEQ.

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Inappropriate Appointments
In honour of Paul Wolfowitz being appointed the new head of the World Development Bank, here are a number of less well publicised - but just as inappropriate - appointments which might surprise you:

Assistant Coach, Australian Rugby - Sir Clive Woodward
Governor General - Peter Costello (Australian Treasurer, professed republican)
Chairman, National Union of Journalists - Bill O'Reilly (Fox News)
Leader of the New Socialist Alliance - Tony Blair
Immigrant Out-Reach Officer - Pauline Hansen (Former One-Nation founder)
CEO, Human Rights Watch - Rupert Murdoch
Chief Scientist, Royal Society - George W Bush
Head of State, Commonwealth of Australia - Charles, Prince of Wales
Tight Head Prop, ACT Brumbies - Mother Theresa
Campiagn Coordinator, Concerned Citizens for Fair Justice - Donald Rumsfeld
Integrity Commissioner - Peter Beattie (Qld Premier)
CEO, Council for Catholic Maintained Schools - Rev. Ian Paisley
Integrity Commissioner – Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Former Qld Premier)
CEO, Qld Conservatorium of Music - Kylie Minogue
Any Premier Rugby League Player - State Minister for Women
Host, The Einstein Factor (ABC TV) - Anna Nicole Smith
New INXS Lead Singer - John Howard
Student Counsellor - Shane Warne
President, Australian Conservation Foundation - Paul Lennon (Tasmanian pro-logging Premier)
CEO, Healthy Waterways - Julian Amos (CEO, SunAqua aquaculture)
Editor in Chief, Fox News – John Pilger
Chairman, World Trade Organisation - Kim Jong Il
Housing Minister, Palestinian Authority - Ariel Sharon
Mid-term Campaign Coordinator, US Republican Party – Michael Moore
Child Protection Officer – Michael Jackson
Chairman, SEQROC - John Freeman
Leader, Transport and General Workers Union - H. Lee Scott (CEO and President of Wal-Mart)

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Thursday, March 17, 2005
Kyoto and global justice

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Luke gets a new hand, and therapy
A furious light sabre duel is under way. DARTH VADER is backing LUKE SKYWALKER toward the end of the gantry.

A quick move by Vader, chops off Luke's hand! It goes spinning off into the ventilation shaft.

Luke looks round, but realizes there's nowhere to go but straight down.

DARTH VADER: "Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father."

LUKE: "He told me enough! He told me you killed him!"

DARTH VADER: "No! I am your father!"

LUKE: "No, that's not true! That's impossible."

DARTH VADER: "Search your feelings; you know it to be true."

LUKE: "NO!"

DARTH VADER: "Yes, it is true and you know what else? You know that queer brass droid of yours?"

LUKE: "Threepio?"

DARTH VADER: "Yes, Threepio, I built him when I was 7 years old."

LUKE: "No."

DARTH VADER: "Seven years old! And what have you done? Look at yourself, no hand, no job, and couldn't even levitate your own ship out of the swamp."

LUKE: "I destroyed your precious Death Star!"

DARTH VADER: "When you were 20! When I was 10, I single-handedly destroyed a Trade Federation Droid Control ship!"

LUKE: "Well, it's not my fault."

DARTH VADER: "Oh, here we go. 'Poor me, my father never gave me what I wanted for my birthday, boo hoo, my daddy's the Dark Lord of the Sith...waahhh wahhh!' You make me sick."

LUKE: "Shut up!"

DARTH VADER: "You're a slacker! By the time I was your age, I had exterminated the Jedi Knights!"

LUKE: "I used to race my T-16 through Beggar's Canyon!"

DARTH VADER: "Oh, for the love of God, 10 years old, winner of the Boonta Eve Open. Only human to ever fly a Pod Racer, right here baby!"

Luke looks down the shaft. Takes a step toward it.

DARTH VADER: "I was wrong. You're not my kid. I don't know whose you are, but you sure ain't mine. Get out of my sight, you loser!"

Luke takes a step off the platform, hesitates, then plunges down the shaft. Darth Vader looks after him.

DARTH VADER: "AND GET A BLOODY HAIRCUT!"

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State of Fear

"Everybody has an agenda. Except me."
Michael Crichton

When I checked in my local bookstore (‘Borders’, corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets), I found State of Fear in the ‘fiction’ section. (It was also in the ‘new’ section and in the ‘bestsellers’, but only because it was both new and a bestseller, presumably.)

What is perhaps more pertinent is where the book was not found: in the ‘Science’ section.

The danger of course, is that people will read it as science, rather than a retelling (or some would say outright ‘fabrication’ [New Scientist ‘Dangerous Fiction’ 05.03.05, pp. 50-55]) of history and a reflection of the authors non-expert views on climate change. It is not even a good read, but that is mere subjective literary criticism.

Jurassic Park was a cool story, but one crudely based on some assumptions that we could rekindle dinosaur DNA in frogs to create a baby Brachiosaurus. It is more a cautionary tale of the power without responsibility that is implicit in modern science. His foray into nano-bots in Prey (?), I believe, is of the same ilk. (I haven’t read it.)

But State of Fear is a direct representation of a phenomena that is arguably occurring right now. It is not just a novel with an ethical message on the dangers of unrestrained or ill-directed scientific research, but a direct propagation of a doctrine (propaganda, if you like) that climate scientists and environmentalists are engaged in sustaining a state of fear to insure the continuation of funding for their research.

