Dog Biting Men

Burning Beard

2005-08-25T07:23:00.000+12:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes...

I'm back for the general election, and not before time by the look of things. There have been so many false starts. People talk about phoney wars and campaigns proper; but according to National and Labour, their campaigns didn't even start until Sunday. It's not true, and I know this because I don't trust the mainstream media. I'm so underground I have to dig upwards to get to the hitch-hikers' bodies buried in Antarctic Lemur 's backyard.

There's only one sure way to tell if the campaign has started, and that's to watch that electoral ground-hog, Winston Peters. Once he sets off out of his tunnel towards the Tauranga RSA, it's on, and the outlook is always a long winter of discontent. He's not looking for his own shadow, though; he's checking the ground for vipers.

Labour thinks it's struck gold with its extension to working for families; the ones who have struck gold are the families that the childless are now working for. Labour seems to have found a bunch more money than it had in May, and perhaps that's just because Michael Cullen is eyeing up the tax-receipts for sales of my new co-authored book, Public Addresses: the Comprehensive New Zealand Paedophiles and Bloggers Register. I'm so tired of Cullen's greedy glances I'm suffering from sleep deprivation - just like a working for families recipient, because a family on $100,000 per year is only impoverished in its dreams.

So now the campaign has started, although it's hard to hear over the whining of the New Zealand Party ex-members retirement village, Sir Humpties (the sign at the gate says, "Warning: Some Mature Malcontent") and the teenage recriminations of the left-wing blogosphere who insist on playing in Humpties' yard. They're more hysterical than Michael Cullen's wife at a Radio New Zealand economic debate.

A word to you pretenders. Jordan Carter, you think you can play a joke on your readers by impersonating a shrill, over-sensitive hypocrite left-winger? The joke is on you, but it's on your commentors too – the joke is written over you all like you were the crepe paper in a Christmas cracker. And just like crepe paper, you tear up easily, you little cry-babies. Spend some time on the issues, chumps, like Neil Falloon does.

Some in the media say Don Brash was wrong not to hit Helen Clark when she spoke to him out of turn in the TVNZ debate, but he's a gentleman and he did the right thing. We're living in a police state where even the police get convicted to cover Helen Clark's tracks, which are burned on the road in tyre-rubber.

Do you like that line? Jam Hipkins helped me out with it, the same way he helped out Brent Todd with a few lines before going on-stage at the Nats' campaign launch and making fun of the way local politicians’ names sound. I'm kidding – Brent Todd wasn't at the launch, and Hopkins was only getting high on David P-dealer Farrar’s adulation.

Farrar was live-blogging the whole event and then backed it up by live-blogging Business NZ’s forum on Wednesday, and he thinks he’s ubiquitous. He’s a sell-out. Here at DogBitingMen over the next three weeks we’re live-blogging life. Live. And if I’m too absorbed in my work to notice the Conservative Underground media motorcade getting up past 170kmph, it’s too bad for anyone in our way, because Ian Wishart drives like a madman and he’s still only had half a glass of red wine over lunch.

Start the election.

Jury News

2005-07-20T06:17:00.000+12:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes...

I'm surprised by the repeated media opportunities afforded the wife of a convicted rapist to rail at her husband's jury. There's heaps of examples to choose from. The most recent was the Sunday Star Times front page: Wife of rape accused stands by her man.

It was followed by a strange feature article that used experts to guess at what the jury was thinking, despite the fact that some evidence remains suppressed.

Why is it that we're hearing so much from this woman? Why, a week after the trial ended, did one newspaper decide she was deserving of the front page? From their treatment of this woman's views, you would think that it was unusual for families of convicted criminals to continue to believe in their man (or woman).

Surely that's not the case. Isn't this woman responding to the conviction just as hundreds of other spouses do every year? She's angry and hurt. Therefore she questions the entire system that found this man and his peers guilty of pack rape.

To me, it would only be unusual, unexpected and newsworthy if the family member declared, "I once believed in this man's innocence, but the fact that he's been found guilty by his peers has changed my mind."

Everybody has the right to question the outcome of a trial. That's a right we should defend.

But should this woman's opinion in itself be news? Again and again? And on the front page? It seems almost like we're only hearing from her because she's media savvy. Most other spouses in her position are not competent at working with journalists. She's literate, eloquent and middle-class.

Some journalists apparently only attended the defence's summing up. It seems interesting that the reporters who did attend every day don't seem to have engaged in the same second-guessing of the jury's motives as other journalists.

This case is made more complicated by suppression orders. The wife's name can't even be revealed. There are key details none of us know.

The twelve members of the jury are not allowed to respond. They sat through weeks of evidence in a gruesome pack rape trial. They cannot tell us how they reached their conclusion.

Should we now expect that every single spouse of every single convicted criminal will be given front-page treatment to criticise the jury?

Somehow, I don't think so.

Where have the bears gone?

2005-07-11T06:35:00.000+12:45

One of those conversations...

Olivia: So, are we still bloggers or not?

Neil: Is David P Farrar still a member of the Young Nats?

David: He's nearly 40. I'd really hope not.

Neil: It was a rhetorical question, along the lines of bears shitting in woods. The answer is 'of course!'

Olivia: But bears just don't shit in our woods any more. Russell Brown hasn't linked to us in weeks. Even Damian Christie hasn't mentioned us.

Neil: And you know how slutty Damian is with his links.

David: For God's sake, Neil. I'm sure you made that exact same joke the last time we had a group conversation. If not, the time before.

Neil: But it's still funny. Because it's so true. Slutty, slutty Damian.

Olivia: I was crushed that none of us were on that informative Simon Dallow live tax debate. Instead they chose to include the glamorous David P Farrar, the erudite David Slack, and the hard hitting Man Who Wrote A Letter To The Editor.

Ben: Murmur

Olivia: I think Ben is choking.

Ben: Mumble

David: No, he's trying to say something...

Ben: ...well guys ... Actually, Simon Dallow's producer, weak-chinned gay TV icon Simon Pound, called. He, uhhh, invited me on to that debate.

Olivia: And you said no?!

Ben: Ummmmm... I'm not really sure. I might have said no. Or I might have been overlooked for the glamorous David P Farrar.

David: I have to admit - and I have a queer eye for style - Farrar does have quite a mesmerising look.

Olivia: I like it how he took a fake flipper with him to the studio. That showed great class and humour.

Neil: It was like a wink to Russell Brown's beard and middle-agedness - a "don't take me too seriously" message for the kids.

Olivia: Speaking of which, did you see the Metro article by David Cohen about Russell Brown? My favourite bit - by far - was Fiona Rae glancing over at Russell "with slighly narrowed eyes."

David: I always thought David Cohen might be MediaCow. Him or Deborah Coddington...

Olivia: Anyway, are we still bloggers?

Neil: I think we could be if we wrote something. Ben, what's the most interesting thing that's happened to you recently?

Ben: I've been reading a collection of writing in Landfall, including this particular essay that's -

Olivia: - Don't lie. People don't do that.

Ben: Okay, okay. I watched a surreal episode of Beverley Hills 90210 this morning. An escaped lab dog named Rocky was living with the gang, but it had cancer. The gang debated about whether to stay by his side and comfort him, or leave him to rest. I would have thought having the cancer-ridden dog put down might have been another option worth exploring. But anyway, there was a poignant scene where one of the actors put his face near the dog and exclaimed "he's stopped breathing."

(Silence)

Olivia: That's just soooooooooooo sad.

Ben: Uhh, yeah.

Olivia: Ooooooooooooh! What about if we do one of those group conversation things again!

Ben: Those just descend into a list of bold names of people like Russell Brown, David P Farrar, Damian Christie, Simon Pound, and the Man Who Wrote A Letter to the Editor.

Olivia: Yes, and that's what I love about them! And let's remember to mention that Keith Ng. He's a star of morning television. Keith, the morning star. If we get it right, we can become a must-read of the congoscenti again - like Kevin List's "A Week of It" and David P Farrar's weblog.

Ben: I think you mean "cognoscenti".

Olivia: Perhaps.

Neil: So, we just say impolite things about other people.

Beautiful Olivia: It's important to also remember that we're trying to make ourselves sound good.

Ben: I worry we have a perception problem. The eight people who read our blog don't see the enormously constructive stuff we do. Like the column that we write for the NBR, our delightful emails to each other, or Olivia's volunteer work every Saturday morning. They may think all we do is snipe at other blogs. We used to be able to take the moral highground on account of how the rest of what we did was so good - but now we don't do anything else any more.

Neil: True. And at the risk of sounding as insightful as some of those we mock... much of what we now do is very self-referential.

Olivia: But this is really what having a weblog is all about, isn't it? We've cut the chaff, and now we're doing exactly what blogs are meant for. A blog is the safe refuge of the coward. It's the internet equivalent of looking at people "with slightly narrowed eyes."

Neil: Still, I guess we could try to do something to improve our image.

Ben: Guys, guys! Help me carry this poor cancer-ridden dog inside!

Stacey Thwarted

2005-06-17T07:13:00.000+12:45

MediaCow writes...

Readers of our last post about creative, inventive and special Stacey will be devastated on his behalf to learn that the narrow-minded souls at Trademe have removed his auction for tickets to his flat-warming.

Apparently TradeMe claim this auction breached their terms and conditions. It's not immediately obvious which one - and they didn't say before deleting the auction. Which is rather shoddy of them.

Poor Stacey. Let's hope Shizzle the greyhound has a good race this weekend.

All About Stacey

2005-06-15T07:30:00.000+12:45

David W Young writes...

Stacey is special. And not just because he has a girl's name, or because he's a morange.

I first met Special Stace in 1998 when we were neighbours in a dodgy set of apartments above MP Tukuroirangi Morgan's party offices in Frankton, Hamilton. Good times were had by all, especially Tuku.

In recent years, after escaping Hamilton and travelling the world, Stace has developed an interest in money.

First there was Shizzle. Shizzle is a greyhound. Stace controls the syndicate that owns and races Shizzle. This was his email looking for co-owners:

"Forget horse racing and the Melbourne cup. Hutt Park dog track and Shizzle on Trackside in the 6th is where the true excitement lies. Do your bit for the community and be the first dog racing supporter who isn't a problem gambler!"

Then Stacey discovered TradeMe. This was like Suzanne Paul discovering the formula to Natural Glow: he knew he would make (and probably lose) a fortune.

Stacey's first advertisement appeared designed to test the gullibility of his audience:

My house and surrounding shrubbery are infested with a particularly large and scary type of spider. I have a paranoid fear of spiders.

Also surrounding my house live a selection of native NZ skinks and geckos and a small kiwi named Jasper. I had heard Jasper at night and hoped he and the geckos would delivery a timely death to the hoard of arachnids about the property.

This has not occurred so drastic steps are needed. I need to purchase a very very large quantity of bug bombs. These aren't cheap and I'm broke.

Therefore I have captured Jasper and am offering him for sale. Reserve starts at $30 (3 bug bombs) and the final purchaser can also have a few gecko's thrown in. Purchase will have to be by pickup as I'm not too sure NZ Couriers deal in small flightless birds.

For those of you interested in Jasper's welfare, no I am not going to eat him (as damn good as roast as he looks like he'd make) and he is currently roaming free in the land around my property. He is easy to catch.

The advertisement was accompanied by a cute photograph of a kiwi.

Several thousand people looked at the auction during the four hours it was up. He received over 200 emails. Some were from taxidermists.

In the end a woman from Auckland clicked the "buy-now" price of $200 and said she would drive to Wellington the following day to collect Jasper. Stacey takes over the story-telling:

Due to the rampant gullibility and insanity of these people I altered the auction. I didn't want to sell a kiwi, merely the amusing idea, so needed a different approach. So I reposted the auction as not selling Jasper but selling "bags of kiwi feathers" harvested from Jasper, who would remain unharmed and happily living in my shrubbery, until I could come up with a better idea.

The auction was removed within an hour by Trademe, and resulted in a near-prosecution from DoC - who actually searched Stacey's apartment looking for Jasper.

So Stacey came up with "The Winston Peters Night Out"

The Auction was for an all-expenses-paid night in Wellington for two. The highlight was dinner at the Green Parrot, and transport would be provided by the same Somaili taxi driver Winston Peters once had an altercation with. (Resourceful Stacey actually tracked down the driver's company.)

This auction was removed by Trademe after about 30 minutes. Two other auctions - "an alibi valid for one year" and "the world's largest collection of stubbies" - sadly failed to reach their reserve.

Finally, Stacey has come up with an idea that DoC and Trademe aren't anxious to stamp upon.

He is auctioning off tickets to his flat-warming. It's this Saturday.

