Tricky Debates

The Australian Senate this week passed a bill to relax restrictions on therapeutic cloning for stem cell research in Australia.

Understandably the debate that preceded the vote was full of passion, principle and anger. The result has upset some segments of the community and been celebrated by others. I personally can see both sides of this argument and do not begrudge anyone for their views on these very sensitive issues but I do think it is worth keeping a few things in perspective.

We have seen these moral arguments before. Issues such as legalised abortion, euthanasia and even IVF have split political parties and the community. Whatever the particular battle, the argument against these sorts of procedures and research are usually based on the notion that scientists should not ‘play God’.

It is worth remembering at this point that ‘man’ (read: humans, people or whatever word you prefer) has been playing God for a very long time. Since the earliest days of medical experimentation people have been altering nature through the use of drugs and surgery in an attempt to prolong life and improve health. This is effectively ‘playing God’ and was often labelled as such. The truth is that we love ‘playing God’. We do it when we clear-fell forests, when we create pollution, when we divert and dam rivers and especially when we go to war and decide that thousands of innocent people should be killed for the perceived benefit of others. I find it curious that it is often those that condone these sorts of actions who will then argue against ‘playing God’ when it comes to science.

I therefore think that ‘playing God’ should be struck off the ‘valid argument’ list and instead politicians should evaluate issues based on the real or potential damage or benefits that can be gained or lost by new developments in the scientific arena.

Of course there are very strong arguments against the ‘killing’ of embryos for research. It is virtually impossible for consensus to be reached about when life begins and whether that life can be justifiably terminated, but it is pure hypocrisy for a Senator or anyone else to stand up and say that a two week old embryo has a right to life when they themselves have probably eaten meat for lunch. I’m not a vegetarian but I would still find it difficult to morally defend the argument that a human embryo has more right to life than a fully grown cow, fish, chicken or pig.

As humans in the First World we are doomed to hypocrisy. Our moral radars are constantly being recalibrated. Ethics are quickly abandoned in pursuit of a few dollars and we are very good at justifying to ourselves anything that we do.

Our decision makers should be using their consciences to navigate difficult issues but they must be consistent in this. To find a conscience only when it is politically expedient is possibly the most immoral thing a politician can do. I think God would agree.

Sorry for the lack of humour this week. God, embryos, politicians and science should really be a lot funnier. I’ll try harder next time.

Stay tuned.

Flying

I have just returned from yet another trip interstate. I have managed to squeeze about eight trips in this year which is pretty good for someone who only works part-time. It would not be possible except for the wonderful discount airlines Virgin Blue and Jetstar.

I’m not afraid of flying. I am however, afraid of plummeting to my death in a metal tube full of strangers but I never let that obscure the fact that I actually like being in the plane. There is still something very cool about taking off and travelling above the clouds at 1000km/h.

I also enjoy the flight attendants on Virgin Blue in particular. The girls always have names like Trinity or Harmony. The sort of names reserved for flight attendants and strippers. Sometimes they have names like Eleena. That's one of those names that parents make up that kind of sound like real names but actually aren’t. Like Joeesha or Rebeccany. As far as the male attendants go I think Civil Aviation regulations require that all male flight attendants are pleasant, well groomed and just a little bit camp.

The Virgin attendants (make your own obligatory virgin joke there) also love slipping cute little jokes into their routine patter to lighten the mood of the passengers. They’ll often slip in things like “If in the unlikely event this plane becomes a boat, floatation devices can be found under your seat” or “Please ensure that you don’t forget your belongings, children or husbands as items left on the plane will be distributed evenly among the crew.” Hilarious stuff that sometimes even gets applause from the passengers. I would love to know who writes their material.

Some people don’t like flying with the discount airlines because they resent not getting free food or a movie on the flight. That doesn’t bother me. For the amount of money I save on Virgin or Jetstar fares I can afford to go to a real movie and have a real dinner instead of eating some sloppy stroganoff while watching an appalling romantic comedy on a vaguely visible TV screen.

There is free audio entertainment on the discount flights if you bring your own headphones. I highly recommend that you do bring your own as the little red ones they sell for $2 aren’t very comfortable and would be better used to extract confessions at Guantanamo Bay than to provide entertainment on a long flight.

I usually choose the comedy channel to listen to. All airlines have one and they are all very similar. For every minute of genuinely funny comedy there will be at least ten minutes of pointless dross. They also like to set the audio level on the comedy channel much lower than the other channels. This is a cute little prank and is where the real comedy happens. As passengers tune in to get a small dose of levity to drown out the baby in the next seat that is clearly racking up their Frequent Cryer points they are forced to turn the volume up to full to hear the jokes. Then of course the mandatory unfunny comedy piece comes on (usually some Guido Hatzis or something equally banal) tempting the listener to change the channel. This is the punchline. When they change the channel they are instantly hit by ear piercingly loud music because they forgot to adjust the volume first. I’m pretty sure the pilots monitor this and laugh heartily every time it happens. I’m guessing whoever thought of this gag may also be responsible for writing the attendant’s comedy material.

Passengers on a plane are interesting to watch. They seem to love queuing but I’m not sure why. They queue up eagerly to get on the plane, but then can’t seem to get off the plane fast enough at the other end. Despite pushing to get on (especially if it’s unallocated seating) as soon as the seatbelt light goes out at the end of the flight and long before the doors are even opened the passengers are all standing up, squashed into the aisles or wedged awkwardly under the overhead compartments, juggling bags, baby strollers (the kid’s still crying) and jackets ready to get out of there as soon as possible.

And so they stand there… and stand there… and stand there… and stand there. It always takes at least five minutes for the doors to actually open and for the passengers in front of you to leave. But everyone insists on standing up poised for action. And what are they rushing for? Where are they going? Of course. They have to be the first ones to the baggage carousel so they can stand there for a further fifteen minutes until their bags arrive. The queuing now takes the form of a human fence around the carousel. The bags haven’t yet come into view but the barrier ensures that anyone behind them whose bags are actually there can’t get through to collect them. God forbid that everyone could just stand back and approach the carousel once their bags are spotted. But I guess they are all just keen to get their bags so that they can rush off to the next queue at the parking ticket machine and then jump into their cars so they can queue up again at the exit gate.