I am keen to stay in my job, but attempting to murder many tens of thousands of people (by creating a giant tsunami??!!? please….) just to keep my place in the pecking order belongs most definitely in fiction department.

The novel’s premise is that environmental extremists (probably Muslims too) are using their ‘proxies’ in government to maintain a state of fear to cow the electorate into returning the governments which retain the scientists funding streams, thus reinforcing the notion that global warming is occurring.

This seems ironic, if not sinister and artful, as it was precisely the opposite which occurred at the meetings of the Conference of Parties that agreed the Kyoto Protocol. Business lobbyists (oil companies in the main) were openly issuing direct instructions to their proxies in government to ensure nothing was signed that damaged their long-term interests.

In his polemic at the end, Crichton asserts that he is only protagonist without an ‘agenda’. This is paradoxical and sloppy logic. Everybody has an agenda, yes, even climate scientists, according to Thomas Kuhn, but this is simply a reflection of an open society.

But when novels masquerade as scientific journals (like Fox News masquerades as serious journalism), scientists, voters and contributors to various causes, are left ill-served.

Undoubtedly State of Fear will be made into a film. Not only will the debagging of green-lefties curry favour in the US film production networks, but the book has all the stereotypical movie elements – gun fights, car chases and exotic locations – handily sewn into the narrative.

(But mostly, my suspicions were raised when reading a review that began "A number of unusual and seemingly unrelated incidents begin to occur around the world…." This is the opening signature of any number of global disaster movies. )

But on becoming a film, this propaganda will reach an even wider audience and one much less willing to question the motives of the producers. Crichton very honestly provides references for his citations and facts in his book; but these will be missing from the film. Already, Americans are unremittingly bombarded with messages from business, politicians, think-tanks and right-wing ideologues, assuring them that mounting consumption and the poisoning of the environment can continue incessantly. State of Fear will become just another weapon in the continuing culture wars.

In the modern charity market, environmental groups rely on 'selling their message' in much the same way that businesses tout their products, politicians peddle their promises and authors spout their opinions, all to earn that extra dollar in your pocket.

Greenpeace's current championing of the cause of Sámi people in northern Scandinavia reveals this dilemma that such charitable organisations find themselves in [See http://weblog.greenpeace.org/forestrescue/]. Whilst the cause – protecting the rights of indigenous people to herd reindeer on common grazing land - sits wholly within Greenpeace’s policy of seeking to protect the rights and opportunities of traditional owners, the vehicle for the campaign is rather odd.

'Save Santa's Reindeer' is the message. That is, save Santa’s reindeer from mining and logging companies but yet allow the Sami to continue their traditional exploitation (that is killing) of free roaming herds. From a marketing perspective, employing Santa, Blixen and Rudolph [See http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3228] probably works, despite the logic behind the strap-line being rather spurious.

But whilst the methods deployed by business and charity maybe in a similar vein – using persuasion, seduction and empathy – a real distinction lies in the resources available to each to push out their message. Notwithstanding the advent of email and the ingenious viral marketing devices used by activist groups, the business community, able to build up massive wealth over many generations, are in a completely different league compared to environmental groups.

Crichton’s allegation, in State of Fear, is that somehow it is the dishevelled environmental scientist or the Greenpeace activist, standing on the street corner asking for $15 a month, who are the well funded puppet-masters of government. Not the oil lobbyists and PR companies employed by business to ‘educate’ government officials [See http://www.webershandwick.com/capabilities/cap/index.cfm/cap,10.html].

Perhaps if this was the case, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

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Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Simile magic
Despite the parochial nature of many Australian sports writers, occasionally they will make a witticism worthy of the Test Match Special maestro himself, Brian Johnstone.

“But not even they [McGrath and Ponting] could not have anticipated the inadequacies of the New Zealand batsmen, particularly against Warne, who finished with 5-39 against batsmen who played deliveries spinning out of the footmarks with all the surety of a work experience bomb-disposal unit.”

Andrew Ramsey, The Australian [14.03.05]

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Monday, March 14, 2005
Weekends
Spent much of the weekend putting up trellis in the garden. We have obviously taken a ‘Good life’ turn somewhere as we plan to grow capsicums and passion fruit. The panacea is a mango tree, but that will take years. That said, at the moment we would be lucky to get anything to grow in the yard. We have had a mere spittle of rain in what should be the wettest month of the year.

On Sunday, Ady and Debbie invited us round to watch the Queensland football derby (Broncos versus the Cowboys) and have some lasagne. Ady and Debbie now officially ‘ex-Poms’ now they have achieved citizenship status. (Actually, I guess once a Pom, always a Pom.) Ironically, they shortly leave to holiday in England for a few weeks. Three weeks of English bitter and Chilli McCoys in pubs on the Harnham watermeadows in May almost sounds tempting.

Football

This weekend was the last Saturday (bar holidays) before the rugby season kicks off again for James. We have got a few extra recruits this season – Hamish, Robert and Jes – both are good runners and passers already and have already given Will and Tyrone a run for their money. We should do well this season as a result.

After a stunning game between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys in the finals series last, it was expected to be another cracker at Lang Park. In the end, the Broncos controlled everything and the Cowboys were only in it for brief spells. There is still no one to match the Cowboy’s Matt Bowen to break out at dummy-half back though.