Stacey claims to have "a sophisticated and styley bunch of friends around the 22-32 age mark". I personally suspect this is false advertising. He says there will be 60-100 people attending. It will be, says Stacey, "FANTASTIC." He doesn't break out the capital letters for any old thing.

The theme is "Famous NZ'ers". Stacey would like to see people arrive as:

Precious Mckenzie
The Ingham twins
Tim Shadbolt
Mark Todd
True Bliss
Hudson and Hall
Lorraine Downs
Peter Plumley-Walker
Count Homogenised
Chloe from Wainuiomata
Tim Mckimm Big Save Furniture.

Stacey offers the Trademe winner:

Confidentiality on who you are and why you're there.This is perfect for lonely farmers or those with too little time and too much money.Perhaps you just need a weekend away in Wellington. Accomodation will be provided if you need it.

I promised Stace I'd link to his auction. So, go bid your way in. It'll be like old times. Except without Tuku.

Stacey's Auction of Tickets to His Flatwarming

Corrections and Clarifications, and all that that implies

2005-06-07T08:00:00.000+12:45

Ben Thomas writes…

Student reporter and internet diarist Keith Ng demands "satisfaction" after a mention of his weblog, Poll Dancer, in this week's Hive Mentality in the NBR (available now, not online).

As strange as it may seem from his two blog entries referring to us, the mention didn't refer to his dress sense, the publication he works for, or even his appearance. We like reading Poll Dancer. Sometimes we agree with Ng. Sometimes we don't.

Ng objects to our description of his tale of a specific instance of homosexuality in the National party as having "the odour of an urban legend". He had ostensibly recounted the story to argue that some topics should stay off limits from media speculation.

That some National MPs in the past, present and in the future may be, have been and will be gay is, as Ng acknowledges, banal (the word he was presumably searching for with when he said 'mundane'). But to use this as some kind of revelation in an online diary entry about suppression of information makes its use (Reporter Reveals Tory is Homo!) overblown and, like most banalities, cliched.

As we noted, this particular story can't be corroborated by parliamentary staffing records: No male National MP has had a male secretary for a considerable time. Ng responds: "The story of the MP with the secretary is rather dated". I first heard a similar story in 1998 as a University undergraduate in Auckland. Maybe it is the same story about the same MP. Or maybe these rumours are ubiquitous in every age. But an aspiring journalist like Ng might want a better source for his news than 'everyone just, like, knows'.

Particularly when using the alleged episode to illustrate how responsibly the Gallery wields its insider knowledge.

Ng states he needs to defend his honour, in light of his belief that "[Hive Mentality was] counting my words towards a 'vicious whispering campaign', with all that that implies."

The words "vicious whispering campaign" referred to a separate incident. However, if Ng's reportage was intended to illustrate a point rather than merely titillate, it seemed jarring to us that he chose to name the political party concerned. If salaciousness was not part of the piece's agenda, why even mention that the alleged secretary was male? (No National Party member opposed the CUB on the grounds that homosexuality per se was wrong, so the 'hypocrisy' argument seems odd. I'm straight and I supported the CUB; David's gay and he opposed it. That doesn't make us 'hypocritical').

Ng's claim that I dress poorly is at least verifiable and accurate. But he got scooped on that story years ago by Olivia Kember and David W Young.

The Big Apple

2005-06-03T07:36:00.000+12:45

Olivia Kember has just returned from New York...

There’s no point describing New York because it’s been done already already, over and over, in print, paint, film, pixels, for the delectation not just of all the poor barbarians who don’t have the fortune to live there but also for the New Yorkers themselves, who are obsessed with their own city.

All that attention, I think, must be to blame for a common Gothamist characteristic: everyone in the city who isn’t famous has to tell you about all the famous people they know. Immediately.

This is possibly a great big lie, because I was there for only five days (this was after I lost my boogie board bag) and I did only leave Manhattan once for lunch in a part of Brooklyn where the artists are being replaced by account managers... so I guess I may have failed to meet with a representative sample of the highly diverse population of eight million.

But still. Everyone I spoke to was terribly eager to reveal their close personal relationship with an MTV host, a designer of clothes for celebrity slappers, a pre-millennial newsreader, or Kylie Minogue. One man was so desperate to prove his connections he walked me round a bar and told me where all the celebrities usually sat, even though none of them was there. I have seen the imprint of B-list celebrities' rears.

The closest I got to celebrity (not counting pretending to be one by latching on to somebody prepared to pay entry to the VIP bar... in the darkness all VI bar-goers could easily pass as having a small role on a daytime soap, and they also have sufficient “complimentary” drinks and food to delude anyone into believing they’re important) was watching the paparazzi waiting for Gwyneth Paltrow. Sort of meta-celeb spotting.

And in respect to the great citizens of that great city, I’m going to tell you about it.

So, we were having lunch at a café across the road from her house, and there were about twenty cameramen (they were all men) lurking, eight on each side of the road with a few more amongst the traffic. While we tried to spin out small expensive salads, a limo arrived and all the photographers twitched. Some of them even stood up and took aim.
Oh, yeah, I know where she lives. Uh-huh.

Alas, it was only Gwyneth’s sister. She got out, crossed the road and went into the house. The photographers returned to the stoop, but with an added alertness. They even sat up straighter. We sat up straighter too, to be ready for whatever it was that was about to happen.

Passers by paused.

The traffic, intimidated by the cameras, slowed respectfully.

A cameraman edged out into the centre of the intersection, to get a prime view of Gwyneth’s front door. Then the door opened.

Gwyneth’s sister came out of the house again, and this time the paparazzi shot up, because she was carrying.. could it be? – baby Apple! At least I suppose it was baby Apple. It could have been a bag of fabric, but the photographers showed great interest in it, though they snapped and clicked with a slightly tragic air, since it wasn’t being held by Gwyneth.

The guy in the middle of the road ran right up to the pair to get his shot, and backed away again. Another person (perhaps a nanny, we deduced from our vantagepoint) came out. They crossed the road and got into the limousine. And then they drove away, with a few paparazzi trailing behind. And everyone went back to their normal lives, having almost seen Gwyneth Paltrow.

My other New York story involves fish in a bar, so I’ll save it for later.

Dr Cullen Kills An African Child

2005-05-20T07:44:00.000+12:45

I apologise sincerely to our readers for the fact that absolutely nothing has happened on this site for many weeks.

MediaCow is recovering from rectal examinations during an unfortunate-timed holiday to Waiheke Island.

David W Young and Ben Thomas have been busy writing their weekly column for the NBR. (This week's one is a good 'un. It's not online, so go spend $8.50 on a paper and then go to page 13).

Olivia Kember is on holiday in China with David P Farrar.

Speaking of which, while Farrar was engaged in nude snorkelling this morning, Olivia was staring at murky corners of the internet. She discovered a poll at some pinko blog called Aboutown. The poll asks "Who is the most annoying blogger?"

Unfortunately the Aboutown people mucked up the potential answers (just as they omitted the second T in their title). They forgot to put their own names under the question.

Seriously. The only thing worse than a blog that fails to update (like us) is one that updates far too often with absolute shite.

Since the Budget was read out in a monotone yesterday, we have been busy writing a letter to the child that DogBitingMen sponsors in Africa. We're trying to explain why we are not able to afford to sponsor his little brother until April 2008.

However, we are addicted to polls, and because we like using the word "Cresswell", we have taken time out to write a pundit's guide to the pointless Aboutown poll.

(To those of you who suspect this is self-indulgent and uninteresting: congratulations. You've finally worked out what blogs are about. Or at least ours.)

David Farrah

Reasons he is the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
The "cork counting" competition.
The quality of people who leave him comments.
His evil and dark moods in which he blogs as "Antarctic Lemur" (ostensibly Rodney Hide's illiterate little brother).
That photograph of the top of his head with devil's horns, and the unspoken but heavily implied meaning: he is a horny devil.
The inexplicable addictiveness of the site: we waste hours cramming our wee narrow minds with pointless stories about fictitious women named Miss Ten.

Reasons he is not the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
He is a better writer than Matt Nippert.
The "cork counting" competition was somehow compelling.
He is everybody's best friend.
Some people go to sleep with his blog loaded, just to feel like someone loves them.

Aaron Bhatnagar

Reasons he is the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
He keeps on picking on those poor Nigerians.
He won't quit banging on about the time the car drove into the house.
How is it that he was all ACT ACT ACT and then his friend Rodney became leader and now he's all National? Does he just like underdogs?
Those large vanity photographs are a bit much.

Reasons he is not the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
He sometimes changes his mind - he's less dogmatic than some.
He often changes his photograph. (This provides many of us with fresh material for the Spank Bank.)
Another reason? This anonymous comment, posted after Bhatnagar complained about boy racers: "I hardly think that Aaron is able to make a critical judgement... considering he was the most prolific "Boy Racer" at St Kentigern College in 1990's and was seen on numerous occasions speeding down Remuera road in his yellow Ferrari..." Weeee.

Peter Cresswell
Reasons he is the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
It's just his general... vibe.

Reasons he is not the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
We've never actually heard of him.

Ben Thomas
Reasons he is the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
He's such a perfect human being. That can be irksome for those of us who are not.

Reasons he is not the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
Nobody could vote for him. Could they?

Damian Christie:

Reasons he is the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
Have you met him? His chin is even weaker than Simon Pound's. And that's saying something.
He has been annointed by King Russell Brown.
Sometimes his 'blogs' are just copy-and-pastes from his newspaper column. We know this because they have "copyright" written at the bottom.
He is seemingly allergic to anybody with the same initials as him.

Reasons he is not the most annoying blogger in New Zealand:
He doesn't allow comments.
He is a self-described "media whore" which probably means has the clap, and we don't like to pick on sick people.
His opening gambit at school ("The name's Damian. But they call me 'Ice'. Because I'm cool. Like ice.") is so naff it is endearing.
He really, really wants to be the most annoying blogger in New Zealand. Or at least more annoying than David P Farrar.

There you go, folks. Go vote. Anything... to keep your minds off the little boy in Africa whom Dr Cullen has made to wait... and wait.

Anybody for Fish?

2005-05-13T06:28:00.000+12:45

Mr David Benson Pope

Mr Gormsby

From Radio New Zealand:
The Associate Education Minister, David Benson-Pope says allegations that he threw tennis balls at students when he was a teacher are ridiculous, and he refutes them. National's Judith Collins and ACT's Rodney Hide have used parliamentary privilige to make a series of claims about Mr Benson-Pope's behaviour when he taught at Dunedin's Bayfield High School. They included the claim that he tied a student's hands and jammed a tennis ball in his mouth as a punishment, and that he once smacked a pupil hard enough to make his nose bleed. Mr Benson Pope is describing the allegations as disgraceful.

From TVNZ’s webpage on 7 Periods With Mr Gormsby:
"Mr Gormsby is an out-dated, reactionary, racist, sexist teacher completely out of touch with educational theory in the second millennium. He defies the curriculum in every subject and is a disgrace to the profession.

From the Act party website:
David Benson-Pope is proving to be a disgrace as Associate Education Minister and should go back to trying to regulate fish.

Pictures by Hello

Foes of the World

2005-05-11T07:00:00.000+12:45

Ben Thomas writes…

Government departments have spent thousands since the early 1990s educating staff on proper terms of address for minorities. No longer was it acceptable to use traditional forms such as dwarves (“little people”), the disabled (“differently abled”) or even so obvious a fact as blindness (“vision impaired”).

This project has been derided by some as “political correctness” and defended by others as civility or politeness. Yet a new guide to youth language from the Ministry of Youth Development encourages us to refer to redheaded individuals as “gingas” or “moranges”. About bloody time, if you ask me. I hate those freaks.

A curious aesthetic fact is that, at the highest levels of their expression, it is impossible to tell the difference between beauty and virtue. Similarly, in their basest forms ginga-vitis and albinism become indistinguishable. Their washed out orangey-pink hues suggest equally gingas raised in an underground cave, or albinos left in the sun too long.

Still, I needn’t go on about my dislike of humanity’s carotein-enriched foes, or the despised sub-race of ging-binos. We now have an entire Ministry for that, apparently.

Although, ironically, before it took to codifying flame-haired unfortunates, the Ministry of Youth Development’s theme for Youth Awareness Week was ‘breaking down negative stereotypes’.

Ahem.

So Many of You, So Few of Us

2005-04-28T07:44:00.000+12:45

MediaCow writes to our dear readers…

We have had a posting hiatus at DogBitingMen. But we’ve not been idle. Nor have we done a Lindsay and stormed out of the “braindead” blogosphere.

We have actually been enjoying reading your own blog. No, really. We have.