I’m not quite sure where this queuing mentality comes from but it does make me worry a little though. Watching this behaviour really doesn’t instil me with much confidence that in the unlikely event that the plane does becomes a boat that the passengers would proceed in an orderly fashion to the emergency exit. I’m pretty sure they would instead be pushing, shoving, getting in each other’s way, screaming and crying while the attendants pleasantly divide the leftover belongings amongst themselves.

And In Other News

Interestingly another fairly major news story was ignored by our media last week. Granted, it probably seemed a bit boring when lined up against Paul McCartney’s divorce or Keith Urban’s rehab adventures but I still think it would have been worth a mention somewhere.

For those who missed it, last week George W Bush signed the Military Commissions Act after it passed through the US congress. “Wow! Riveting” I here you say. Maybe that’s not very interesting but what is interesting is what the act means for the USA and the rest of the world. Essentially the act, under the pretence of creating a ‘safer’ America, overrides some of the most basic human and democratic rights that were previously unassailable in The American Bill of Rights.

The new law basically allows the US government to arrest any person suspected to be an ‘enemy combatant’ and hold them without charge indefinitely. The law excuses the government of any mistreatment of current detainees and worse, means that any US citizen, or foreigner (read ANYONE!) can be arrested and charged based on hearsay, be held without knowing the charges against them and be tortured until they confess. That confession can then be used to convict and prosecute the accused. Sounds tough, but then, the terrorists and ‘enemy combatants’ deserve tough treatment. Right?

But who exactly is an ‘enemy combatant’? According to the Military Commissions Act it is anyone who is declared an enemy combatant by the Government. This includes not only terrorists but also anyone who commits a crime of burglary or vandalism, or maybe someone who publishes an article critical of the government. The beauty of the law is that it doesn’t have any protections built in to stop anyone being labelled an enemy combatant and being arrested. And if you are mistakenly accused you will not have any right to a fair trial or to question the charges against you.

The notion of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ has been removed and it is now completely legal for the US government to ‘disappear’ anyone who they deem a threat. Sound familiar? Wasn’t that the sort of dictatorial system that the US was liberating the Iraqi people from?

Amnesty International have expressed their objections to this law. Other human rights commentators, mainstream media commentators, senators and lawyers have mourned the loss of liberty and expressed dismay at the complacency of the American voters who have accepted the destruction of their ‘self evident’ rights. So why haven’t our leaders, foreign affairs ministers or even media commentators raised concerns about this?

The attitude from these quarters seems to be that these laws are ok because we can trust the Bush administration not to misuse their new, self appointed powers. Well, I feel a whole lot better now.

Despite the fact that George W Bush has given himself the right to arrest anyone in the world, detain, torture, prosecute and even execute them because he believes they are a threat to the United States we should trust that he won’t abuse the privilege because he’s one of the ‘good’ guys. Thank God!

Let’s just hope that when his term as president ends none of the ‘bad’ guys get his job. What if someone less trustworthy had those powers? What if they decided that conservatives and not the ‘liberals’ were a threat? What if they started arresting Christians instead of Muslims with these powers? Would people care then? But I’m sure that won’t happen. The good voters of the USA will make sure that their next president is just as trustworthy as Mr Bush.

By the way, has anyone seen those WMDs?

Sydney

I’ve just returned from a trip to Sydney. While in our country’s most famous city I visited the Powerhouse Museum. Like everything in Sydney it is very easy to find… if you already know where it is! They don’t seem to believe in signs in Sydney. The road signs are just as bad.

Rather than clearly posted directions with reasonable advance warning they seem to prefer ambiguous road signs positioned 30 metres before the spot where you have to turn and good luck if you are in the wrong lane. If you miss it, there won’t be another exit for ten kilometres and if you think that you can just get the next turn and work your way back FORGET IT!

Sydney roads never go where you think they should even if you have a map. Just as God works in mysterious ways an elaborate array of one way streets, freeway exits and dead ends ensures that if you aren’t on ‘the one true path’ you will never get to your destination. Added to this you have toll roads which have toll booths in some lanes, usually the lane two over from the lane you are driving in and you’ll have about 5 seconds to get across the relentless traffic.

If you are planning to drive through Sydney I recommend a co-driver to help you decipher the signs while you try to juggle your attention between the directions, the road, the speedo and the myriad of mental drivers who have clearly decided that it is easier to just ignore the road rules altogether and just do whatever they like in their ludicrously expensive sports cars.

Of course once you have worked out where to go, getting around Sydney is fairly straight forward. It’s just that by the time you have worked it out you have probably lost your mind or at least become a selfish, arrogant road tyrant. (So that’s why there are so many of them.)

And now it seems the Sydney roads have taken me off course again. I was meant to be writing about the Powerhouse Museum. Where’s my map?

I was quite excited about going to the Powerhouse Museum to see the On The Box exhibition which celebrates 50 years of television in Australia. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I’d heard they had Agro, Mr Squiggle and Ossie Ostrich on display and I wasn’t disappointed. The three puppets were indeed the highlight. However, aside from some costumes from Norman Gunston, Mother & Son and Kath and Kim the rest of the exhibit was frankly, quite sad.

I’m not sure why exactly they thought that a couple of hand drawn posters from audience members on Australian Idol were worth encasing in glass. Even one would have been pointless, but two? I sure hope they were authentic and not just scribbled by the curator.

Generally the exhibition was a wonderful walk down memory lane and a great reminder that, on the whole, Australian TV has always been a bit crap.