In the other code, the Queensland Reds have crashed to their third defeat in a row. It was always going to be a tough start in the Super 12 – 3 matches away in New Zealand. With the tough stuff out the way the Reds should have make it to the middle of the Super-12 table at least – there’s an easy few points against NSW ‘Tahs at least.

Cyclone Ingrid

Cyclone Ingrid [www.bom.gov.au] has continued its cagey path across northern Australia. It dumped records rains in Cairns in north Queensland and blew away most things in its path north of Cooktown.

It then tracked over the Gulf and increased in intensity again and briefly threatened Darwin. Tensions were raised as this is the strongest Cyclone to threaten Australia since Cyclone Tracey flattened that city in 1974. Threat now seems to have dissipated now.

Squash

Squash is going well enough. Won 5, Lost 9. It has been a tough three weeks – playing the top three players in a row (and loosing all of them, obviously).

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Sunday, March 13, 2005
Oh dear - she's at it again

Once again, a ‘serious’ newspaper (oh alright then, a NewCorp paper) is giving copy space to a the right-wing think tank, Institute of Public Affairs, to bag climate change.

Sadly, Jennifer Marohasy is confusing weather with climate again. While the oceans warm, ice sheets and glaciers melt and rainforest dries up, she is wondering why there were more cyclones in 1974 than last year!

No Winds of Change >>

For refutation see previous post

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Friday, March 11, 2005
Viral Marketing

If the site stats for this are to be believed, it is a remarkably successful piece of viral marketing.... oh yes, and rather funny........

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Thursday, March 10, 2005
Caning a toad

Like all enthusiastic Aussie travellers, they have managed to get to the inspiring Kakadu National Park. But unlike the grey-nomads in their RVs on their winter sojourns, the cane toad (Bufo marinus) will not be welcome.

Munching all that’s in their path, they impact on Quolls, amphibians, birds, reptiles and insect numbers.

Whilst some amphibian experts reckon they will not make it as far south as Sydney, due to the cooler winter temperatures down there, if we churn enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from gas-guzzling urban assault vehicles, we could warm Australia's climate sufficiently to allow them to get around the entire continent.

So while one branch of government funds the research into cane toad's control or eradication, another (Queensland Transport) funds their expansion across the nation.

Cane Toads are truly the vilest of creatures. Water the garden and they come out in force. Often when the grass is damp with dew there will 3 or 4 of them perched, aloof and upright in the yard, not moving for anybody.

I try to do my bit for reducing waste. I recycle everything possible and compost all my green waste. My wheelie bin only needs emptying once every month. As a result, cane toads have happily infested the compost heap, feasting on the multitude of bugs and worms employed to munch through what gets thrown on.

I take some pride that my children have not grown up assuming it is OK to simply kill or torture animals. They have grasped the omnivorous concept that killing animals humanely for eating is acceptable but commonly declare that you ‘can’t just kill animals.’ They don’t even tread on ants outside the house.

This attitude can only be instilled in children through familial socialisation. If I had taught them that it was customary to be cruel, I am sure they would be so. Studies have shown that juvenile murderers often have a history of cruelty to animals, so all being well, neither James or Matthew will end up on a homicide rap.

Many an evening, I have taken stance, 5-Wood in hand, ready to swing at Mr Toad.

He has forlornly squatted there, absolutely hapless (or just arrogant, I don’t know), waiting to take a balls-eye view of a “great golf shot”.

But yet I cannot bring myself to do it. These are pests, ecological timebombs, devastating indigenous flora and fauna and breeding out of control. Yet whacking it with a 5-Wood is cruel.

I think they now take advantage of my sensitivity and when they feel the cool touch of golf-club up their backside, they continue to sit there, gloating at my incapacity to be cruel.

That said, I am never above a little routine harassment. My favourites are the hose on maxi-power and rolling soccer balls at them; but best of all is chasing them round the yard with a remote control car.

But on another level, you cannot help but admire these creatures. Just 3,000 of them were introduced to a sugar cane farm in Queensland in 1935 to eat cane beetle larvae. In just 70 years they have been so successful in breeding and eating they have caused havoc across millions and millions of square kilometres of an entire continent. They are tough, resilient and proud.

They originated in South America. To have produced such a robust creature it must have been a tough neighbourhood; remember this animal has bullied its way across a foreign land of enormous size and biodiversity. At the same time that another invasive pest – the Fire Ant – has struggled in the face of aggressive and voracious indigenous ants, the cane toad has ploughed the road clear of all other amphibious cousins.

Queensland has a disturbing relationship with the cane toad. Rarely is a living animal treated with such impunity (apart from in the poultry industry). It has been the object of viscous vigilante campaigns that have been barbaric and sadistic. Undoubtedly this rueful attitude towards the cane toad would have spilled over into treating other living creatures with vitriol.

Rightly, they are in the Premier League of threats to nature and biodiversity. On a continent that has evolved in isolation, like rabbits, foxes, mice and dingos before, the cane toads will upset the ecosystem balance and cause the extinction of a number of local species. At face value, they have no right to be here. And yes, they are truly ugly creatures.

But I was cautioned to think again, when someone said to me “do not be cruel, it is not their fault they are here”. From that perspective, cane toads are simply another victim of human’s anthropocentric arrogance – assuming we can tinker with nature to maximise our own output with a perfect understanding of the consequences.