Besides that, this is what we’ve been up to…

Olivia Kember has been involved in an all-consuming email discourse that started when she mentioned a celebrity’s name in passing during a former weblog posting. We’d link to it, but the emails are scary. Send more.

She has also been busy writing beautiful columns like this.

Ben Thomas has been falling down and getting up.

David W Young has been doing some odds and ends for this week’s New Zealand Listener (interview with Radio NZ political editor Kathryn Ryan and business column online, feature article on gay-parented families offline).

Mr Neil Falloon has been researching and writing a 22,000 word expose for Investigate Magazine on Russell Brown’s punk kid brother David Slack. Falloon, a widely-respected conservative blogger who recently found God, promises “nothing that you didn’t already know about Slack from his own columns and the revelations of the New Testament, but framed in a fresh, more offensive way.”

On Wednesday, Parenting Guru and Father To Everyone David W Young was a guest on Russell Brown’s Wednesday Wire radio show (95bFM), discussing gay-parented families.

Today Radio Personalities Ben Thomas and David W Young will appear with gay television icon, Simon Weak Chin Pound on bFM’s Thursday Wire, at around 12.15 (95FM for Auckland listeners, or live streaming on www.95bfm.co.nz).

(No, we don’t really expect you to listen. But it’s polite to tell you of these things.)

Tomorrow is a big day in the DogBitingMen calendar. Political columnist Ben Thomas and sidekick David W Young’s weekly column about politics will debut in the National Business Review.

On Saturday, television panelist David W Young will sit Eye to Eye with Willie Jackson (9 am TV One).

One day soon we will write something that is not crap. For you. Our dear readers. We would have done it today but we were obviously too busy blowing our own trumpets.

Trumpet.

Finally, an Explanation

2005-04-14T16:11:00.000+12:45

Olivia Kember realises...

So that's why our most senior policemen, working to protect the most important citizen in the country, with, presumably, the best technology available, have truncheons.

You’re Bored Because You’re Boring

2005-04-13T06:49:00.000+12:45

The writers of DogBitingMen take a long hard look at themselves…

Olivia: We seem to have gained the internerd equivalent of hate mail from last week’s flurry of postings where we attempted to emulate “ϋber-bloggers” by posting multiple times each day.

David: What’s “hate mail”?

Ben: It’s like fan mail but less accurate. Falloon, get ready to pen some angry correspondence to one Stephen Thomas Cooper.

David: What’s Stephen Thomas Cooper?

Neil: More importantly, what shall I skewer him on - his crappy journalism awards? The tabloid he works for?

Ben: Neither. This one is a Labour Party rube – a circus side-show frontbum of no consequence in the social democratic movement, let alone wider society.

David: Like Clayton Cosgrove?

Ben: Worse. I’m not sure Stephen Thomas Cooper is even an MP.

Olivia: We can hardly waste the fragile, unspoilt bandwidth of the internet on such a person.

Neil: If we were to go after nobodies, Cosgrove would start his telephone harassment campaign against us again.

David: I liked the time he called us to ask if our fridge was running.

Olivia: Anyway, who is everyone else criticising at the moment?

Neil: The Jewish community gets a lot of abuse.

David: When I was editor of a student rag, I wrote a story that exposed a Holocaust denier on campus.

Neil: Therefore your credentials for a volte face are impeccable. That's what you like doing, isn't it David?

David: That is the most amoral and unprincipled thing you have ever typed into a pretend-conversation. Using the poncy term “volte face” in italics does not make it any better.

Ben: Besides Neil, didn’t you learn from John Tamihere’s disgusting comments? Even Rodney Hide is apoplectic about them. On his vote-winning blog Rodney says Tamihere’s comments were “beyond the pale” and “a form of Holocaust denial”. Rodney says “he must resign now”. He’s even dredged up those “Maori Holocaust” comments Tariana Turia made in 2000.

Neil: At least he didn’t let it ruin his enjoyment of the Arms Fair the weekend before last. He was very chirpy holding a semi-automatic weapon in that photograph.

Ben: ACT exhibited at the Arms Fair in October last year, too – in fact, their table was opposite a prominent display of privately-owned Nazi memorabilia including flags, helmets and payslip books. I’ll bet that if that stand was there this year, or if Rodney was at the gun show in 2004, he would have given the stallholders a fiery piece of his mind.

Neil: Most certainly. A latter-day Simon Wiesenthal like Rodney would never stand for that sort of carry-on.

David: Although this is all very interesting in a mean-spirited and crude “guilt by association” sort of way, it doesn’t solve the problem of who we lash out toward.

Ben: What about the inscrutable Stephen Ching? What do we know about him?

Neil: Nothing that’s not potentially defamatory. The smart money says to wait for Keith Ng’s interview with him to be published. Or maybe the third part of Ian Wishart’s interview with Tamihere, if it exists – Ching is not popular with the Labour Party’s grass-roots organisation.

Ben: Or perhaps conservative blogger Aaron Bhatnagar will become the new Wishart and get the goods.

Neil: Is now a good time to mention the new weekly column about politics that debuts on Friday 29 April in the National Business Review?

Olivia: Do you mean the new weekly column about politics that debuts on Friday 29 April in the National Business Review with the double-banger byline of “David W Young and Ben Thomas”?

Neil: Why yes, that’s the exact new weekly column about politics that debuts on Friday 29 April in the National Business Review that I was talking about.

David: Ooh! That’s super. And rather handy, what with me leaving my day job and all that. So should I withdraw my application for an artist’s benefit then? Or do we do this one for free like blogging?

Olivia: Some people do blogging for free?

(Silence)

Ben: I liked writing book reviews. Maybe we don’t have to savage anyone.

Neil: We could review David Slack’s new book, and kill two birds with one stone.

Another one for the list

2005-04-06T07:59:00.000+12:45

Olivia Kember writes:

And another thing. Aja Rock should be banned. And if you know who she is, be very ashamed.

No More Gaps

2005-04-06T07:04:00.000+12:45

MediaCow writes:

Trawling around New Zealand blogs, we came upon this entry by Jordan Carter on his website 'Just Left':

I won't be commenting on the John Tamihere situation. Just in case you were wondering.
Like the Pope, Jordan Carter has delivered a cruel and distressing end to a period of intense concern and turmoil, during which we couldn't sleep through wondering What Would JC Say? At this difficult time, we wish to make clear seven ennumerated points:

1. We are bitterly disappointed that Jordan has chosen not to share with the world his views about John Tamihere. Because there's nothing more incisive than the analysis of a party hack.

2. We won't be blogging about it either. Just in case you were wondering.

3. Therefore we will not be referring to the rumour put about by some that says that Tamihere posed for 15 photographs after he took part in an interview that he wasn't sure was on the record. (We also won't acknowledge that we are confused by this story because the photographs in Investigate are credited to Fotopress.)

4. We will not be mentioning our visceral dislike of Investigate magazine which is revivalist crap apart from its book reviews.

5. We will not be saying "JT has been telling us these exact things off the record for years". Too many other people are doing that; it lacks originality.

6. We will not be passing judgment on the triumphant glee with which many in the right greet the downfall of someone who really is their ideological friend. And we'll refrain from pointing out that no party in parliament is likely to gain any votes from this debacle (other than, perhaps, the Maori Party).

7. But wasn't Muriel Newman hilarious on Eating Media Lunch?

I've Got Your Capill Right Here

2005-04-05T07:58:00.000+12:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes...

I think it is odd that many of the same people who complain about hate crime legislation (because a murderer being a bigot doesn’t make his crime any worse than that of a non-bigot murderer) seem to think that Graham Capill being a dickhead preacher makes his child abuse worse than garden variety child abuse.

“You do reap what you sow. Failure to take decisive steps while children are young and the consequences of their wrong doing are small, can lead to the ruin of that child's life. Children are too important to allow social engineers to "experiment" on the way children are brought up” – Reverend Graham Capill, leader of the Christian Heritage Party.

Reverend Capill's long-held (and oft-proclaimed) stance on moral issues makes his subsequent fall from grace not any worse, merely more bitterly funny.

He is a Presbyterian by conviction who attended an Anglican church because the Presbyterian Church had become too lax on moral issues. At the time he moved churches, a newspaper article shows that he rhetorically asked, “how is it possible for a Christian political party to uphold standards of morality in society, when the church stands by, and even promotes, false teachers and those who are sexually permissive?"

… the Christian politician must adopt the very highest ethical behaviour. The moment inconsistency is discovered, that will be the end of one’s impact. Actions speak louder than words. It is imperative that our message to the nations is backed up with a life that testifies to that. The politician’s life is under a microscope. Political opponents are looking for a mistake. Think what would happen if the Hon. Rev. Fred Nile was found engaged in some fraudulent practise, or caught in some immorality. His opponents would have a field day; the journalists would consider it a scoop! – Speech by Reverend Graham Capill.

Salty Liquorice

2005-04-05T07:33:00.000+12:45

The second in our series of literary-themed articles was written by David W Young during a brief stint in Copenhagen last year:

The people I'm staying with were kind enough to fill the bookshelves of my bedroom with their eclectic collection of books in English. I'm not a big fan of Danish television. After I get home on my bicycle in the evenings, whether its from work or a hygge Danish cafe, I like to read - accompanied, of course, by salty Danish liqourice.

I started by reading Christopher Isherwood's 'Tales from Berlin', which form the basis of the musical Cabaret. Wasn't everybody so polite in the 1920s? It's really quite lovely. It's just a pity they had to live through the 1930s next.

I then read 'The Great Gatsby' - F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel based upon the premise that the American dream had been corrupted by the desire for materialism. This was educational: I wasn't aware the American dream ever had any other components other than a desire for materialism.

Next up were the Harry Potter books and a collected volume of 'Lord of the Rings'. (Mr Neil Falloon, a self-proclaimed "book snob", insists that I include the following: "The only thing worse than adults reading fantasy novels written for children is the same people reading fantasy novels written for grown-ups. The term 'book' is technically incorrect for this medium - the fact that Harry Potter stories have many pages and professional binding does not mean they are 'books' any more than dressing a monkey in a tuxedo means it is a man.")

Now I'm running out of choices on the bookshelf. There's one intriguing little self-help book called 'If Life is a Game, These are the Rules', which I've steered clear of.

So I'm reading a complete compendium of Sherlock Holmes short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sherlock really is a most annoying bugger.

Every bloody time he meets somebody, he immediately says something like: "I note that you came from the East in a buggy, and that you spent a lot of time typing today, although it is hard on your eyesight."

There is a pause, and then the person says, "why yes, you're exactly right, but however did you know that?"

And Sherlock explains how the three symmetrical dots of mud on the subject's trouser legs, the pinched nose and shiny shirt cuffs tell the whole story. (And when there's absolutely no human way he could know something, Sherlock resorts to: "As you know, Watson, I just wrote a paper on the shape of hats/the ashes of differentcigars/the paw prints of mongooses/the callouses on workmens' hands".)

I wish, just once, the person being examined would tell him to piss off. Sherlock is just a show off. He's a coke-addicted, closeted homosexual with one little party trick.

If Sherlock met me today, I have no doubt that he would say: "You come to Denmark from the Southern Hemisphere and you're getting used to riding a bike, although you're not excellent at it yet. You live in a house with a young child and three cats. You have poor lighting in your bedroom, your office chair does not meet OSH standards, and you do not find me amusing."

Watson, the dumb bugger, would say (despite having spent the majority of his post-soldier life tagging along with Sherlock): "Ho!" (He always says 'Ho.') "Ho! Holmes, what is your reasoning?"

And Sherlock would say: "Elementary, my dear Watson. You see it all before you, yet you do not understand." (He's an arrogant tosser, too). "Look at the big pores on his skin and his frizzy hair - he's obviously adapting to a new climate. I deduce that he therefore comes from the Southern Hemisphere. The wear on his jeans shows that he has started riding a bike recently, and the three mud splatters on his shoes shows that he hurtles through puddles - not something an established rider would do. His eyes show signs of tiredness - there must be a child where he dwells that wakes him each day at 5.30am (I have recently conducted a study on the bags under mens' eyes). And there are clearly three different types of cat-hair on his Robyn Matheson jersey."

"His eyes are reddened, so clearly he reads each night in poor light, and theway he stretches his neck shows that he spends a lot of time sitting in an uncomfortable seat."

And Watson will say: But how do you know he doesn't find you amusing?

"Coz he just punched me in the mouth."

Ho.

Please Ban the Following

2005-04-04T07:55:00.000+12:45

The 27 true authors of DogBitingMen write:

Hello Fu*kface.