More depressing however was the rest of the museum. Despite some excellent exhibits most were tainted by the evil hand of corporate sponsorship. The worst examples were ironically in the environmental future display. Kettle chips were displayed twice highlighting their ‘eco-friendly’ packaging. Kambrook were showing off their environmentally designed kettle. Brick companies, appliance makers and even Westfield Shopping Town were quite prominent in this exhibit which made me feel a little unsettled.

I know that funding a museum is not cheap and corporate sponsorship is necessary but these displays were blatant advertising. A sponsor board at the entrance used to be enough credit for generous benefactors but now their logos are emblazoned across the displays. The lines between advertising and education are getting very blurred. Children are now getting their nutritional information and pool safety tips from McDonalds. A real estate company educates kids on fire safety with the suspiciously named ‘Hooker’ Bear.

Where is it going to end? One day our teachers will be dressed as clowns and hocking Happy Meals and Pepsi to children as they explain the importance of multiplication tables. It will be too late to turn back. We’ll have missed the turn. The sign was there but we couldn’t change lanes in time.

Naughty North Korea

So North Korea is going to test a nuclear weapon. Is that a weapon of mass destruction? I would have thought so. And yet we don’t see the US rushing in to topple this cruel and dangerous ‘evil doer’. Instead it has been left to the UN to form a plan to deal with Mr Kim Jong Il.

It’s peculiar that the media hasn’t really questioned Mr Bush or Mr Howard over this issue. We went to war over suspicions of WMDs but when someone stands up and says “We’ve got em! Look!” our government just tut-tuts them and has a chat with their ambassador.

The really strange thing is that North Korea is rumoured to have lots of oil. Seems like a perfect place to go to ‘liberate’ the oppressed masses. I wonder what the problem is. There’s money to be made there too. Mr Rumsfeld himself sat on the board of ABB while they sold reactors to North Korea. Think of the boon they could have with rebuilding contracts.

Anyway this is just a passing observation. A busy week has kept me from a longer post. I’ll have something more substantial for you next week if nuclear war hasn’t begun.

Thanks for visiting.

Lingoism

Here are some new words that I would like to introduce into the Australian vernacular.

Dumbocracy: (n) Process by which disinterested and uninformed voters choose their leaders.

Fair Go: (n) Social equality afforded to those with fair skin.

Fuel Crisis: (n) Dilemma faced by motorists during a petrol price war as they try to decide whether to fill up now or wait and see if the price will fall further.

Homophone: (n) One who claims not to be a homophobe, but who sounds like one.

Idoluded: (adj) Pertaining to people with limited singing ability who audition for Australian Idol.

Media-ocrity: (n) Default level of quality aspired to by commercial television and radio. Formerly known as ‘lowest common denominator’.

Pod-estrian: (n) One who walks while listening to an iPod, completely oblivious to those around them.

Re-search: (n) Academic or scientific study based entirely on information sourced from the internet via a Google search.

Terrorist: (n) In the same way that a racist promotes unfounded fear of other races a terrorist promotes unfounded fear of terror. i.e. George W Bush is a ‘terrorist’.

Compluckwit: (n) Anyone who creates new words by merging others together for use in marketing, tabloids or blogs. Examples: Brangelina, TomKat, infotainment, pod-estrian, blog.

Fair Go Mate!

John Howard and Andrew Robb have decided that new Australian citizens should have to pass a test to demonstrate that they can speak English and have an understanding of Australian ‘values’, history and the concept of a ‘fair go’.

I hope they are planning to test their understanding of ‘hypocrisy’ too because I believe that is the number one ‘value’ being demonstrated by our leaders.

One can only assume that this current nationalistic push is a valiant attempt to keep the terrorists out. After all, terrorists can’t speak English and surely wouldn’t know anything about Australian values????

But what exactly are ‘Australian values’ anyway? I can only assume that Australian values are the ones that we demonstrate most often. With that in mind I suggest that we include these oaths in the citizenship ceremony:

”I promise to celebrate our multicultural society but fear and ostracise Muslims because Mr Howard and Today Tonight say they are terrorists.”

”I promise to fear invasion and attacks on our lifestyle but will endorse any unprovoked attack on any country that the USA points to and back the killing of thousands of innocent civilians.”

”I promise to care about natural disasters overseas and provide aid by the truckload… as long as a footballer or Australian tourist was killed. Otherwise I couldn’t care less.”

”I promise to prioritise sports over education.”

”I promise to jump on any bandwagon and follow any sport… as long as Australia is winning.”

”I promise to get emotionally involved with the plight of trapped miners, convicted drug smugglers, disaster victims and celebrities with cancer but instantly forget about them as soon as the next distraction comes along”

”I promise to claim all successful New Zealanders as Australian until they do something wrong”

”I promise to buy luxury houses, have babies and use credit to buy everything I want and put myself into massive debt but complain that someone should help me when I can’t pay it all back.”

”I promise to believe everything that Naomi Robson, John Laws and Alan Jones say because despite having millions of dollars and living in luxury they understand the plight of the Aussie battler”

and

” I promise to demand perfection from immigrants but mediocrity from everyone else, after all that’s the essence of a fair go”

Let’s just hope that the values test won’t be thrust upon the rest of us. I doubt many ‘real’ Australians would do very well in an Australian history exam and if faced with the idea of an English test I think most Australians would ask “Is Warnie playing?”

9/11

I can’t believe it is five years since the World Trade Centre attacks. It seems like only yesterday that the world sat glued to their television sets amazed at what they were seeing.

Since 2001 the world has become a very different place. The words ‘terrorist’ and ‘Muslim’ are now commonplace (I reckon I’d heard the word Muslim maybe five times in my life prior to 9/11.) The last few years have seen an increase in security, an increase in law making, an increase in fuel prices, an increase in military expenditure and my favourite, an increase in conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy theorists have always had a bad name. Their foil hat wearing, moon-landing doubting, UFO spotting ways opened them up to ridicule that tarnished the term ‘conspiracy’ with an inherent subtext of paranoid lunacy. They did have a couple of wins though. Oliver Stone’s film JFK changed many people’s minds about Kennedy’s assassination and The X-Files gave UFO geeks the chance to be cool for a short time. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 also got people thinking. But still, mentioning a ‘conspiracy theory’ will doubtlessly be met with sighs of indignation from ‘realists’.