There is NEVER any excuse to be cruel to a living animal.

$30 million dollars was ploughed into eradicating the Fire Ant from South East Queensland. The Fire Ant was a direct threat to agricultural profit so as a result the resources of the nation were poured in to achieve results.

The cane toad, despite being brought in to control an agricultural pest, is not such a direct threat to business yet has been a huge threat to biodiversity. As a result it has been allowed to continue spread across Australia with only cursory attention.

Most people would prefer to see the cane toad controlled, if not eradicated. Humane trapping and freezing is unlikely to achieve this; it is estimate that cane toads outnumber humans in Australia 5:1. Best bet lies with CSIRO research into genetic manipulation. If genes essential to the toad’s development or reproduction can be identified and manipulated, cane toads could possibly be eradicated completely.

But inventing a techno-fix to correct prior human cock-ups with nature has its own chequered history.

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Wednesday, March 09, 2005
The Dover Sole; an Intelligent Design?

Every sphere of American public life is democratised; what schools teach in class included. Recently, a school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, succeeded in getting ‘Intelligent Design’ taught in the school curriculum – not as part of religious instruction, but in the science labs.

Intelligent Design maintains that only an unspecified superior intellect could have created the complexity of life forms. Darwin’s theory of natural selection, bringing about the evolution of one species into another, is explicitly rejected.

Bacterial flagella, the eye and DNA are all a result of the musings of a supreme intellect. Intelligent Design only differs from Christian Creationism in that the supreme being is not specified as ‘God’. Let's just hope that this God had the day off when the Dover Sole came off the drawing board - why design a flatfish squashed sideways? Not very intelligent!

Science groups are outraged, no doubt Professor Richard Dawkins choked on his breakfast, but supporters of the move claim it is merely reflecting the community’s wishes – 64% of the residents either supported the move or were ambivalent. Ominously, community support becomes self-reinforcing in small town USA; the kids grow up and leave school, safe in the knowledge that Creationism now has an air of credibility.

Clearly some streams of Christianity feel the need to validate their beliefs in empiricism. While many worshipers are content to let faith guide their daily lives and not unduly worry themselves about how much of a hand God had in creating their world, the aggressive Christian Right seeks to take on science on scientific terms. This is a monumental error.

The goings on at this Dover school reminded me of a cassette tape lent to me by a devout Christain friend a few years ago. It was recording of a presentation by a ‘scientific Creationist’ who spent two hours disputing 140 years of evolutionary scientific corpus, whilst presenting the most ludicrous of evidence to support his view the world was made just a few thousand years ago by a god.

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

He gave a smattering of examples, which - he claimed - did not support evolution, but refuted it. Why do humans have such a small appendix that no longer appears to have a use? Why have species of cave fish lost their eyes? Why cannot ostriches fly? How is it that evolution has allowed these species to become more simple, rather than more complex?

Unfortunately, what led him to conclude that they were created like this was not so much his faith but his fundamental misunderstanding of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Complexity is not some kind of evolutionary mea culpa for an organism, but it is often a product of evolutionary pressure. However, adaptive improvement is what natural selection is all about.

An alternate explanation gives a far more plausible – and testable – explanation for why these fish have no eyes. The loss of an eye in an organism which no longer requires them, would seem quite a beneficial adaptation which natural selection would favour: individual fish that definitively will not suffer from an eye infection seem more likely to survive in a habitat devoid of light. (In fact, these species have not ‘lost’ their eyes; they are simply not observable on the outside.)

A fsh (no 'i's)

But further gems stemmed not from his poor understanding of the subtleties of Darwinian theory, but more from a whimsical and somewhat endearing ignorance of geology. Why is human folklore so full of legends of dragons and exotic beasts? Well, a few thousand years ago, man actually shared the planet with the dinosaurs! Dragons are merely the manifestations of stories of ‘man meets T.Rex’ which have been passed down through the generations.

It wasn’t that he believed in an unchanging world, as he admitted that dogs have been bred into different shapes in a human lifetime, but he was sure that one species could never have evolved into another. The world is in a state of flux, but on a much shorter time scale. Fossils were not the devil’s work, placed in sedimentary beds to confound fallible humans, as some non-sceintific Creationists would claim, but were truly the remains of ancient creatures which had became buried in rock as a result of the biblical floods some 5-6 thousand years ago.

Unfortunately, no one thought to quiz him on why Moses did not feel he need to save a couple of Brachiosaurus or Gomphos elkema alongside the pairs of elephants and doves when he herded all of God’s creations two by two into his Ark. Granted, a couple of 30-ton dinosaurs would have presented a few logistical problems, but surely he could have squeezed in an extra cage for the Gomphos?

Disturbingly, this charlatan was taken at face value by the audience. His scientific qualifications lended him an air of credibility missing on vocal TV evangelists with bright orange fake-tans. But despite his ‘degree in Earth Sciences’ and his work as a petroleum geologist, his grasp of fairly basic geological concepts, such as over-folded beds (which appear to reverse fossil sequences) and deposition rates was akin to a 3rd grader.

I am sure that given enough intellectual leeway he could devise some immensely enjoyable explanations on why the sea is salty or why the hobbit-like hominoid found in Indonesia is no longer with us.