We know that our elaborate pseudonyms of "Olivia Kember", "David W Young", "Neil Falloon" and "Ben Thomas" fool nobody. It is no secret that we are in truth a cabal of 27 socially and economically liberal homosexual men striving to create a more morally permissible environment for sin. That is our agenda.

Sometimes, though, we forget our principles and advocate the use of the state's monopoly to stop people from doing things we disapprove of. (We call these our Muriel Phases. Named after nobody in particular). This urge to ban certain activities comes to us particularly during election years, when our influence in national affairs peaks (we are after all "opinion leaders" and an organised block of swinging voters in the highest income bracket.)

Here is a suggested platform for politicians desperate for votes.

We will vote for you if you ban the following:

- use of the term 'MSM' to mean 'mainstream media'.

- digs at Australia.

- young people at bowling clubs. (Includes people who are young at heart. Which, incidentally, is how we delicately refer to Russell Brown.)

- references to women loving shoes. Especially by women who proclaim to love shoes.

- monosyllabic Auckland restaurants - Red, Live, White, Rice, Fish (although it must be acknowledged that this is a slight improvement on single Italian word Auckland restaurants - Rocco, Bella, Andiamo, Prego, Aquamatta, Estasi, etc.

- anyone in the media using the word 'bling'.

- "irony" - not actual irony but 99% of the things that people think are "ironic". Summed up in the painfully try-hard little brother ad on bfm for the painfully ironically named kidswear line called "little shit". In the ad, the kid says to his father, "dad, can't you be more ironic?". There are also little shit posters which should be banned. Not because showing a young kid smoking is immoral, but because they're so self-consciously smartarse they make us spew.

- references to the Pope's urinary tract. These produce a difficult mental image.

- the entire town of Wanganui, including mayor Michael Laws. We've had enough of all of you. Just piss off and get out of our newspapers.

- moral panic about a child stealing a bottle of Coke from a dairy. What do the politicians expect - that the Armed Offenders' Squad will beat the kid to a pulp?

- the word "shrill" to describe the quality of debate against the position you hold yourself. It's so last week.

- bloggers thinking they are media. The gossipy old woman in our staff lunch room doesn't consider herself media, even though she reaches as many people as half the bloggers in New Zealand and also addresses interesting subjects ranging from what the government is doing wrong to what she plans on having for dinner (she is almost as prolific as New Zealand's uber-bloggers).

- slutty outfits on children. One primary school-aged girl was seen with a teeshirt that said, "I've lost my keys. Can I borrow yours?" That child's parent has failed as a human being. When we were growing up, "inappropriate childrens' clothes" meant that they had been made out of curtains by Julie Andrews. Now it means your daughter dresses like a streetwalker.

Please note that we have not finished banning things yet. We will be back later with more things to ban. Banning things is fun.

Fresh Tendrils

2005-04-04T07:31:00.000+12:45

Ben Thomas writes the first part of a supposed DBM series (soon to be forgotten) of literary reviews...

I have been reading books from the Library. This is a magnificent building in the middle of Auckland that gives you books which you do not pay for, so long as you undertake to return them once their purpose is used and spent. Freed from the confines of ownership and its attendant responsibilities, I brought home a stack of texts on Saturday and spent much of the weekend juggling them and hurling them into walls to see what sound they would make. It was a true tragedy of the commons type situation.

Thomas Pynchon is a great and mysterious writer. He has won various prizes for his mammoth, impenetrable post-modern novels such as Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49. He has never, over the course of a 40 year publishing career, given an interview or been photographed. An article in Time in 1978 says one self-proclaimed college colleague of Pynchon's, 20 years previous, recalls that he was a lean man who ate spaghetti and soda pop for breakfast, and may have majored in physics or literature.

Anyhoo, I picked up a short story collection, Slow Learner, from 1984 (the stories were written much earlier) which has the only introduction ever written by Pynchon for his work. In it, he reflects:

"I will spare everybody a detailed discussion of all the overwriting that occurs in these stories, except to mention how distressed I am at the number of tendrils that keep showing up. I still don't know for sure what a tendril is. I think I took the word from T S Eliot.... My specific piece of wrong procedure back then was, incredibly, to browse through the thesaurus and note words that sounded cool, hip, or likely to produce an effect, usually that of making me look good, without then taking the trouble to go and find out in the dictionary what they meant."

How can we parody this?

2005-03-31T07:24:00.000+12:45

Mr Neil Falloon simply retypes something a reader emailed us...

At Kiwiblog, David P Farrar has published his 10 "lessons of life". Lesson number eight is:

Be careful of how you label names in your cellphone: Twice I have rung what I thought was a friend inviting her out, and only after I finished the invite had I realized I had phoned my ex girlfriend of the same first name who now thought I wanted to get back together with her

Let's see if we have got this straight.

David P Farrar (see image) has so many female friends and exes that many of them share the same small pool of names.

Owing to the popularity of certain names, on at least two occasions he goes to call a friend and accidentally calls an ex.

Somehow he doesn't recognize the ex's voice.

Even during the requisite chitchat (asking after her health, etc) he still doesn't recognize her voice.

He asks her out. She presumably accepts.

Then the penny drops!

So he has to cancel.

Is she worried?

No, of course not. She wants to get back together with the man who works 130-hour weeks and has five hours free for his girlfriend.

Now we understand.

Do Not Feed

2005-03-30T18:26:00.000+12:45

Olivia Kember proclaims...

I lose pieces of paper, so this seems the safest option: I hereby declare that should I be reduced to a persistent vegetative state I want my feeding tube taken out. Swelpmegod.

Good God

2005-03-21T06:27:00.000+12:45

Olivia Kember crosses herself and then writes...

Brace yourselves – I’ve decided to get chummy with God. If you’re intentionally reading this – rather than coming to the page by mistake looking for dogs or men or Jim Hopkins - there’s a good chance you’re an urban agnostic who finds serious mention of a deity in rather bad taste. But after watching yet another sideshow from our local greasy televangelist I’m finding the Destiny brand of Christianity worse than tasteless; I think it’s disturbing. A Powerpoint presentation that draws a line from God to Brian Tamaki via Jesus is funny. But 7000 people believing it – that’s dangerous. So I’ve decided not to let God get claimed by the fringes. It’s bad enough that family values, most of which we can all agree on, has become a rallying cry for the bigoted and the fearful. They’re not getting God too.

Even if I don’t believe in him terribly much, I don’t want him on their side. I want him somewhere in the middle, reclining divinely in the middle of the road or hovering above the fence. I want him neutralized.

Some time when I was in school I realized that among my friends the only people who could be safely mocked were fat people and Christians. We weren’t racist, we weren’t really sexist, we were vaguely into Buddhists and Ba’hais and anything exotic, but we found the idea of believing in God - particularly one who required acts of obedience we saw as nothing more than inconvenient - ridiculous. We lumped all shades of Christianity together, demonstrating the same simplistic view that we accused them of. It was of course the 1990s, when ironic self-consciousness was the desired pose, and Christians, with their unfashionable sincerity and humourless principles, seemed as dated as telephones with dials and similarly doomed to the rubbishpile.

Well, we got that one wrong. The Destiny gang are still a small minority, and some of them look as if it’s as much as they can do to walk and chant at the same time. But you have only to look at the United States to see how a fringe movement can take over the mainstream. The religious Right is setting the agenda - from persuading Bush voters that the entire US election was about gay marriage to curricula supporting “intelligent design” instead of evolution. Anyone who disagrees is stigmatized as the “liberal elite”.

If Hillary Clinton now finds it necessary to tell everyone at every opportunity how she is “a praying person” - and the Clintons’ ability to sniff the winds of political change is positively rodentlike – we can safely assume God isn’t getting out of politics any time soon.

Democrats have realized too late that to have any chance of winning in the future they need to close what’s been catchily termed the “God gap”. They need to get onside with Jesus. After all, they’re supposed to be about poor people and so was he. But Jesus was an eloquent iconoclast with humble transport, doubtful company and a message of love – not really ministerial material. Especially when political Christianity equates to little more than simplistic rants about how we’re all going to hell in a handcart.

By the way, a Google search of “Destiny Church” and “poverty” (which I admit has all the scientific value of the Stuff poll) produces a cassette tape called “Poverty a satanic viper” (lack of punctuation theirs), available at www.destinychurch.org.nz for $NZ7 alongside similar items with titles like “Exposing the spirit of whoredom” and “Identifying demons”. The only times “Brian Tamaki” appears anywhere near “poor” are in descriptions of people getting rich through “the Tithe principle”.

If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. And if people are so ready to believe they’ll turn to Brian, or Kabbalah, or Scientology, I say, bugger the Enlightenment. Reason is so last century. If you really want to make your point, if you are that keen to win followers and influence people, either get God or start your own religion.

Wedge Politics

2005-03-16T07:13:00.000+13:45

Ben Thomas writes…

Below is a piece written for Craccum, the University of Auckland student magazine, about the Tim Selwyn sedition case.

It is reprinted here for two reasons: at the bottom were contact details if you wish to become involved, handing out the disputed “seditious” material at the District Court in Auckland at midday tomorrow (Thursday 17 March), to protest the charges under such an archaic law. If anyone wants to be involved, or if any media types would like a seditious soundbite, email dogbitingmen@gmail.com for contact details.

Secondly, according to one source, a man protesting at Prince Charles’ visit in Auckland last week was arrested on suspicion of, that’s right, sedition (just as the Monarchist League suggested). Which means that we have gone from no arrests for sedition in 80 years, to two arrests in 80-years-and-three-months. Thin end of the edge, anyone?

(It’s not clear whether the charges were dropped after the guy was released from holding cells, but in any case this demonstrates the following article's eery Cassandra-like prescience in warning of such vaguely defined laws being used to “harass political opponents or nuisances”).

Acknowledgements to No Right Turn for the exhaustive and excellent research.

Ben Thomas wrote…

On 18 November an axe was lodged in the window of Prime Minister Helen Clark’s Sandringham Road electorate office. After an anonymous tip-off to a radio station, flyers were found on the corner of Ponsonby Road which purported to explain the attack. The flyers said the axe was a protest against “the Government's attempts to steal, by confiscation, Maori land in the form of the Seabed and Foreshore Bill”. A group of “concerned Pakeha” claimed responsibility, and called on “like-minded New Zealanders to take similar action of their own”.

In December, Auckland man Tim Selwyn was arrested and later charged with making a seditious statement, seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to commit criminal damage.

Whatever one thinks of Selwyn (a student media and C4 enfant terrible), or the axe through Clark’s window, or any possible connection between the two, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned that Police have resurrected the long-dormant offence of sedition.

Although media interest has focused on the literal hatchet job in November, the more sinister sounding charges of sedition actually relate to the leaflets Selwyn is alleged to have authored. Writing political flyers may land Selwyn, who appears in Court to plead this Thursday, a two year prison term.

A seditious intention is defined in section 81 of the Crimes Act as intending:

- To “bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection against, Her Majesty, or the Government of New Zealand, or the administration of justice”;
- To “incite the public or any persons or class of persons to attempt” to change the laws of the country by unlawful means;
- To “incite, procure or encourage violence, lawlessness or disorder.”
- To “excite such hostility” between “different classes of persons as may endanger the public safety”.
- To “incite, procure or encourage the commission of any offence that is prejudicial to the public safety or to the maintenance of public order.”

On the face of it, these seem like reasonable prohibitions. Nobody likes “hatred or contempt”, particularly the Queen, who is even quite bothered by “impoliteness” (not yet a criminal offence).

But the seditious offences don’t prohibit otherwise lawless behaviour. The reason certain actions are lawless, after all, is because there are already laws forbidding them. See: assault; see: murder; see: throwing axes through windows. Each of these is a crime in and of itself.

Sedition, on the other hand, outlaws the idea of these offences, and outlaws ideas which may be uncomfortable to the government of the day. The seditious intentions are framed in language sufficiently broad that in fact what is prosecuted as seditious can be anything that the authorities (in this case police and courts) do not approve of.

It is not treason. Treason is a separate, very serious, offence under the Crimes Act, which involves taking concrete steps to overthrow the government by force.

Sedition is a thought crime. Criminal sentences of up to two years in prison attach to not only anyone who makes a seditious statement, but anyone who publishes the statement, or even reproduces it in print (like a newspaper, or, er, website).