Psychologists claim that belief in conspiracy theories is actually an attempt to feel secure. The belief that a government can control so many people and events is actually more preferable to believing that the bureaucracy is incompetent and not in control of our wellbeing. The flipside of this is people who refuse to believe in conspiracy theories for exactly the opposite reason. They don’t want to entertain the thought that the government may not have their best interests at heart and may be lying to them.

Where do I stand? I try to remain rational and realistic. I know that in reality governments are made up of people and departments that would struggle to organise the tying of a shoelace. Self interest and corruption tends to weigh against organisation and unity. However I also understand that through the power of media voters are often mislead and lied too. Politicians even trade on their reputation as liars coming up with expressions like ‘core’ promises that are to be differentiated from election promises that they will break. I also know that very few things happen in this world unless someone is making money from them.

In a world where lies like ‘Saddam’s WMDs’ and ‘links to al Qaeda’ or ‘children overboard’ can be propagated and believed it is hard not to be sceptical when our leaders try to sell us a story. Especially when that ‘story’ seems to be playing very well to their interests.

And so we come to 9/11. A simple Google search will bring forth an insurmountable wealth of pages making all sorts of claims of conspiracy and government complicity. They range from sensible and rational debunking to fantastical and downright ridiculous speculations. It would be easy to just ignore it all and just believe the official government line.

Unfortunately I have this little part of my brain that kind of twitches when things don’t seem right. I can’t quite explain it but it is the same part that gives me bad feelings about people I meet who later prove themselves untrustworthy. And I have to admit when it comes to the events of 9/11, “I have a bad feeling about this”.

To try and come to terms with it all I took the position of a juror. That is, I will look at the evidence that is put before me and make a judgement on whether it seems credible or not. In this way I am not bound to believe any one source or any single explanation. I can simply look at each event and decide what it means. I won’t make unfounded assumptions. I don’t ask anyone to believe the same as I do and certainly don’t claim to have the answers.

The only conclusion that I have drawn is that there are some very worrying anomalies in the events of September 11^th 2001. Obviously I don’t want to turn this post into another conspiracy page but if you have time and want to start asking your own questions I highly recommend looking at these points in particular:

1. The way the WTC towers collapsed with special attention to the less often reported collapse of Tower 7. This link is one of many that uses physics to demonstrate the problems with the official story. http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/BilliardBalls.html or here

2. What got destroyed and who profited. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/silverstein.html
http://killtown.911review.org/wtc7/collapse.html#cdi

3. How easy is it to fly a passenger airline into a building? http://physics911.net/sagadevan.htm

From my point of view these few aspects of 9/11 are the ones that don’t seem to have adequate explanations and aren’t ‘debunked’ effectively by any source that I can find. Granted, they all pose even more questions than they answer but so do the ‘official’ explanations. I understand if people don’t want to believe a conspiracy theory but isn’t the idea that a faceless group of foreign terrorists could elude security, plot and plan to hijack planes and fly them into protected airspace and accurately crash them into high profile targets and bring down two of the biggest buildings in the world in itself a ‘conspiracy theory’?

I will not speculate on who is responsible for the events of 9/11. As far as I can see there is evidence to incriminate all sorts of people. All that is known for sure is that planes were flown into the World Trade Centre and many innocent people died needlessly. If I had lost a loved one in such a disaster I would want to know the truth. I would not want to blame the wrong person and I certainly would not want the perpetrators to be allowed to go free.

There is no reason to involve yourself in the conspiracy theories or even ask any questions about it. But considering the fear that has been thrust upon our society since 9/11, the racism towards the Muslim community that is being encouraged and incited by our media and even our Prime Minister, the infringements on our basic freedoms that are being proposed by sedition laws and the degradation of the basic principles of law such as ‘innocent until proven guilty’ I for one would like to know that the War On Terror is directed at the real threats to our society and not some convenient patsy devised for the profits of a few.

I promise that next weeks post will be funnier. And that’s a core promise.

Poor Pluto

How degrading! Literally. Poor old Pluto has been stripped of its planet status. All those years of learning about the nine planets in our solar system and now we find out that Pluto doesn’t count. Why? Because it isn’t big enough, apparently. Or more to the point it is as big as other stuff floating around which means if Pluto is a planet then other chunks of rock like 2005FY9 and Xena must also be classified as planets. So rather than add new planets to the solar system the ‘nerds in the know’ decided to take Pluto off the list.

Personally, I don’t really care. Maybe if I had intricately built a model of the solar system in school from polystyrene balls and coat hanger wire I might be a little pissed off that I’d spent all that time on a planet that didn’t belong, but fortunately I was too lazy in school to ever put that much effort into any project.

I guess my only issue is the new category that Pluto has been resigned to. Officially Pluto is now a ‘dwarf planet’. Now, that would be cool if it meant that Pluto was actually a planet inhabited by dwarves with miniature cities and little cars and nobody different enough to play Santa’s helper at Christmas. But it doesn’t. It just means that it is a small planet. I guess they thought that still having ‘planet’ in the title might appease the Pluto fans around the world. But really, if you aren’t a planet and you’re never going to be a planet, why rub it in? Why not come up with a cool new term? Start a new club that will make the real planets jealous and want to join. I’m surprised that the geeks didn’t think of that.

So, now all our space books and solar system charts are wrong and new ones need to be printed. I guess someone will make some bucks out of this. Let’s hope they don’t start re-classifying anything else that we learnt in school. I don’t want to wake up and find out that ‘X’ isn’t actually a letter or that spiders are really insects after all or that February is now a ‘dwarf month’.

I guess greater minds than mine are on top of these things. And apologies to the International Astronomical Union for calling them nerds and geeks. I’m sure they are all very interesting, cool and exciting men and women with great social lives.