The school in Dover, is correct in affirming that Darwin’s theory of evolution is just a ‘theory’ – and so by definition, is not ‘fact’. But the governors are dangerously wrong to assert that Creationism and its new stable-mate “Intelligent Design” are ideas of similar stature to Charles Darwin's.

Notwithstanding the socialising influences of conventionalism (see Thomas Kuhn) which cajoles scientific thought into working within established paradigms and suppresses recalcitrant opinions, each new piece of evidence fails to refute evolution as an explanatory theory. The fossil record is wafer thin, but even the preservation of a minuscule proportion of every organism that ever lived has revealed some startling sequences of ‘evolution in action’.

And contemporary research with fast breeding fruit flies and even the modern changes in morphology of the Australian red-bellied black snake (in response to the introduction of the Cane Toad) have shown organisms rapidly evolving to new forms.

The defenders of Intelligent Design, as an alternative and secular explanation for the diversity of life, claim they are victimised as the troublsome heretics of the scientific establishment for daring to question the perceived wisdom. They assert that science advances through dispute, yet they bemoan that their own ‘evidence’ is laughably dismissed; they are accused of being compromised by their theological underpinning.

But in a reversal of roles, the scientific pariahs of Creationism have turned the tables on their antagonists through people-power (actually, probably 'god-power', or something) at schools and the teachers at Dover have been obliged to ‘sign-off’ on a statement recognising equal prominance of all theories of life:

"Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations. Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view."

Many teachers held their ground and refused to sign.

Yet read the statement carefully. It does not explicitly define ‘Intelligent Design’ as a theory that should be rigorously tested by scientific method and so, as such, implies that Intelligent Design and evolution are not of the same ilk. However, as the school governors are pushing Intelligent Design to be taught in the biology classroom rather than in religious education, then clearly they consider it should be.

Yet they may find that, as ‘theories’, Creationism and Intelligent Design do not stand up to scientific scrutiny. That ‘the eye is too complex to have evolved’ is strictly speaking a valid scientific hypothesis, but them to not bother testing it simply because it just seems too difficult, is applying insufficient rigour. For the Creationist-Intelligent Design axis, that the eye was 'designed' should remain a matter of believing.

Just how fruitful would exploring the Bible in scientific terms be? One can only imagine Genesis Chapter 1 subject to peer review. For most Christians it is better to interpret Genesis as a myth, in the context of story telling amongst 2,000-year-old nomadic tribes. But for the Religious Right, Genesis is fact, based on evidence.

But Creationists and their brethren of the Intelligent Design school of thought base their ideas on species development on Christian theology and little else. But why one book - the Bible - written by semi-literate nomads, 2,000 years ago, should be considered a more plausible historical explanation than, say this month’s edition of Nature magazine is difficult to understand.

How does an egotist change a lightbulb?

The Religious Right’s ambition to get theological narrative taught in school science labs as fact would be pitiful but harmless, if it were not for the regressive attitudes towards nature that this encourages.

Evolution will never be part of the pious Right’s belief system because of the central tenet for which Charles Darwin himself was personally criticised: that humans are related to apes. As a result, we are just one of millions of species which inhabit the planet.

Bill Bryson, in his "Short History of Nearly Everything", lucidly articulates the Christian world’s growing understanding of the natural world as being a slow descent into natural humility. Christendom first had to come to terms with the fact that Europe was not afterall the centre of the world. Then it had to accept that the Earth was not the centre of the Solar System and then that the Solar System was not even the centre of the universe. At the same time Charles Darwin proceeded to suggest that Christians were simply just another species of animal, related to apes. As Bryson often reminds us: we are not here for any particular purpose, we are just here.

Creationism and Intelligent Design attempt to regress society and to redefine human existence as being once again the central pillar of the universe’s meaning. In believing that a ‘higher-being’ designed (or at least helped design) every living and non-living natural object infers that she/he/it saw fit to choose the human species to be at the pinnacle of its creation. As a result, the planet and all its resources, plants and animals are here for our sole personal use.

He puts the bulb to the scoket and the world revolves around him

Unfortunately, this anthropocentric arrogance lies at the heart of the ecological deterioration of the planet. I have little doubt that humans, in the short to medium term, and in the wealthy Christian world at least, have the ingenuity to survive massive habitat destruction and global warming. Alas, much else will be laid to rest.

But if we are as reliant on ecological systems, natural cycles and biodiversity as many ecologists are beginning to think, the Creationist dogma, which places humans existence above all else, will be our undoing. (See Murray Bookchin for a comprehensive exploration of radical social ecology.)

Are we in the midst of a new culture war between 'secular humanism' and 'Christian morality'? Like it or loathe it, you cannot ignore America. The American Christian Right is arguably at its most powerful in decades – politically, educationally, financially and culturally - precisely as the US is at its most powerful geopolitically. This has allowed belief systems such as Creationism and Intelligent Design to garner a global willing audience: the world is watching what America does like never before.

In Australia too, the Religious Right is on the rise. It even has a political wing in the form of the Family First Party. While it has nothing like the stranglehold the Religious Right has on US policy, it certainly has the ear of the PM, keen to break into new constituencies and the PM-elect but one, Tony Abbot, is a vociferous Christian campaigner.