The left wing website No Right Turn has compiled examples of previous prosecutions under the sedition laws in New Zealand:

- In 1921, a 19 year old University student, for possessing a Communist newspaper (she was also known to associate with “anti-militarists and revolutionaries”).
- Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana, who allegedly said in 1916 he had influenced 1,400 of his tribe not to enlist, and that “This country belongs to us the Maoris.”
- Bishop James Liston who, during an address in Auckland on St Patrick’s Day 1922 about Irish independence, made the mistake of detailing the numbers of his countrymen killed by the English (and New Zealand) Crown.
- Future Labour Prime Minister Peter Fraser, for calling for an end to conscription in 1916, and saying “For the past two years and a half we have been looking at the ruling classes of Europe spreading woe, want and murder over the Continent, and it is time that the working classes of the different nations were rising up in protest against them.”
- Harry Holland, President of the Labour Party between 1919 and 1933, was convicted in 1913 for leading a strike and encouraging employees to down their tools.

The salient feature of this potted history is that none occurred in what could fairly be described as recent times. Charges under sedition laws, as Selwyn pointed out to TV3 News, are a feature of wartime governments. They have also, ironically, been leveled mainly at Labour movement leaders (Helen Clark has often described Peter Fraser as the politician she most admires). And, less ironically, Maori rights activists.

Come back fashions, such as new wave 80s music and police-state style oppression, catch on fast. The Monarchist League recently issued a press release suggesting that anyone who advocates republicanism (that is, excites disaffection against Her Majesty) may be guilty of sedition. And technically they are right.

South Island bar owners who called upon other publicans to ignore the smoking ban are potentially guilty, as are Maori independence supporters, and countless talkback callers, and letters to the editor writers who venture an opinion inconsistent with the political status quo.

Many political texts, for example the Communist Manifesto (required reading for Politics 109), contain seditious statements (Marx believed bloodless revolution was impossible). Prosecution against Karl Marx is obviously impracticable, but prosecution against UBS, which sells copies for $8.95, would be entirely consistent with the charges that have been laid against Selwyn.

While this may seem laughable, six months ago it would have seemed laughable to suggest that archaic laws would be revived to punish leaflets opposing an unpopular government bill and calling for peaceful civil disobedience.

Ideally, the Court will throw out the charges, on the grounds that political expression under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1986 cannot be seditious (as when, last year, a school teacher was found not guilty of “disrespecting the flag” when he burned one during an anti-war march in Wellington).

So long as the law remains, the problem is not solved. Even a prosecution doomed to failure can be used to harass political opponents or nuisances – Tim Selwyn’s bail conditions constitute a semi-house arrest, with no hope of a substantive trial for months.

The only solution is for the sedition laws to be repealed. A protest is planned outside the District Court on Albert Street this Thursday, handing out its own seditious leaflets to the public to expose the hypocrisy of what is an outmoded, unjust and unevenly applied law. For more information email dogbitingmen@gmail.com

The text of Selwyn’s leaflet:

Confiscation Day

This morning concerned Pakeha vented their anger and disgust at the Government’s attempts to steal, by confiscation, Maori land in the form of the Seabed and Foreshore Bill that is currently being disgracefully rammed through Parliament as part of a desperate back-room deal.

By attacking the electorate office of the chief instigator, the Prime Minister – who is due to abandon the mess she created by fleeing the country today – we signal that a threshold has been crossed.

The broken glass symbolises the broken faith, broken trust and shattered justice, our axe symbolises the steadfastness of our determination.

The ruthless Prime Minister will leave behind a vindictive law that will haunt this nation should the M.Ps be mad enough to pass it. Maori M.Ps complicit in this farce will never live down their betrayal.

If this is destined to be Confiscation Day, then we have marked it.

We call upon all like-minded New Zealanders to take similar action of their own to send a clear message that such a gross, blatantly racist injustice to the Maori people will never be accepted.

Ake! Ake! Ake!

A New (Stolen) Feature

2005-03-07T07:05:00.000+13:45

Neil Falloon writes nice things about everyone…

A while ago, David Priapus Farrar promised a new feature on his weblog, Kiwibog: I am going to blog party by party what I like or admire about each MP in that party. It does not mean I endorse them, or that I ignore their misdeeds, but that most MPs are decent people doing the best job they can, and have some good qualities about them.

Sadly, since that wild, love-filled promise DPF has run out of time and energy. Also, the party pills have worn off and he has realised that nobody has anything at all to say about the United Future, Labour and New Zealand First backbenches, let alone anything nice.

To adopt a Kiwibogism, David P Farrar is a "very, very good friend of mine". I'd like to help him out. But I don't do nice. And if you think I’m going to waste a day writing pap about Craig McNair and Dave Hereora, you haven’t been paying attention.

At heart, MPs are almost all identical. There is no point going on about them. It is the ordinary party members that tell you far more about each party.

So here’s the only realistic Guide to the Political Party Membership you’ll see this election year. It's based on real-life people. (My other very, very good friend Damian Christie said he would be delighted to name names when he appears at the Public Address/Nescafe Big Blend 2):

ACT: The archetypal ACT supporter is much like the archetypal NZ First supporter except that, what the latter blames on foreigners, beneficiaries and homosexuals, the ACT supporter blames on the government. (Which, he will confide, is a well-organised network of homosexuals working to further the interests of beneficiaries and immigrants.)

National: The classic National Party member is almost thirty, white and “comes from good stock”. His (fellow National Party) mates complain that he is “pussy-whipped” by his wife - he rarely goes out. Sometimes he yearns for the Tui-fuelled days when he obtained a Bachelor of Arts, the beginnings of a beer gut, and joined the Young Nats. He and his wife are planning their first child. Before he married, the conservative National Party member once got drunk and told me his biggest fantasy: "Getting f***** up the a*** by my girlfriend with a strap-on". Now that is National Party, through and through.

New Zealand First: The archetypal New Zealand First voters are the grandparents of the young man who wants to get rogered by his missus. They don't mind Indians so long as they are taxi drivers, and don't mind Asians so long as they stay in Asia. Granny has been known to linger over a photograph of that young, handsome Winston Peters in a similar way to weblog readers linger over photographs of Olivia Kember.

United Future: The classic United Future voters didn’t actually join United Future until just after the last election. They are a politically naive Christian couple, distinguished from Destiny Churchgoers by having gay friends, or at least a loving lesbian aunt. Swayed by the worm just before the last election, they can't remember what Peter Dunne said or stands for but liked his manner and cheeky bow tie collection. Have since let their membership lapse.

Labour: The archetypal Labour Party member is an early twenty-something homosexual man or heterosexual woman (it would be rude to ask). He or she is not Maori, but this is not through lack of trying. Unlike most people the same age, the Labour party member spends their youthful passion and fiery intensity doing everything they can to defend the status quo and justify the actions of the powerful. But like others of their age, they too are faced with uncertainty and a lack of direction – not knowing what the future holds or, at the very least, how to kill the five years between finishing an MA in politics and standing as a Labour MP in a safe seat. Like most before, s/he will settle on teaching.

Progressive: The archetypal (and lonely) Progressive Party supporter’s name is Matt Robson.

Maori: See Green

Green: Wears a large bone carving pendant and a Tino Rangatiratanga tee-shirt. (Distinguishable from Maori Party supporters because Maori Party supporters are actually Maori.) The archetypal Green Party supporter’s pastimes include saving Tibet, whales, the sanctity of the uterus, native bush, and anything threatened by the hegemony of any group big enough to have hegemony. The archetypal Greenie has no coherent policies to improve either the education or health systems, but is convinced that capitalism has ruined both. Likes to f*** some s*** up.

What do you really mean?

2005-02-22T07:08:00.000+13:45

Mister Neil Falloon writes progressively, with liberal, gay abandon....

ACT social welfare spokesman and amateur etymologist Dr Muriel Newman has started a new campaign. Her goal: ” to end political correctness as we know it”.

One could simply cynically write off Newman’s new PCFreeNZ ‘campaign’ as a blatant election-year ploy to raise her profile with ACT voters who will soon decide the order of the party’s list. But let’s take Dr Newman at face value.

Her PCFreeNZ campaign comes complete with a website (yes, it's taxpayer-funded, for those who enjoy noting such things). There are even tee-shirts for sale from Dr Newman’s husband Frank. (A quick question: why is a man’s shirt $10 cheaper than a woman’s?)

Dr Newman’s primary concern is that “certain words have been hijacked - stolen from our English language heritage - for political gain. It is not hard to see the objective here, creating a new veneer of legitimacy for what [sic] a failed social, economic and political philosophy.”

Dr Newman provides examples:

Think about the word "Liberal", which used to mean 'Libertarian', but is now often misused to mean 'Socialist'. "Gay" used to mean 'Happy', but is now 'Homosexual'. "Progressive" was symbolic of economic and technical advancement, but is now applied to those espousing the collectivist ideals - and 'progress' toward them.

Yes. Let’s think about the word ‘Liberal’. It did not mean ‘Libertarian’ when it was first used as a noun in a political sense by the editors of the Spanish constitution of Cadiz in 1812: they were not trying to install Lindsay Perigo as president, but simply opposed the absolutist power of the Spanish monarchy. Today there are many strains of philosophical thought laying claim to the mantle of the original 19th century Enlightenment doctrine, from American liberalism to neo-liberalism. Dr Newman’s desire to eradicate some definitions of the word seems just a little authoritarian.

What about Dr Newman’s other examples?

Well, perhaps political correctness started earlier than the MP suspects: the word ‘Gay’ has had a sexual meaning since at least the nineteenth century, and possibly earlier. In Victorian England, female and male prostitutes were called "gay" because they dressed in bright, happy clothes. Eventually "gay" became a term for any male homosexual. In the United States, the term may have arisen from the hobo community: a young hobo, a "gay cat", often had to befriend an older more experienced hobo for education and survival. Such a relationship was implicitly sexual, hence the term "gay cat" came to mean "a young homosexual".

Then there's the word 'Progressive'. Dr Newman seems to have genuinely never heard of the Progressive movement in United States politics, or the (admittedly short-lived) political party by that name. Let’s not disturb her tranquility.

Dr Newman’s PC campaign is about more than just words. She recently expressed her outrage when a newspaper article pointed out (in a very tabloid manner) that some early childcare centres no longer provide playdough because some cultures, including Maori, consider playing with food inappropriate. Dr Newman wrote:

“In the playdough case, political correctness has been used as a weapon to silence and intimidate opposition. By claiming the use of food in play is culturally offensive to Maori, [they...] can call anyone who speaks out in opposition, a racist. It is a classic example of the modern-day tyranny that is constantly being wreaked by minority groups over the majority of New Zealanders, through the use of political correctness.”

Muriel is not a racist but nor, it seems, is she a close-reader. She appears to have missed the principle of the story. The playdough incident shows that individual childcare centres, run autonomously by boards elected from the parents of attending children, are doing exactly what a freedom-and-choice-loving party like ACT should hope for: responding to individual community needs.

It would be a completely different story if the government issued a blanket order to every school or kindergarten saying Thou Shalt Not Play With Food. But that’s not what is happening. Some independently-owned (so-called ‘for profit’) early childhood centres have implemented the same policies. This is an example of communities choosing the environment in which their own children will be educated. Another name for this sort of activity? School Choice.

Sure, the communities involved have different values from Dr Newman. But it’s a bit rich to prize Freedom and Choice only when people make the same choices that you would.

This drama has been played out before. Let's flashback to an ACT national conference from many years ago. The crowd applauded a highschool principal who said that “there is no such thing as ‘Maori science’, there is only science". Yet at the same conference, a focus group on education was incensed that Christian parents had to fund schools that dismissed out-of-hand Biblical creation myths. They were enraged because “parents should be allowed to choose” the education their children received.

There is a tension within ACT - an undercurrent of unresolved conflict between competing claims. One might be tempted to say “a dialectic”, but then one might be accused by PCFreeNZ of being a communist sympathiser.

It seems odd that the campaign 'against political correctness' has been chosen as a personal platform in an election year. In many ways it highlights a gap between the conservative beliefs of Dr Newman and those officially espoused by the party.

The Institute for Liberal Values (a ‘classical liberal’ thinktank with Rodney Hide on its board of directors) wrote last year that Dr Newman was “the most hard core conservative in the ACT Party caucus”. Some might suggest Stephen Franks should hold that title. Regardless, the Institute says of Dr Newman, “this basically means she is a member of a party that stands opposed to her own basic ideology.”

In fact, Muriel’s repeated invocation of “liberal” and “choice” to further her own (opposed, and very basic) ideological position could itself be characterised as doublespeak.

These arguments always tend to degenerate into discussions of who is being more petty and unreasonable. But a rule of thumb is that the benefit of western society and enlightenment is we can choose what we are going to do within very broad parameters, but that also includes choosing not to do things.

Perhaps the problem is one of perspective. The Western philosophical and cultural tradition which Dr Newman wishes to see defended against the barbarism of 'political correctness', is distinguishable as an entity in toto from edible children's putty. The corollary of being able to choose to do things is the right to choose not to do things.