And commiserations to Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto in 1930. I guess he won’t care seeing as he died in 1997 but I’m sure his family is disappointed that their big claim to fame is now that their relative found a rock.

Until next time…

Trying to be positive.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote. I’ve been away visiting my parents and friends in Perth. I was hoping to come back with a new found optimism, especially in the light of my last few blogs that were all a little negative. I was also hoping that I could avoid talking about TV as that too has become a bit of a focus for my rants.

And so I return home and get ready to write again when I am confronted with all the TV programs that I missed while I was away. I’d like to ignore them, I really would, but they are so terrible that they must be commented on.

Channel 7 had been going so well this year. The continued success of Lost and Desperate Housewives and surprise hits Deal or No Deal and Dancing With The Stars helped 7 to topple the Nine Network’s long held reign. One could almost have been fooled into thinking that Channel 7 had finally worked it out. After years in the wilderness their programmers had finally got a handle on what viewers wanted and how to get them to watch. Then they pull out The Master, a cynical Millionaire rip off with nothing new to offer and certainly no interest to viewers. It was axed after one episode, proof positive that the programmers have learnt nothing and are still clutching at straws. Their other successes have been nothing more than dumb luck. Even the executives at 7 admitted that they were surprised at the popularity of Lost and Housewives. This proves that any hope that we might get anything worth watching on our screens in the future looks very unlikely.

Channel Ten have launched a couple of new shows in the last few weeks. The most hyped one being Tench Tonight. Tench had potential. It wins points for being an Australian innovation and an attempt at something different. The show has a ‘virtual’ host that interacts with its guests. Great idea! Except that they blew it. So much potential blown so quickly. Once again the powers that be have made fundamental errors in judgement.

The history of sassy and humorous talk show hosts is rich and deep. Real hosts Jay Leno and David Letterman to fictional interviewers like Norman Gunston, Dame Edna, Pixie Ann Wheatley and Ali G were all huge successes. Drawing from such great precedents the makers of Tench could have created a new TV icon, a character full of wit, audacity and wickedness.
Instead, they came up with a very boring and quite annoying creature. In an attempt to make Tench an amalgam of talk show hosts they ended up with a very bland looking pastiche that actually just looks like Tim Fergusson from The Doug Anthony All Stars. His wit is about as sharp as the class clown in a suburban primary school and his overall demeanour is that of a smart arse schmuck rather than a likeable or humorous interviewer. He fails to cleverly embarrass his guests or reveal anything new about them. Why hide behind a character if you aren't going to let loose and hit hard?

Above all else why on Earth would you, if faced with inventing a new computer generated character, create a generic looking male host? They could have made any living thing. Anything else would have been more interesting. An alien, a crocodile, a kangaroo, a robot… a woman???? If we really needed a new character to interview celebrities did we really need another slick haired male? Once again a lack of imagination and a complete lack of a decent sense of humour destroys an otherwise great idea.

What’s really sad is that Andrew Denton’s production team were responsible for this disappointment. I would have thought he’d have a better sense of what to do with this new technology. All that said the show will probably do OK. After all it’s only competition at the moment is Celebrity Survivor on 7. Faced with a choice I hope Australian viewers will turn to the ABC. But they probably won’t and we’ll have to put up with more promos, more non-celebrities facing 'challenges' and more pissweak comedies from the commercial networks.

Let’s hope the next week will bring me something more positive to write about.

Yasmin’s Getting Axed

At least we can only hope so. Channel Ten has finally outdone even themselves with a new low in cheap, exploitative TV. Yasmin’s Getting Married is a reality TV format purchased from Scandinavia (God forbid we could come up with a TV show format on our own) and has a simple premise: Find Yasmin a husband in 9 weeks by letting the audience vote on who she dates.

Question 1. Who the fuck is Yasmin?

Answer: Who cares?

Question 2: Why would we want to vote on who she marries?

Answer: If we vote for Idols and Big Brother contestants, why not this too?

Question 3: Why does the studio audience laugh hysterically at every inanely stupid thing Ryan Phelan says?

Answer: If you are stupid enough to want to be in the studio audience for this crap you are stupid enough to think that primary school innuendo can pass for wit.

Question 4: Why is this crap on five nights a week?

Answer: Because Channel Ten is so ludicrously tight with their money that they thought they could get away with making one program on a shoestring budget and still fill a week of primetime spots where they can charge lots of money for advertising. A great plan… in theory.

Ten has already proven that they don’t need to make many shows to fill their schedules. Big Brother, The Biggest Loser and Australian Idol are excellent nightly line-up fillers. You only need one set, one host, one cast (mainly unpaid ‘contestants’), one lot of titles, one theme song and from that you get 10 hours of programming that conveniently also fulfils the Australian content requirements. Added to that is the wonderful addition of SMS voting which generates millions of dollars and pays for the production.

Then along came Yasmin. I’m sure the executives were salivating at the prospect of success with this. The show has one very basic set (which looks pretty cheap and must be the only set on TV without a plasma display), it goes out live (no annoying editing or post production costs), it has no million dollar prizes, it has lots of SMS voting and it can go on every night in the lucrative 7pm timeslot. The holy grail of television production: no costs and lots of profit. But they forgot one very basic principle. Even though TV audiences are fairly dumb and will swallow most of what you feed them, they do still require some level of interest. If Yasmin had been a previous contestant on Big Brother, a celebrity or a sports star the audience might actually care who she marries. As it is we have no idea who Yasmin is and more importantly we don’t know if we like her.

I don’t know who OK’d this program but clearly they have no understanding of why people watch TV. Although it’s not surprising that they would be working for Channel Ten, after all, this is the same network that thinks we watch TV to see promos for other TV shows.

For a long time now Ten have seen fit to plaster annoying supers and scrolls across our screens during our favourite shows and over the credits to promote other programs but now they have taken it even further. In an astoundingly arrogant move they now bring up supers 10 seconds before the end of a segment that read “Don’t move. A Ten promo is coming up”. They actually think that viewers want to see a Ten promo. Apart from anything else we have probably already seen it fifty times today. This type of promotion is proof that the networks have lost the plot.