'Fair and Balanced'

Journalists often fall over themselves in an attempting to be seen to present a balanced view. On the whole, where they fail, it is fairly obvious and an article or op-ed piece can be easily seen for what it is: propaganda. However, presenting a ‘balanced view’ of scientific debate is problematic and often leads to the majority consensus being accredited equal weight as a minority crack-pot few, when clearly this does not reflect reality. In these culture wars, journalists will again be our scientific filters. They will have to tread carefully.

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Sunday, March 06, 2005
On holiday for the day

Rather than settle in Redcliffe for a few months, any medium term visitors to Brisbane area are well advised to use Caloundra as a base.

I did realise there was a little more to the place, after my only visit here last February, but was pleasantly surprised to be pleasantly surprised that it is a pleasantly surprising place. It makes you feel like you are on holiday, but just for the day. So much so that the waiter in restaurant in which we had dinner asked us how long we were staying. Maybe it was our foreign accents.

With the weather drying up and making the bush a less pleasant place (Brisbane received 20mm of rain in February; the average is 171mm), we used this week’s carbon quota on driving up the coast to the beach at Caloundra on Saturday. The early afternoon was spent lolling in the swell and in the sun on Moffats Beach, to the north of the city and then later we headed over to Kings Beach where the kids jumped about in the fountains and in the parks for a couple of hours. The sea was fantastically warm and clear.

Later, we walked along the undercliff boardwalk around the headland to the town centre. This walk affords the most amazing views over the northern extremities of Bribie Island and the island’s beach which sweeps south, unbroken and unspoilt, for some 35km.

In the foreground, surfers ply their trade on the huge white horses breaking over the narrow and shallow opening into Pummicestone Passage, the body of water which separates Bribie Island from the mainland.

Towards the west, there is a view inland over the Glasshouse mountains. Alas, Caloundra City Council has allowed this view to be brutally savaged by high rise (8-10 storeys) development at Golden Beach, which all but blocks out the mountain views from Caloundra. They could have kept developments low key and low down and preserved the aesthetic but instead, they have all but ruined the sweeping vista from Moreton Island in the east to Mount Beerwah in the west.
Determined not to let something as trivial as inappropriate development get in the way of a good meal, we finished off at the Naked Turtle for dinner. If you ever go there, save some room for the fantastic desserts. The menu is not huge, but anything you have will taste good.

Zooming home, later on, takes less than an hour.

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Saturday, March 05, 2005
Its dry here

Without stating the obvious, climate change is about the climate, not the weather.

But there is an interface between the two. Global warming must be represented in the daily temperatures people experience. Rainfall variances must relate to weather patterns. Climate is what you expect based on long term records; weather is what you get on a day to day basis, so says the Bureau of Meteorology (www.bom.gov.au/lam).

Since Russia was ‘press-ganged’ (say critics) into ratifying the Kyoto Protocol – thus bringing the emissions limitations regime into binding force – climate change sceptics have become more boisterous and have adopted a more offensive media and political posture. No longer is human-induced global climate change merely an annoying unproven scientific theory. It is now a dangerous international conspiracy perpetrated by a pervasive, anti-capitalist, environmentalist elite whose aims are to break corporations and keeping America down.

Despite ice-sheets melting, glaciers retreating, coral bleaching and the oceans becoming more acidic, sceptics cite that the numbers of ‘extreme’ weather events have ‘in fact’ fallen and the acute changes predicted by the pessimists are so riddled with margins of error, they must be wrong.

Climatologists predict it will be outlandishly difficult to definitively say when or if the effects of human-induced climate change will be detected. It is an extraordinary challenge – actually probably impossible – to sort natural fluctuations from anthropogenic change. Climate change is insidious; even in retrospect it is dicey to claim that trend towards hotter weather is not the up-swing of a warm cycle.

This is why sceptics will never be convinced. When does an up-swing become a one-way-ticket? 3 years? 30 years? 3,000 years? In the last three thousand years temperatures and CO2 levels have fluctuated at rates greater than they have since the 1940s.

Most of Australia has continued to get much drier and hotter. The interface between weather and climate is played out everyday in suburban gardens and on rainfall and temperature charts at the Bureau. Again, our wet season has not been wet, the grass in brown in March and the maps available at the Bureau indicate a fairly clear trend.

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Friday, March 04, 2005
King Charles or Queen 'Our-Mary' ?

Royalty, my favourite bunch of people, have been much in the news lately. Firstly, a young rip-roaring, dope smoking, lad called Harry - third in line to the thrown of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the entire Commonwealth apparently – decided to join the National Front.

Then his dad, Charles, famed for talking to trees, bemoaning contemporary architecture and writing crazed letters to Ministers, decided to marry his own horse. This guy is apparently heir-apparent. He is now in a stinking hot Alice Springs, smiling at bare-breasted indigenous women and politely refusing to eat live grubs, during his first visit to the outer dominions for more than 11 years.

Finally, across the North Sea in Denmark, a young Crown Prince has married a Tasmanian bar-woman in a classical fairy tail wedding: a handsome Prince is swept off his feet by an beautiful commoner girl from the other side of the world. One day she is a Cinderella, looking for a job, the next day she is marrying into one Europe’s magisterial imperial dynasties.

All these events have pulled the debate over ‘royalty’ - who they are, what they are for and what they are like – briefly back into the public discourse.

When Prince Harry pinned a swastika to his shirt for a Hurra-Henry fancy dress party, there were screams of rage from the left and right. The sensible centre thought ‘what the hell, he's only a young lad’ but pretty much everyone wished it had never happened in the first place. It was pretty stupid thing for a royal lad to do, if not quite the scandalous page-filler the press wished it was.