Perhaps Muriel and her conception of Western enlightenment need to be reminded, like some kindergarten children, that just because you have some playdough, you don't need to put it in your mouth.

The Near Dismissal of Ben Thomas

2005-02-18T07:10:00.000+13:45

Everybody from DogBitingMen gets together for a chat…

Olivia: Ben...don’t take this personally, but we all have some serious concerns about your input to the site.

Ben: But I just wrote a three-fricking-thousand-word article about youth suicide that was well-argued and thorough, and even earned me a spot on the wireless talking as a pundit. And I “fisked” Rodney Hide but good, when he nodded off at Waiheke Island resort.

Olivia: Mmmmmmm, and that’s really… interesting. But – no offence, Ben - you are turning readers off. You’re dull. You're dreadful. You're killing our readership stats.

Neil: You’ve got to Dumb it Down, Ben. I should know – I work for Close Up at Seven as fluffer for Susan Wood. Speaking of which: we need a Poll Question. Something like: ‘Should a woman with a moko be denied 111 service?’

Ben: Our demographic doesn’t care about polls. They’re only interested in unmitigated wank about other bloggers. That brings us dozens of links and shoots our readership up by 400 percent. As Lindsay Perigo said, this format is braindead.

David: Perigo was talking about television. And he now works on the Holmes Show, tending saplings.

Olivia: There’s a moral there somewhere.

Neil: Lindsay’s an objectivist – he probably missed it.

MediaCow: I'm just a pseudonym, which is why I'm not talking.

David: Let’s be constructive. What can we publish that will bring punters running?

Neil: We could tell that brilliant story we heard about Dick Hubbard and his cereal company.

David: We’d earn the opprobrium of the National Business Review, whom I’m sure will run it eventually. I wonder what their headline will be: “We Told You So”?

Olivia: It’s careless use of words like “opprobrium” and "whom" that got us into this mess.

Neil: What about that saucy story we got emailed about SIS buggery?

Olivia: I think it was bugging. Or bungling. Bugling?

Ben: I’m surprised nobody’s suggested we publish unmitigated wank about other bloggers.

David and Olivia: That’s a brilliant idea, Ben!

(Ben cradles his perfectly sculpted head in his fine-boned hands and lets out an anguished sigh).

David: Let’s write about David P Farrar and Russell Brown!

(Neil quivers, just like Mayoress Hubbard, at the mention of the Kingpins of Kiwi Blogging)

Olivia: We could reveal that the P in David P Farrar stands for Priapus - I found that on the electoral roll. This was when I had inapprpriate feelings toward that little man. I went to great lengths to stalk him dressed as a schoolgirl, before discovering it was easier to check the online 10-minutely updates of his diet and movements.

David: So, let’s just steal the best bits from Farrar's Kiwiblog and Russell Brown's Public Address.

Olivia: The best part of KiwBlog was definitely the Count the Corks Game. That set the internet on fire.

Neil: I almost wet myself when I discovered that there were 392 corks! Here's how we could recreate the same buzz: we could take a picture of some grass and get people to guess how many blades there are!

Olivia: Nifty – the blog readers will love it!!!! We'll call it Tally The Tussock! But first we will need two more squares of grass, already counted, as a reference point for our readers. Ben, you like research, and don’t have an important job in television or communications...

Ben: But I'm the serious one...

David: Count the grass or we will expel you from the blog like Matt Nippert from a “no shoes, no service” bar. Now, we need to copy other masters, too. What is it that Russell Brown does best?

Neil: Humour

(Contemplative Silence)

Neil: Oh. Forget about him, then. That leaves New Zealand’s other great online humour site, the extremely mysterious damianchristiehatesnz.blogspot.com.

David: Nobody knows who is behind that site though, so it would be hard to plagiarise directly.

Neil: What about converting DogBitingMen into a livejournal?

Olivia: What the hell is a livejournal?

Neil: It’s like an online diary. People write about what they have done that day, how they are feeling, and how their latest roleplaying game adventure went.

Olivia: Like Philosophically Made? Or Constar?

Neil: No, those are “political blogs”. Livejournals are where you cry about how unloved you are and how crap your life is. Which of us should write the first depressing entry?

David: I am an award-nominated Listener writer and a highly-paid corporate communications manager.

Neil: I have three cars from Te Wananga O Aotearoa and I am New Zealand’s only world famous right-wing blogger.

Olivia: I am very, very pretty.

(pause)

Neil: Ben Thomas, stop counting that grass. And wipe that bloody mud off. We’re going to let you write again.

Radio Free Nepal

2005-02-17T07:16:00.000+13:45

MediaCow goes international....

Two weeks ago Nepal's King Gyanendra sacked the nation's government and assumed power. He said this was necessary because the politicians had failed to hold elections, and civil war with Maoist rebels had escalated.

Media reports from India said the king had taken power for three years, and some politicians were under house arrest. Sher Bahadur Deuba, the deposed Prime Minister, denounced the King’s actions as a coup, accusing him of exploiting the intensifying Maoist insurgency to snatch power in a violation of the constitution.

At the time of the bloodless coup, a weblog was created by what appears to be a collective of journalists within Nepal. (Of course, there's no way to prove that it's not an elaborate hoax from somebody living somewhere else. But by that token, perhaps MediaCow lives in Copenhagen...)

The weblog, called Radio Free Nepal, states:

King Gyandendra of Nepal has issued a ban on independent news broadcasts and has threatened to punish newspapers for reports that run counter to the official monarchist line. Given that any person in Nepal publishing reports critical of "the spirit of the royal proclamation" is subject to punishment and/or imprisonment, contributors to this blog will publish their reports from Nepal anonymously.

Since February 1, Radio Free Nepal has (sporadically) published articles that mainly focus on the media's response to the coup. An email interview with the author can be read here. It's one weblog that is worth bookmarking: Radio Free Nepal.

Worlds Apart

2005-02-15T07:14:00.000+13:45

Ben Thomas writes...

The winding up of the Yellow Ribbon Trust has caused little fanfare, with most attention focused on the Trust’s relationship with Dean Lonergan’s Fight For Life.

(Time for the indulgence of a bitchy aside? Good. Lonergan, who talked himself up as a tireless supporter of youth suicide prevention, slammed articles about suicide I published in Craccum magazine in 2000. He called them irresponsible and immature in – curiously – an issue of Brass magazine. Then came the fracas about whether macho aggressive posturing was the best way to prevent youth suicide. Rather than revamp the concept, Lonergan shifted the circus sideways, into raising funds for meningococcal disease. Glad to see he was always sincere. End aside.)

A couple of years ago, I would have been outraged about the decision to call it quits (no tasteless jokes about Yellow Ribbon taking its own life – that can get you into trouble). This is a victory for Associate Minister of Health Jim Anderton. In 2003 Anderton and minister of heterosexuality, John Tamihere, wrote to schools formally discouraging them from cooperating with schemes like Yellow Ribbon (and threatening future regulation of such programs).

This is because of a worldview Anderton shares with the Ministry of Health: discussion of suicide causes it.

Anderton consistently misrepresents research which shows media reporting of a particular method of suicide increases the prevalence of that type of death as a proportion of the whole.

Anderton is quoted in the Herald’s story on the closure of Yellow Ribbon saying:

"The literature is very clear - if you raise the profile of youth suicide you get a higher rate of suicide. That's why the media briefings are on the basis that we don't want the method of death being publicised."

Even the Ministry of Health’s polemical Suicide and the Media: the reporting and portrayal of suicide in the media doesn’t go so far as to support Anderton’s position. It posits that some research “demonstrates” (a cynic might say “suggests”) a link between the reporting (actually, the de-contextualised reporting) of specific cases of suicide and an increased incidence of suicide. The link is clearest in cases of geographical proximity (sometimes leading to suicide “clusters”, which account for around 5% of all suicides) or celebrity suicides. Discussion of the issue shows no demonstrable link, but is thought to increase risk where such discussion “normalises” suicide as a response to emotional difficulty.

The research surrounding depictions or reporting of the method of suicide shows quite clearly that well-publicised methods of suicide will gain in popularity, but at the expense of other methods. For example, a televised drama showing suicide by jumping in front of a train increased the number of suicides by train jumping in Berlin. The Ministry’s guidelines are ambiguous, but studiously avoid claiming any increase in the total number of suicides.

So, a couple of years ago, it would have been tempting to label Anderton a liar and a fraud. But one mellows with age, and more saliently, becomes better acquainted with the nuances involved. There was a remarkable drop in the rate of youth suicide in New Zealand in 1999 (around 25%); a further big drop in 2000 (20%), and lesser falls in subsequent years until a slight rise occurred in 2003.

My reading of these events is that they followed the foundation of the Youth Suicide Awareness Trust in 1998. The next year, Yellow Ribbon (an arm of the YSAT) launched its schools programme and over both years Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury devoted many hours of radio time on (then new and exciting) Channel Z to promoting Lifeline and suicide awareness. In 2000, Craccum created a contagion of media caterwauling, which was followed by the Herald's publication of a full page feature on a Ministry of Health report into suicide methods, complete with a self-congratulatory editorial lauding the newspaper’s own courage. Fight for Life made the issue truly mainstream after steadily increasing coverage. Greater awareness led to more support for at-risk youngsters. Media mentions of the issue of suicide skyrocketed after 1998 and the number of deaths tumbled: a real-time experiment putting the lie to Anderton’s belief that if you raise the profile of youth suicide you get a higher rate of suicide. (The MoH’s guidelines were published in 1999, before the drop in suicide rates was observed)

Of course, that is how I would tell it.

Another narrative, perhaps just as plausible, is that the youth suicide prevention strategy was signed off in 1998, and has worked superbly. Suicides are down, in spite of – rather than because of – callous assholes who just don’t have enough respect for Jim Anderton. Callous assholes like Bradbury and Yellow Ribbon’s Marco Marincovich and even myself. My limited (and indirect) experience with the government-funded programmes is that they have helped a lot of people. Most are geared towards those identified (rightly) as particularly high risk – attempted suicides and the family of successful suicides, rather than general prevention.

A third explanation is that the Labour government’s impending election turned the tide. There was an explosion in numbers starting in 1984, and only falling appreciably in 1999. Although this theory doesn't explain the rise in 2003, it remains a 900-pound gorilla in the room that has to be faced by all dedicated free marketeers.*

The epidemiology of suicide is so imprecise as to defy answers to any of the questions that people desperately and sincerely want addressed. You can never know another man’s mind, particularly not in the grip of a pathology powerful enough to override the biological imperative towards life itself. The statistics banked up by researches quickly lose coherence and composition if you stare at them hard enough – suicides, attempted suicides, para-suicides (where death was not really intended), failed para-suicides, where a cry for help goes horribly wrong. It’s like discerning green from turquoise from aquamarine from blue on a spectrum. And that’s only where the subject obviously embarked on self-harm, making it apparent they wanted to die. The missing category is so-called “accidental death” – youths fished out of waterways for example, or poisonous levels of alcohol or drugs.

The ultimate answer that comes from the experts in this country is that many suicides stem from mental illness, but the fact is that the same experts diagnose one fifth of the adult population as having said mental illness. Moreover, biologically at least, there is nothing to suggest depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are any less prevalent in countries where the suicide rate is significantly lower than in New Zealand.

Which is the problem. One can point out that Anderton is wrong in his precis of various studies, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that Yellow Ribbon should be publicly funded, particularly at the expense of other programmes. We don’t know what caused the remarkable drop in suicides in the last 6 years. But then, that seems as good a reason as any to make no sweeping changes.

New Zealand, if I may generalise and romanticise for a second, is an introspective, self-harming culture. Barriers on American motorway overpasses were erected as much to stop malicious thrill-seekers throwing bowling balls and stray rubble into traffic, as to stop anyone throwing themselves. Here the former is unthinkable; the latter, accepted wisdom. It’s a piss-poor suicide prevention strategy, but it’s an interesting insight into our culture.

A digression I shouldn’t have allowed myself, either. Romanticism of an ugly reality is a definite negative, no matter what your worldview. The MoH will point this out with abandon: films romanticise suicide, books romanticise it, apparently Craccum romanticised it. But the MoH is also guilty of romanticism – its media guidelines treat the “S” word like Demogorgon, a medieval demon whose mere name was meant to bring disaster and ruin. The taboo, much dismantled now, but ironically perpetuated by the MoH, lends just as much unreality to the issue in public consciousness as the beautiful, inscrutable Kirsten Dunst character in the Virgin Suicides.