If the executives and producers really knew what they were doing they wouldn’t need all this intrusive promotion. If they put on good shows, people will watch. Harassment and bombardment might get people to watch once but they will only stay watching if the show has something to offer. And it’s not like Australian audiences have particularly high standards. If they watch Dancing On Ice and It Takes Two and as a producer you still can’t come up with something to capture their interest you really should be looking for a new job.

In the meantime, good luck to Yasmin. I hope she finds the man of her dreams. And if not, no matter, she might be called back for a new series… Yasmin’s Getting Divorced or Yasmin’s Up the Duff or perhaps Yasmin’s In a Loveless Marriage and Has Turned to Prescription Drugs To Help Her Cope. Actually I think even I might watch that.

PROCREATE AND PURCHASE

Our beloved federal treasurer this week called on Australians to have yet more babies. He thinks we aren’t having enough and certainly aren’t pulling our weight as far as developed countries go. But what motive is he really hiding behind that unshifting, smug smirk of his?

Mr Costello claims that we need to have more babies to facilitate the growth that the country needs for the future. He obviously believes this as he has been throwing money at every birth at a rate of $3000 a pop (if you’ll excuse the expression). But I think it’s more than just growth he’s after. I think he’s just trying to save his job.

How could a politician, in good faith, honestly and openly encourage more children into this world considering the following realities of life in Australia?

- The health system is under-funded and overstretched as it is.

- Schools are desperately over-crowded and under resourced.

- Most Australian families are already financially overcommitted.

- There isn’t enough water for the current population as it is.

- Energy supplies and rising fuel costs are a looming and unaddressed problem for the very near future.

- Housing prices are getting beyond the reach of middle income earners.

And he wants MORE people? That’s seems a little strange, until you consider this: Babies are excellent consumers. Every child that is born automatically helps the retail industry to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Just have a look at how many baby related products there are on the market and then add that to the food, pharmaceuticals and detergents that they also require. BINGO! With every child that is born the economy benefits. And when the economy benefits the treasurer looks good.

Parents think the Baby Bonus is a great idea. $3000 - $4000 for having a baby is a wonderful gift. But it’s not a gift. It’s an investment. They give you $3000 so you will spend $10,000+. It’s the same ploy the government used on new homeowners. “We’ll give you $7000 if you’ll take on $300,000 worth of debt”. The economy gets a massive boost from the government’s ‘generosity’. But what is the cost of this boost?

The downside of this boost is that in ten years there won’t be enough places in schools for the children that get born now. There won’t be enough doctors or hospital beds when they get sick. There won’t be enough fuel to get them around. There may not be enough water for them to drink. But do they care about that? Of course not. By then Mr Costello will have done his term as PM and retired very happily with a huge payout.

Peter Costello wants a quick injection into the economy to save his own bacon. The orchestrated housing boom has kept him afloat but now that is cooling he needs a new trick to fix the bottom line. Short term solutions for a happier treasurer.

If Mr Costello is so concerned about the country’s population, here’s an idea. How about speeding up the processing of refugees? I’m sure they would love to come and help out our economy.

Prophecies Of Doom Are Rarely Funny

Ladies and Gentlemen, the world, as we know it is about to end!
Apocalyptic predictions have long been the domain of alarmists, religious zealots and nutbags who can be easily dismissed as we go about our day-to-day lives. That is why I can’t help feeling a bit uneasy aligning myself with them for this article. But the truth is… the world, as we know it IS about to change.

Whatever your beliefs about the matter, however things may unfold the simple truth is that in the next ten to fifteen years civilisation will succumb to its biggest challenge yet.
That challenge is the reality that the oil is running out.

”Oh dear” you say. “Here we go again. So what? We all know that petrol prices are going up. It’s those bloody oil companies screwing us again”. And so they are, but unfortunately it’s a little more complicated than that.

I, like most people had assumed that the current cost of fuel was just another ploy by big corporations to make massive profits out of the last remaining oil for the next fifty years or so. I foolishly assumed that being big money-making corporations they and the giant transport, airline and petrochemical industries that rely on oil would be ultimately looking after their future wealth with intricate plans for tomorrow involving the slow release of alternate technologies to keep the world running.

I have recently learned that unfortunately, they haven’t actually made those plans. The sad truth is, they, along with governments and even the well meaning scientists actually have no frigging idea what to do once the oil runs out. Worse still, it doesn’t actually even have to run out before the problems arise. Massive problems begin when the oil is on its way out. That is, once we are finding and producing less oil than we are consuming. And the good news is… that’s already starting to happen. For a full and rational explanation have a look at this site:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

You may not have stopped to consider it but have a quick look around. The computer you are using, the chair you are sitting on, the clothes that you are wearing and even the food that you may be eating are all made from or reliant upon oil. Oil for plastic production, oil for transport, oil for farm machinery, oil for mining equipment and oil as a commodity on which the economy is metered. Our whole civilisation and society is tied to and reliant on oil. If it runs out the economy isn’t just in trouble… IT STOPS!!!

The society that we know will crumble. There will be a market crash, there will be wars and chaos, there will be shortages of food. And the scary truth is that this could, and very likely will happen within the next 20 years. No kidding, no joking, it WILL happen. There are no more oil supplies to be found, there are no alternatives that can stop this happening. The crash will come and no amount of bio fuel, solar panels or nuclear reactors will stop it. The people with the power to fix it were supposed to do it thirty years ago. Unfortunately they didn’t get around to it.

The good news is… people will survive. Society will continue. But the way we live will be changed forever. Every facet of our lives will be affected and life will be very, very different.

I am not telling you this to upset you. I’m not telling you to be a smart-arse. I am telling you because you should start thinking very carefully about the way you live your life. This stuff will probably start to happen within the next ten years. Don’t be afraid and don’t be oblivious to it. Do some research and decide for yourself what you should do.