Two weeks ago, Prince Charles broke 25 years of speculation and finally admitted he has preferred his horse all along. This, despite fathering at least one child with a blonde woman who liked soldiers, rugby players and retailers. He is now planning to marry his horse at low key ceremony in a pokey registry office near Badminton (or somewhere). After that, she will put out to grass as 'Princess Consort', while he gets to be King of everywhere. Charles's mum won’t attend the wedding and a bunch of constitutional lawyers have bickered over whether it was legal for a future King and Defender of the (Anglican) Faith to get married in anything but a church. Few cared, but again left and right voiced their opposition from differing perspectives.

Now contrast the dim-witted and banal shenanigans of the UK royal family with that of Denmark’s perfectly manufactured version. Crown Prince Frederick’s wedding to ‘Our-Mary’ Donaldson was a match made in media heaven. Both are youthful but mature, attractive, educated, deeply in love (with each other, for once), plan to “have children” and raise horses, rather than marry them. CP Fred even has tattoos; surely that makes him ‘a man of the people’? He probably drives a 'Princess Consort' and surfs.

At the grandiose wedding, shown on television here in Australia, he had a tear in his eye when he uttered the Danish ‘I will’ and they have since appeared on all the right chat shows, holding hands.

Sadly, none of these royal media events has raised the profile of the republican debate in Australia. Since the defeat at the referendum in 1999, it has only occasionally received an odd column inch. Mark Latham inadvertently launched the ‘Latham plan’ in a typical shoot-from-the-hip remark in the run-up to the 2004 election and the ‘cost to the tax-payer’ of Prince Charles’s visit (10c each, can you believe!) has raised the odd-grunt from letters to the editor. But whilst Little-John sits on the throne in Canberra, republicanism is going nowhere.

Or is it?

Ironically, calls for a republic have been gracing the letters page, phone-ins and ABC feedback lines for some weeks, but particularly since the Danish royal wedding. Even more bizarrely, the loudest calls have been from the most self-professed devout Monarchists; it’s just that they have been too daft to realise and unfortuntley their logical failings have not been challenged by either presenters or journalists.

CP Fred and Our-Mary have achieved such celebrity status that many Monarchists have – only half jokingly – expressed their desire to see this model Danish couple replace the clapped-out English version as the new royals for Australia. Especially since Mary was once a true-blue Aussie.

Of course, this constitutional nonsense is not going to happen. But, here’s a thing: devout Monarchists are wanting to change the current and choose a new Head of State.

Now where I come from, that’s called something else, beginning with ‘R’.

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Aussies slammed by a quarter point rate rise

Oh please.

Finally the RBA has bitten the bullet and notched up the base rates, citing inflationary challenges. The housing market, which has powered ahead in recent years, doubling and tripling the prices in some suburbs, has been a bit more subdued of late. But there will be something of a squeeze from labour costs and from oil prices in the next few months as Europe gets to grips with a cold winter and the Americans drive around their vast country for no particular reason.

The battling Aussie looks set to feel the pain. A quarter point rise will add $30-$40 to an average mortgage per month. Despite what Peter Costello may think, most home-owners have mortgages in the region of $200-300K.

But if you go by what you read in the papers or hear on the radio, you would think the bourgeoisie were staring into the financial abyss. Aussies are 'heavily geared' because they have whacked too much on their plastic, or have re-financed their homes to cash-in on the $100K more that their house is worth.

They have bought investment homes, cars, boats, installed swimming pools, sent their kids to private schools and moved to the coast to retire early; hardly the bare-necessities of life. If now they cannot afford an extra $10 per week, bloody hell, what have they been spending it on so far? Apart from paying it off, the best way to avoid debt is to stop spending.

Howard may be proud of reigning over a low-interest rate economy that has encouraged shoppers to gorge at the trough of consumerism. But this is relatively fortuitous. We live in a time of a massively supply-side driven economy that has squeezed interest rates throughout the world since the late 90s. Australians have benefited from a global economy opening up, supplying them with a burgeoning output at an ever-reducing cost. Low inflation has kept low interest rates.

This has allowed the bourgeoisie to splurge like never before. At the same time we face a pensions crisis, as we are living longer, receiving fantastically improved and expensive health treatments and breeding less. A low interest economy has done very little to encourage us to save our cash for when we cannot work.

But much damage has already been done. For many years, in most parts of Australia housing affordibility was taken for granted. A burgeoning population and a reluctance of governments to spend their surplus tax dollars on their own tax payers (in the form of infrastructure) has inflated house prices to where it has become a social issue. Incumbent owner-occupiers have seen their wealth swell, but new entrants to the market are now finding the only places they can afford to live is 40km away from the employment centres. Perversely this creates inflationary pressures in public infrastructure provision.

I am not sure who believed Howard before the last election when he implied that interest rates wouldn't go up under the Coalition; he doesn’t exactly have unblemished relationship with ‘truth’. Setting interest rates is not part of his job, so it wasn't exactly for him to say. But this rate rise is at an awkward time for him. National output is relatively flat and certainly taking inflation and population growth into account, in real terms, personal wealth, as measured in GDP, would be negative.

But then I am not sure that the bourgeoisie will have to take little Jonny out of private school just yet.