So to end with some broad value judgments: Jim Anderton was wrong to demonise Yellow Ribbon, to demonise the Fight for Life and (in a startling admission of lack of authorial detachment) to demonise me. It is unfortunate that Yellow Ribbon has folded, and even more unfortunate that such a worthy cause could not manage to find sufficient funding without rugby players beating up each other to entice the crowds. And unfortunate that the media still insists on debating whether we can talk about suicide instead of actually talking about the damned thing itself.

* Which is not to say it can’t be faced: there is a difference between ultimate causes and proximate causes, and every policy has consequences downstream. Neo-liberal champions could easily point to lives saved by the economic rescue of New Zealand. But an overall estimate of lives saved versus lives lost would involve a utilitarian calculus that would be, to understate the matter, fraught with difficulties of perception.

Blogging, NCEA-style

2005-02-04T06:23:00.000+13:45

With ispiration from real-life events, Mr Neil Falloon writes...

A note about cheating… Cheating undermines the integrity of these examinations. We already had to ask Rodney to sit outside after he was caught copying Peter’s policies. We hope that there will be no such incidents in this examination.

When you are ready, turn over your papers….

(For this question, refer to drawing of an anonymous white man wearing glasses). Imagine you are a 21st century National leader who fires his only female front-bench MP. Write an essay explaining the challenges facing a political party (the “natural party of government”) that still doesn't have any members who can talk to girls.

BONUS: Argue for or against the statement: “Silly tarts shouldn’t wear purple lipstick on big news days”.

---

Imagine you are the editorial executive who told employees that the Herald on Sunday would be just like Britain’s Independent. Explain what you meant. (Starting sentence: “Both newspapers do use black text on white pages… and they are both in English…”)

BONUS: Argue for or against the statement: “Based on his weekly columns alone, Michael Barrymore should be cast out of New Zealand”. OR Discuss the question “Michael Barrymore’s weekly column is better than Kerre Woodham’s”. Hint – your answer should make mention of the principles involved in arguing from false premises.

---

Imagine you are the police officer who chose not to arrest Tame Iti for brandishing a shotgun. Your logic was that arresting him would draw public attention to Mr Iti and turn him into a martyr for people sympathetic to his cause. Now the ACT Party has drawn attention to Mr Iti and turned him into a martyr for people sympathetic to his cause. Use colourful language to describe your opinion of the ACT Party.

---

Imagine you attended the NZNOG Conference, made famous by a reference on David P Farrar’s weblog. Write a creative story about what happened there. (Starting sentence: "Hello Nog," a conference-goer shouted to David P Farrar. "Do you plan to stand for parliament?" )

---

(For this question, refer to obviously fake, computer-generated image of an imaginary politician.) Imagine you are the leader of a moderate centre-left party intent on retaining power at all costs. The leader of her majesty’s opposition makes a series of keynote speeches promising conservative-style reform of areas such as race relations and welfare reform. Summarise, in your own words, the key points of these speeches. Then explain how it is established Labour policy, and has been in development “for some time”.

---

Imagine you are a popular left-leaning political commentator, with a sweeping expertise in foreign affairs, information technology, welfare policy and popular culture. Write a detailed manifesto unpicking the previously insoluble problems of the Middle East, income disparity, and balancing environmental concerns with economic growth. (Hint: Your answer should be no more than 800 words)

Come In and Burn

2005-01-26T07:15:00.000+13:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes from the war room...

This early in an election year, there are always more questions than answers.

Why is it so hard to catch a rogue monkey, but so easy to catch the simian-herpes B virus? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? What will Dr Brash’s Singaporean Wife™ wear to Orewa II? And how can the media cover it, deprived of ‘Hurricane Brash’ and similar natural disaster epithets by recent events in Asia?

I ponder these questions as I sit wearing my pyjamas in the war room of the conservative media underground. Garth George’s body, suspended in fluid, pulses ever so slightly, twitching violently when the room’s televisions display advertisements that show people's bare midriffs.

Rotarians, the media, the nation… all are ready for the National party leader's Words from the Mount.

Brash's church upbringing shows – on the pulpit he channels the spirit of Murray McCully (may he rest in peace). The banker starts speaking in tongues; gibberish about "fiscal penalties" for sole mothers who do not give up the names of their babies' fathers.

I sigh and my pyjamas crinkle. This is not the first time National has failed to articulate a clear message to the electorate. Brash keeps repeating “I ask myself the question” but what New Zealand needs is an answer. The answer they need is the reassurance that it is Dr Donald Brash who is Their Daddy.

Then Brash mentions the unemployed, and I perk up. He could be on to a winner. Traditional notions of employment and unemployment are losing their meaning – many scratch out a living from alternative income sources like trademe.co.nz and a few of us, like Olivia Kember, even reap unheard-of fortunes as superstar authors for DogBitingMen. Many, though, are unemployed bums.

To be fair, not all the jobless are bludgers. Deposed Hobson community board member Aaron Bhatnagar turned up to his local Post Office at dawn to be assigned work the very day after he lost his local government job.

Never mind that it was a Sunday, or that work-for-the-dole had been abolished in 1999. These things don’t matter to a proud struggler like Bhatnagar, and in days gone by they didn’t matter to New Zealand.

But for every Aaron, for every Battler, there is a Matt Nippert. A long-haired layabout (photograph here, next to telling headline about "street walkers") who signed up for multiple benefit payments under the false names “Tom Goulter”, “MediaCow” and – to add insult to injury – “Lyndon Hood”, a still-born distant relative of the hard working Bhatnagar.

Bhatnagar may be as strong as an ox, but even his broad, powerful, manly, rippling shoulders will strain under the crippling yoke of supporting three fictitious beneficiaries through his taxes.

But tonight the National leader chooses not to talk about fraudsters. His main target is the Dependent Person’s Benefit, or Dee Pee Bee. Originally devised as a back-stop for solo mothers, the benefit has spiralled out of control like a royal dress-up party.

Brash’s plans are bold. Beneficiaries who choose to have more children will be refused benefit increases; solo parents will be made to work. Sole mothers may be encouraged to put their children up for adoption as a way of reducing the numbers on Work and Income’s rolls.

It is unclear whether the Post Office will become a one-stop shop. Will unemployed mothers be able to leave behind their unwanted babies for adoption as they jump on the bus to go to community work? If so, we can once again thank the reforms of the 1980s. Pre-deregulation, the bureaucratic NZ Post was completely unsuitable for handling delicate packages, and did not even bubble-wrap infant children mailed in their boxes. [Source: the polemical masterpiece I’ve Been Thinking by Richard Prebble and possibly a self-effacing co-author]

It surprises me that Brash has not come to the natural solution to the conjoined-triplet-tasks of

increasing adoption,
finding work for people whose only skill seems be becoming impregnated, and
reducing the number of single parents.

All could obviously be achieved by simply deregulating the market in baby sales.

On the other hand, Brash's three-month trial period for workers should succeed in getting more long-term unemployed into work. Many employers say difficulties in terminating employees stops them hiring. Although you can't prove a negative (or, as United Future's voluminous press release output shows, multiply zeroes), a thought experiment should suffice:

A government-funded beneficiary – let’s call him “Dick Hubbard” – should be able to try his hand at a job for which he may initially be deemed too “risky”. Say... being Mayor of New Zealand’s largest city. If he turns out to be unsuitable, he should be allowed to be fired after three months on a no-fault basis (no personal grievance claims, no three years of dizzying continued incompetence). He can then, like other New Zealanders, fall back on the subsistence safety net of $180,000 per annum.

Brash easily convinces the impressionable Susan Wood. His speech may not be enough to win an entire election.

Still, in the conservative underground I can survive another three years of Labour. I look over to the corner, where Ian Wishart has built himself a fort out of tins of food that he is stockpiling for the Apocalypse. His cans reach almost as high as a nearby pile of Dr Muriel Newman’s angry press releases.

“Ian,” I say, “our time has not yet come. If we were to work as close advisors for the National government after the election, we would be sell-outs every bit as bad as those corporate whores Patrick Crewdson and Damian Christie who gave up such promising careers as researchers for the Maxim Institute.

And for what? For the flimflam of fame and glory?

“No, my friend Ian, you and I must fight from outside the system, like Russell Brown fights the crepuscular onset of old age, and like David Farrar fights the impulse to bed glamorous women.

“We must remain steadfast and true. We must ask ourselves: What Would George W Do?

“And Ian…

“Pass me some sardines.”

Debrief: You Had To Be There

2005-01-25T05:47:00.000+13:45

Olivia Kember writes...

Ah, the Big Day Out. You had to be there. It was explosive. It was mind-blowing. Best day of my life, ever, since last year's Big Day Out.

Really, just amazing.

The Hives and Le Tigre were my highlights. At first I thought it was incompetence on the part of the organisers to put on two major international acts that would probably appeal to a similar audience at the same time. How wrong I was. To stand midway between them, soaking up the glorious mélange of sounds, was very heaven. As I said to Russell Brown, it was "Le Hivres". He guffawed mightily and told me he had his own carpark. Good on him, too. The organisers must have remembered his gout.

And kudos to them. What a line-up! The Beastie Boys, and the Chemical Brothers! One group cool from the last decade, and the other from the decade before that - how audacious to flout superficial trends and recognise the ancient masters.

Apart from Scribe, of course. Such passion, such soul. Such fine local product. It made me proud to be a white girl who does hip hop classes at the gym.

Such lies. I didn't go. I went to Devonport. Oddly, the streets were filled with people not at the Big Day Out. We kept our gazes averted, silently recognizing each other's shame. Rightly so, too. The media coverage has been extensive, as if, across the nation, journalists decided the Big Day Out would make a nice antidote to the tsunami stories. After all, we're a bit light on local activity at the moment.

And it's easy, you just play a lot of music videos and interview a few bands. If you're trying to make it a bit newsier you turn up at Ericsson Stadium and persuade a St John's Ambulance person to make a statement about the importance of drinking water and not taking too many party pills.

It must be infuriating if you're not at all interested. It must be even more annoying if you are interested and you can't go. I'm guilty. I did my bit, putting together a vacuous little piece for Breakfast TV, which featured snippets of bands selected on the availability of their videos and perhaps the most asinine conclusion I've ever written ("with so much to choose from, the only problem is how to see them all!", or something). It wasn't much, I know. It wasn't a live cross at 8am to see how the set-up crew were getting on; it didn't even carry a sunblock warning. It wasn't enough to get me a carpark. But then, it takes more than a single promo piece to get a pass and others have years of ligging on me.

Hence, Devo. And my day was not without adventure. We ate posh bakery goods under a tree in the park. Around us people did all the things you're supposed to do in parks. My friend bought an ASB Bank 7 inch, a double A-side entitled Bank on the Move: "We're the Bank going up/ Gonna shine like the sun/ We're the Bank on the move / You're number one", etc. A stirring ballad and a piece of history for fifty cents.

The Hard to Find Bookshop's $2 trolley produced something by Rabelais which I eventually intend to read, and a small book called Killer Pine. We looked up my father in the New Zealand Rugby almanac of 1974, but didn't find him. He might not have been in it; I can't remember when he played or what position. We climbed up Mt Victoria, pausing halfway to sit on a bench and admire the view. Auckland really was looking unusually pretty. We pondered briefly why looking at water is so pleasant, and it occurred to me that sitting in the sun and enjoying the view would feel much the same when you're sixty as twenty-five, and therefore I was perhaps engaging in an experience prematurely, and should really be at Ericsson Stadium right then because when I'm sixty I probably won't enjoy concert crowds much at all... but the heat and the apple tart made the thought rather hard to focus on, and eventually I forgot it.

Up the mountain I was told the red and white toadstools surrounding the shipping station had been painted so as a prank, but thereafter absent-mindedly maintained by the local authorities. I hope it's true. We bought ice creams. On the ferry home I started to read Killer Pine: the story of micro-agent Matthew Dilke, his "luscious African mistress", and a "miniaturized Scots ecologist with a valuable genius for mountaineering". They have to figure out why Canadian pine trees have blight. As the SundayTelegraph said: "ingenious, gripping and entertaining".

At home, I discovered my second sunburn of the summer. Truly, it had been a big day out.

A Different Planet

2005-01-17T07:05:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes…

Although I’ve never liked Rod Donald – he’s just a politician’s politician – I’ve had a soft spot for his Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons ever since I saw her fitting in poorly at an end-of -year parliamentary party that I was hating at the time. Fitzsimons looked like she would have preferred to be anywhere but there. Because I was feeling like an outsider at a back-slapping, matey, insiders-only gathering of preeners and sycophants, I related. We had a wee moment.

I support the Greens on lots of social issues. But when it comes to the environment, Fitzsimons and I live on different planets.

Yesterday, the female co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa delivered a “State of the Planet” address as disingenuous and misleading as any political speech you are likely to see.