I’m personally trying to be pragmatic about it. Most generations have felt the sting of history whether it be war, revolution or depression and I don’t think I should feel special enough to be any different. We are starting to see the environmental effects of the oil that we have burnt so it’s probably about time humans paid the price. And society could do with a shake up. Money has taken precedent over health and well being for too long now.

Sure I’m a bit concerned about this bleak future. I hate riding my bike and I’m no good at gardening or sewing so I’m not sure how I’ll keep myself fed and clothed when the shops are empty because they can’t ship in new supplies. I guess I’ll learn to adapt or die trying. Either way it will be interesting to see how the world copes.
I guess when I think about it I’m really looking forward to the end of the world. Does that make me an optimist or a pessimist?

The 10 Pieces of Silver Screen

Last night I, along with many others, headed into the cinema to see Pirates Of The Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest on its opening night. I’m not a huge fan but friends had organised a group and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Pirates have become very trendy over the past few years. So much so that I prefer to pronounce the word “Pi–rah-tees” as that seems to be the current, correct pronunciation of words spelt that way. Clearly Johnny Depp has helped these dishevelled seafarers to become so popular again and good on him.

This isn’t a movie review as such. Pirates Of The Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest or POTCDMC (this is the internet after all. Who has time for full titles?) is a very exciting, special effects extravaganza but without giving too much away the ending was a bit of a let down. Despite sitting through 2 hours of CGI mayhem (in the world’s most uncomfortable cinema seats) the story won’t be concluded until Part III. And this is why I’m a little pissed off. The same thing happened with Kill Bill and to a lesser extent Empire Strikes back. We have to go back again to find out what happened. Basically the movie makers are forcing us to pay for two cinema tickets to get one story. Surely this is a rip off?

I don’t mind if a movie is going to have a sequel. Hollywood is built on the extra ending that leaves things open for another round but usually the chapter we have just watched was complete within itself. When Freddie Krueger or Jason lunge back at the screen just before the credits roll it is usually preceded by a dramatic defeat at the hands of hero or heroine who at least for now feel safe and triumphant. The audience has closure on one chapter and are ready for another, but when a story is just left up in the air it is completely unsatisfying. Hollywood may be upset by people illegally copying DVDs but as far as I’m concerned forcing an audience to pay for another ticket to find out what happened at the end of a story is the real ‘movie piracy’.

Filmmakers may argue that the cliffhanger is a hark back to the old Saturday matinee films and that there is nothing wrong with that. After all, TV shows do it all the time. But the difference here is that in the past we only had to wait a week to see what happened, now we have to wait until next year to see the end of a story which, to be honest, barely made sense anyway.

But, well done to the producers of POTCDMC. They had a theme and ran with it. They are robbing their audience at the point of a sword and luring them onward with mythical tales of great adventure and treasure which probably won’t exist.

And the pillaging didn’t end in the cinema. The theme ran all the way to the Candy Bar where ludicrous prices fleeced every patron. Those that have seen my stand-up routines will know what I think about the prices at the Candy Bar but last night they took it to a whole new level. With absolutely no sense of irony the staff happily tried to upsell my friend’s already ludicrously oversized popcorn with the extremely attractive offer of “For only $2.50 more you can have the large popcorn”. What? For only $2.50 more? Well why not? What a great offer. I remember when an upgrade was 50 cents or maybe a dollar. They are just taking the piss by drawing attention to how overpriced everything is. Seriously, this is the height of stupidity. I dread to think that anybody is actually being sucked in and paying this. And why did they bother stopping with the upgrade? Why don’t they just say “For ONLY $8.50 more you can have a fun size Mars bar. For ONLY $10,000 more you can have a plasma TV. In fact, For ONLY three million dollars more you can buy the whole bloody cinema complex!!!!?”

Get your share.

Remember the good old days when a prosperous business was an expanding business? A time when companies increased profits by attracting more customers and selling more products?

Telstra’s CEO, Sol Trujillo last week announced yet more staff cuts in an effort to increase shareholder wealth. This is becoming a common story. Large corporations are continually recording bigger profits but still laying off more staff. Why does this happen?

The workings of big business are obviously too complex to cover in detail here so here is a basic rundown of how public companies work today.

In order for the share price of a company to increase, increased profits need to be recorded. So if a bank, for example, records a profit of two billion dollars it is not enough to record the same profit again next year. For the share price to increase they must record an even bigger profit. And the word ‘must’ is used advisably. As the laws stand it is the company’s obligation to record a greater profit. This is why CEOs often state that they are responsible only to the shareholders. At the end of the day it is the shareholders who the company is operating for. (I would have thought if you ran a telecommunications company your main interest would be in actually providing a telecommunications service, but then, what do I know?)

So if you are a CEO of a large corporation how do you ensure that your profits will increase when you are already making a profit? One way would be to expand your customer base, offer new services and find new income streams. As an example, Virgin has expanded its airline empire to include a credit card company and a mobile phone service. That’s a lot more customers to get money from. Unfortunately, expansion takes time, money, intelligence and effort. The easier way to increase profits is to produce exactly the same amount of goods and services you did last year (which garnered a profit), but reduce your operating costs.

Operating costs are a huge drain on a company’s finances and the biggest and most annoying operating cost is wages. Those filthy employees selfishly take home the money that should belong to the shareholders. So smart CEOs order ‘downsizing’ across the company. The best bit about reducing staff numbers is that you can always make the remaining staff work harder to fill the gaps. So the same profit is made as last year but added to that is the extra money that you didn’t need to spend on employees and office space and that counts towards an increased profit.

By now the more savvy amongst you are probably thinking “But hang on. If you keep reducing the staff, somewhere along the line you won’t be able to keep producing the same amount of products or services” and you are right. Of course that doesn’t matter. Because, before that happens the smart CEO has moved on to his next appointment and gotten his giant golden handshake in appreciation for increasing the profits of the company. Someone else can fix the mess or sell the hollowed out company to a bigger company.