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Thursday, March 03, 2005
Wal Mart sails close to The Economist wind

It came close; but The Economist couldn’t quite manage it.

To be fair, despite its rabidly pro-business, pro-market stance, The Economist magazine has tended to play a straight bat in purely rationalist terms of justice and fairness, albeit within the narrow confines of the ideolgues at the editorial helm. In a recent article the magazine dismissed the idea of ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) [“The good company”, The Economist, 22.01.05], not because it believed that firms ought to be allowed, or even should, act irresponsibly, but because as a stand alone corporate ideal, CSR need not be pursued. Consumers and shareholders will ensure that businesses trade in a manner which reflects their ethics, within boundaries proscribed by the rules of law. Ironically, CSR is simply good PR to both The Economist and anti-corporation activist alike.

Issues of what constitutes justice aside then, The Economist has been quick to criticise governments, the judiciary and business where it does not see its version of fairness upheld. Where companies have acted scurrilously, such as Enron and Worldcom have, the magazine has hastily booted the firm out of the reputable club. Human rights abuses in China and the USA’s holding of political prisoners at Guantanomo Bay have all been the subject of critical copy in The Economist.

Presumably this is why The Economist backed away from openly criticising what most people see as the immoral activities of Wal-Mart’s operations in Canada. You see, if Wal-Mart was acting improperly, but within the law, it is for consumers to punish it; now that’s true corporate social responsibility.

Just over 10 years ago, American retailing giant, Wal-Mart, moved into Canada through the purchase of 122 of the 132 Woolco stores across the nation. The remaining 10 Woolco stores – all reputedly profitable – lay outside the deal. Everyone knew that this was because their workers belonged to a trade union.

It was widely reported that on 9 February this year, Wal-Mart issued a statement vowing to close – yes close, and lay-off the workers and leave the community without a store – the first store in North America to unionise.

The 150 Wal-Mart workers and residents of Jonquiere, in Quebec, knew this thinly veiled threat was aimed directly at them.

Staff at this store had worked well for their new corporate bosses. Insiders reckoned the store remained profitable, yet Wal-Mart refused to enter into meaningful contract negotiations and shut it down, claiming it was ‘struggling’. Of course, the company would not release any financial reports of this store’s performance, but then maybe it just was coincidence that this was the first Wal-Mart store in Canada to ever be closed down.

All the staff had done – well the majority of them anyway – was sign a union card and have their claim for recognition endorsed by the Provincial Government’s labour board. Wal-Mart have subsequently threatened closure on a further three stores, should staff there choose to follow suit. Tellingly, one of the stores ear-marked as a battlefield is the most profitable in Canada.

Wal-Mart claim that because moves towards unionisation do not require a vote, the unions themselves are undemocratic and unrepresentative and leaves the staff open to intimidation from union shop stewards. That all votes, so far, to unionise have ended in failure is a vindication of its stance, says Wal-Mart. For the workers, faced with voting themselves out of a job and the town out of a grocery store, it is more like Hobson’s choice. It’s a free market, as long as you are rich enough to own a company that monopolises it.

Efforts to unionise south of the border, in USA, have also been met with hostility. Not one of the 17 staff in a car-maintenance depot at a store in New Castle, Pen. voted to loose their jobs by joining the union.

For most reasonable people, the tactics employed by Wal-Mart are almost beyond comprehension. Few stories demonstrate the dangers of unrestrained corporate power as evidently as this. The Economist reports that the unions, rightly or wrongly, claim that their workers are paid up to 40% less than the fair market rate and their schedules, workloads, benefits and contracts are also unreasonable. Get a job somewhere else? No way, most towns which host a Wal-Mart have lost jobs too as smaller stores have been pushed out of business through a targeted program of predatory pricing and running loss leaders by Wal-Mart.

This escalates the vindictiveness of the company’s behaviour. Not only will they sack their workers for freely organising themselves for mutual support and solidarity (in exactly the same way that capital organises itself for its owners benefit), but they are prepared to cut a society off from the supply chain on which they have been coerced into becoming dependent on. This is collective punishment the Israeli Defence Force would be proud of.

But yet The Economist could not bring itself to criticise Wal-Mart’s behaviour. Whilst ostensibly this story is ‘news’ in a ‘newspaper’ and so presumably devoid of any editorial slant, the magazine has never been covert in allowing its openly declared philosophies to shape its reporting style, such as its feature on CSR. But nowhere in the article does it suggest that Wal-Mart’s actions have been dangerous, immoral or contemptuous. Wal-Mart may not broken any laws (that could be proven) and so, as yet the company does not warrant even the vaguest analysis from The Economist magazine, despite its astonishing strategy of bullying and coercion with impunity.

For a different perspective:

“Wal-Mart Chief Defends Closing Unionized Store: Scott Says Labor Costs Guided Quebec Decision” by Michael Barbaro of the Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15832-2005Feb10.html accessed 02.03.05]

A report citing that Wal-Mart was unable to reach an agreement with union in wage and conditions negotiations.

“Don’t blame Wal-Mart“ by Robert Reich in the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/opinion/28reich.html accessed 02.03.05]

A more nuanced view stressing that Wal-Mart is not in fact a union bully, it is just like another corporation reacting to consumer preferences in a globalised world. It is our own internal conflict between our citizen and consumer selves which needs resolution. Kind of misses the ethical point to be made though.

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