An interesting sideline to this is the companies who offer their own shares to their employees. Many Telstra workers, for example, have Telstra shares. (We won’t get into the argument that before privatisation all Australian taxpayers already had shares in Telstra but were forced to buy them anyway). If we follow the logic of having shares in the company in which you work you may strike an interesting conundrum. As a shareholder you will want the share price to increase. This means that it is in your best interest to increase profits. But what happens if the only way to increase the profits requires you to lose your job? I guess as a shareholder you must vote to be sacked.

Companies will always claim to be responsible to their shareholders. I guess the only question to ask then is does that make the shareholders ultimately responsible for the company? Maybe lung cancer patients, asbestosis victims and those affected by environmental damage should be suing the shareholders rather than the company. If shareholders want the profits they should be prepared to accept the responsibility for where that money comes from. They might be more cautious about where they invest and about the CEOs that they appoint.

I’m not sure where CEOs actually come from. They must be very clever considering they can move from running railways, to running telecommunications companies to running food processing companies or supermarkets with no real ground roots experience in any industry. No wonder we and our government put so much faith in them. They are clearly better people than us.

ROBBED!!!

We were robbed!!!!! Apparently. Nothing seems to be missing but according to the Australian media 'we' were supposed to win the football (soccer) game against Italy the other night and it’s a ‘tragic’ end to their World Cup campaign. I don’t know if it’s that tragic. I for one am actually quite relieved. At least now I can stop pretending that I know anything about soccer. Before this all started I thought ‘offside’ was a cut of meat and Guus Hiddink was the colonel from Hogan’s Heroes. The last few weeks have seen me discussing strategy and refereeing decisions and speculating on Australia’s chances. I didn’t want to discuss these things, but I had to in order to keep the peace. I was faking it and I have to admit that I became so good at faking that I reckon I could have played for Italy.

As a male in Australia we are expected to know about sport. If for some reason you aren’t interested in sport, conversing with other males, especially during something like the FIFA World Cup, can be quite taxing.

I’m not very interested in sport. I don’t know why. I have tried to get interested but it just doesn’t happen. Maybe it’s because my Dad never made me get involved in sport. He watched and liked sport but never made me watch it. I tried to play sport… and I was competent enough at the basic skills but I never quite got the whole competitive thing. Maybe that’s because every team I was involved in consistently lost every game. Whether it was AFL, soccer or basketball my teams always got trounced. I learnt to be gracious in defeat. I became very good at that. I never felt the glory of success or the dominating pride of winning. Maybe that’s what was missing. Whatever the cause, I do not get excited by any sport or competitive behaviour. And it seems that’s a problem.

Over the last few weeks I have been accused of being ‘a poof’, ‘abnormal’ and worst of all ‘un-Australian’ because I wasn’t going to watch the World Cup. That’s particularly weird because I actually played soccer as a child in the eighties and the ‘cool’ kids back then called me a ‘poof’ for that. Now it seems that I'm a 'poof' because instead of staying up late to watch grown men kick a ball I was in bed having sex with my girlfriend.

Last week I was told that I should be proud to be Australian because of the Socceroos efforts. I don’t quite get that. Why should I be proud to be Australian because twelve guys are good at sport? By that logic surely the shame of hundreds of racist Australians at Cronulla would eclipse any pride that the Socceroos could instil in me. I wasn’t on the field. I didn’t kick a goal. I wasn’t even in the crowd in Germany so I find it difficult to work out why I should garner any pride in myself based on the actions of men that I don’t know who have trained hard for many years and played their chosen sport well.

I watched the crowds going wild when Australia won. I saw people getting together and bonding watching the games, creating lasting memories of joy, pride and excitement. I heard them in the streets rejoicing and I have to admit I was jealous. I wish I could feel the same way. I wish I could vicariously succeed and enjoy other people’s achievements. I wish I was Australian enough to jump on a bandwagon and be like everyone else. And I really wish that I could just forget the last few weeks as quickly as the Australian media will.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…

It's time to go...... Kyle Sandilands

ENOUGH!!!!!! It is bad enough that we have to hear him on the radio and to see him on TV but now this spikey-haired boofhead has his face on stickers that adorn DVDs in JB Hifi with the ludicrous caption "Kyle Recommends"!!!!

Who the hell would choose a movie because Kyle Sandilands recommends it? Maybe I missed something in Kyle's CV. I know he was a street kid, a shock jock*, an MTV presenter*, a dj*, a record producer* and a judge on Australian Idol* but I'm not sure why that would give him credence enough to recommend movies. I don't remember him sitting in for David and Margaret or for Bill Collins. I can't find any movie reviews that he has ever written or god forbid any suggestion that the guy is even remotely film literate, and yet somehow he is recommending movies to people. Getting advice on movies from Kyle makes about as much sense to me as getting advice on what condom to use from the Pope.

Kyle is a millionaire thanks to very good managers, a bully boy attitude and the Austereo network that somehow seems to have complete control over who makes it onto our TV screens (can anyone tell me who the hell Fifi Box was or is?). The only credit I could give him is his ability to become very successful with absolutely no talent.

I'm afraid I'm losing faith in a world where little Sophie Delezio can be hit by a car, burned and then hit by a car again and Kyle Sandiland becomes a millionaire and gets any job he wants by being an arrogant prick. I think God gave up caring a long time ago.

Until next time......

G

*There is no evidence that Kyle had any relevant experience before taking any of these positions, certainly not enough to put him ahead of actual, qualified applicants.

If you are reading this I am already dead....

... well, not dead but I have succumbed to the lastest internet trend and started my Web Log.

If you visit this blog regularly you will get to read some insights into my thoughts, ideas and opinions. In other words you will get to read my rants. Hopefully they will be entertaining and enlightening and worth coming back for. They should also give you a pretty good sense of where my comedy originates and this blog will hopefully become a breeding ground for lots of new material for my stand-up performances.

For now, all I can say is "Stay Tuned"

All the best
Gavin