Although there are apparently three great threats to our existence – “ecological collapse, climate change and our reliance on oil” – Fitzsimons chose to focus on the third issue.

The Green Party blames oil for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terrorism (I guess the planes that flew into the World Trade Centre weren’t run on coal), and even anti-terrorism legislation in New Zealand.

I have nothing new to add to debates about the Iraqi war, but David Farrar has penned a response to those claims.

I’m more interested in Fitzsimon’s catastrophic predictions. Here's her take on life: Using oil is catastrophic. Dependence on oil is catastrophic. The Earth is running out of oil really fast, and that’s catastrophic. Soon there will be none. And that will be… well… catastrophic.

Fitzsimons believes in a controversial theory about oil production and depletion. The Hubbert peak theory posits that the total amount of oil extracted over time follows a bell-shaped curve. The maximum output point is referred to as the peak. After the peak comes depletion.

In Fitzsimons' words: "The point at which demand outstrips the capacity of the wells to supply is the point at which oil prices rise inexorably and countries at the end of the supply line with little military power are likely to miss out. At first, it will cost you three dollars a litre instead of one to fill up your car. Later, there will be absolute shortages, no matter what you are prepared to pay. The cost of farming, fishing, manufacturing and international trade will skyrocket, and our international markets will no longer be able to afford our butter."

Frightening stuff.

So, when does Fitzsimons believe that the peak will occur? Well, although she dismissed New Zealand government predictions that peak-oil discoveries would occur in 2037, Fitzsimons is too modest to come up with her own figures. She isn't too modest, however, to clang some bloody loud alarm bells: “We may well have less than ten years before we reach this terrible tipping point”.

Strangely enough, if we plucked Fitzsimons from the Waiheke Island Picnic for the Planet she attended yesterday, we could plonk her down at almost any point in the past century and her predictions would fit right in.

In 1914 the US Bureau of Mines estimated that there would be oil left over for only ten years' consumption. In 1939 (and again in 1951) the Department of the Interior projected that oil would last only 13 more years. In the 1970s and 1980s, worry about resource depletion reached fever-pitch.

In fact, if we replaced the word “oil” with “coal”, we could plop Fitzsimons on a soapbox in 1865, and she could happily do her thing alongside other concerned pundits.

Despite the fears in the late Nineteenth century, coal reserves have increased (since 1975 coal reserves worldwide have grown by 38 percent). So too have oil and gas reserves.

This is counter-intuitive: we use more and more oil, yet the world has more and more left. How can this be so? It's because known resources are not finite, but limited by what we know we can access. Companies and countries don’t pay for expensive exploration in advance of need. Also, technology and efficiency constantly improve. We have become better at finding oil and better at using it.

Eventually, people will stop using fossil fuels. But mainstream opinion away from Waiheke Island holds that there is enough left for 40 or 50 years at the current rate of consumption. If we include undiscovered resources, we probably have 100–150 years of supply. The shale oil that will become economically viable within the next 25 years will probably last another century. If we consider all available shale oil in the world, there is enough to cover current energy consumption levels for 5,000 years.

We’re not about to use oil for another 5,000 years, though. In around 1600, wood became increasingly expensive, and this prompted a gradual switch to coal. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, a similar substitution took place from coal to oil. It is not clear today what resources will replace oil. But substitution is bound to occur. An increase in price will drive innovation.

Fitzsimons acknowledged that a price increase will occur when she claimed (obscenely) that “the end of cheap oil is coming towards us with the force of a tsunami”.

It’s more like one normal-sized tide coming in as another normal-sized goes out: As oil increases in price, renewables decrease. These have decreased in price about 50 percent per decade over the last 30 years. Even if the price falls in future at a much slower rate, it is likely that renewables will become a serious competitor to fossil fuels by the middle of this century.

In the meantime, Fitzsimons believes we should use fewer resources, which means slowing down economic development and growth. This is an argument commonly made by WorldWatch.

What would less growth and development achieve?

Making a middle-income Auckland family poorer is not going to help the global environment. At first it does seem reasonable to assume less industrialisation means less pollution. But the industrialised world has demonstrated general improvement in dealing with the environment. When we get richer, we can afford to care more about the environment. On the other hand, if we are poor and hungry, living in squalor, we will think only about the next meal.
In reality, most of the world’s pollution comes from the developing world, where the primary need is still to satisfy basic requirements. The problem is not consumption – it is poverty. Therefore the solution must be to ensure the developing world becomes wealthy enough to afford to worry about the environment.

Ruining a middle-income Auckland family won’t help the world’s most disadvantaged. A diminished Western economy will mean less innovation, less trade, and fewer opportunities for the developing world. Those in impoverished nations need better health, better education, and free access to the West’s markets. What is needed is more growth, not less.

Fitzsimons devoted the second half of her speech to badmouthing her political rivals. Some of her descriptions are amusing, others are just the predictable personal attacks that all politicians engage in.

She spoke of the four parties to the right of Labour who “seek to govern New Zealand divisively, by invoking fear and hatred of, among others, Maori, the poor, criminals, immigrants, homosexuals, and anyone who suggests that a culture of mass consumption cannot go on forever.”

In this statement, she sums up the reasons why the Green Party appeals to me on some social issues – but then, I wonder, is invoking fear of far-fetched environmental doomsday scenarios really any more principled?

Going Too Far

2005-01-14T07:20:00.000+13:45

MediaCow is back...

Going Too Far is going to be big this year. Even bigger than Russell Brown was in 2004, if that is possible. Going Too Far is when you aim to do something just a wee bit outré, but end up being inappropriate and offensive instead. Ever-fashionable Prince Harry, the Party Prince, gave us a fine example of Going Too Far when he dressed like his great-uncle for a rather lame party (for a link to the pictures, go to any other weblog).

When you Go Too Far, you start with a good intention (“I want to be humorous” or “I want to make a political point”) and then your execution goes awry or you get unexpected results. Either way, you end with the sort of gulping, terrified feeling we get when David P Farrar hasn’t written anything for a whole twenty minutes.

Some people (such as those who believe it just might be funny to start a speech with the phrase, “Ladies, gentlemen and niggers...”) were born to Go Too Far. Others, like the amorous couple that forgot to close the curtains on their living room window facing a childcare centre, just seize the opportunities that come to them.

The Asian Tsunami has provide many harrowing, heartwarming and miraculous stories and images. It has also given us examples of people Going Too Far.

The Ayn Rand Institute (where all the little yellow ducks of freedom are trying to float to) got off to a flying start by circulating an op-ed titled “U.S. Government Should Not Help Tsunami Victims”, in which they argued:

According to altruism -- the morality that most Americans accept and that politicians exploit for all it's worth -- those who have more have the moral obligation to help those who have less. This is why Americans -- the wealthiest people on earth -- are expected to sacrifice (voluntarily or by force) the wealth they have earned to provide for the needs of those who did not earn it. It is Americans' acceptance of altruism that renders them morally impotent to protest against the confiscation and distribution of their wealth. It is past time to question -- and to reject -- such a vicious morality that demands that we sacrifice our values instead of holding on to them.

Take one political point, immerse in rhetoric and then set loose at exactly the wrong time. That is Going Too Far.

Then there was the Us magazine executive who declared: “For a celebrity weekly, this is our Tsunami". What was he talking about? The Brad and Jen break-up, of course. This executive actually realised he'd made a booboo. He subsequently apologised. In a reassuring demonstration that his sense of perspective had been restored, he told New York Post’s Page Six: “I wish I'd said that this was our equivalent of covering the presidential election.”

By the way, if you are the social democrat prime minister of a populous wee nation, it is probably best not to tell the grieving mother of a Tsunami victim to ‘write a letter’ to your office to sort out where her son’s body is. Especially when she calls you live on radio.

However, as hard as Tony Blair tried I don’t think his activities fit the criteria for Going Too Far.

On the other hand, a company that most definitely sails through the Going Too Far requirements on a daily basis is the group that is selling “I Surfed the Tsunami 2004” t-shirts.

One disaster, many examples: Going Too Far is the thing to do in 2005.

Abusive and filthy

2005-01-11T07:10:00.000+13:45

Ben Thomas fact checks and Mr Neil Falloon writes...

Locally, it has been a long, slow news summer. Thank God, then, for Rodney Hide. As he does every year, the ACT leader has beavered away over the holidays, weaseling through the country, ferreting out injustices and iniquities. He has uncovered one scandal that he believes may be the basis for a mainstream news item. It’s that darned employment legislation again (the following post from his weblog is reproduced in full):

You are a hardworking couple. You strike out on your own. You employ a local youth. He turns up drunk, abusive and filthy. He swears at your other staff and your customers. Not just occasionally – regularly.

You ring the Employment Service. They advise you to provide verbal warnings and then a written one.

The written one gets screwed up and thrown back at you. The young man quits. He tells you where you can stick your job. He physically threatens you.

He takes you to the Employment Relations Authority. The Authority finds that you summarily dismissed the young man and that dismissal was not justified. The Authority orders you to pay the youth $10,000.

You write to the business-friendly government. They write back sympathetically but explain there’s nothing that they can do.

You go bankrupt. You ask yourselves, what actually did we do wrong?

True story.

Hide provides enough information for anybody who follows employment case law to identify the parties involved.

The case referred to was a public decision issued by the Employment Relations Authority. However, linking names to Hide’s accusations of a drunk, abusive, filthy, potty-mouthed, aggressive employee would amount to an invitation for defamation proceedings against both us and Hide. Therefore, we are going to adopt Hide’s terminology and refer to “the employers” and “the employee”.

The employers were a couple who hired a teenage man to work in their small business. Following concerns about his performance and a discussion with the Employment Relations Service, the male employer issued the employee with a written warning. The employee screwed up the warning and threw it at the employer. The two argued and had a physical confrontation outside.

It appears the employee was a punk: he was accosted at the store by the mother of local youths he had bullied. His performance was allegedly shoddy.

Yet, when the teenage employee claimed he had been unjustifiably dismissed, the Authority found in his favour and ordered the employers pay $3,500 in lost wages, $5,500 for distress, and a $750 penalty for not having a written employment agreement. Costs took the total bill over $10,000.

Why did the Authority come down so hard on Hide’s couple? “What actually” did they do wrong?

They didn’t show up.

As the Zephyrs (the fictional band of Air New Zealand advertising) will tell you, being there is everything. The employers did not attend the hearing of the personal grievance claim against them. They did not instruct a solicitor to appear for them. They did not even lodge a statement of evidence. *

The only evidence the Authority member heard was that of the teenage employee and the teenage employee’s mother. The Authority did not hear that the teen was “drunk, abusive and filthy”, but that he was a fine young man doing his best to get ahead.

No one argued to the Authority that the employers may have followed a fair process of issuing verbal warnings and then a written one. The Authority heard instead that no prior warnings had been issued and that the teenager was handed a written warning when he was visiting his place of work as a customer, on his day off, in front of the public.

No evidence was presented to suggest the teen employee resigned. In a follow-up letter, the employer himself described the employment termination as a dismissal.

The Authority was not presented with any evidence that the employee physically threatened his employer. In fact, it heard that the employer ran after the employee, grabbed him by his collar and held him against the wall of a nearby shop.

Even with one-sided evidence, the Authority discerned that the employee was no angel. His initial awards were reduced by 30 percent because of his contribution to events.

It is possible that the result was unfair to the employer. Based solely on reading the case, it is hard to muster much sympathy for the teenage employee. However, most court and Authority cases are decided on disputed facts rather than disputed law. If one party elects not to be heard, the Authority misses out on at least half the information it needs for a fair decision. The Authority cannot be pilloried for failing to take into account material of which it was not aware.

Perhaps this is a simple case of a story that didn’t have legs that Hide decided to feed to his blog audience as a cheap feed of meat.

However, this brief article, titled Labour Justice, is emblematic of an unfortunate movement in internet-based political commentary. The generally accepted purpose of a weblog is to enable writers to include more information, particularly primary sources, than is possible in print. This allows for comprehensive yet brief articles (generally through hyperlinks, which are really just an efficient way to out-source footnotes). But the new trend in New Zealand is for weblogs to be used as tools for the instantaneous, and continuous, gratification of political prejudices.

Within four days, Hide’s employment case article had attracted 28 comments from supporters (decrying the Labour government) and opponents (denouncing Hide as a fraud). Neither side was fully correct because both were attempting to argue on the basis of a childish cartoon analysis of a complicated and unsourced Authority determination.

Meanwhile, Hide had moved onto posting unflattering pictures of Helen Clark's dentistry.

Hide’s blog is, at best, an interesting experiment in real-time democracy. The long-term significance of the experiment will be its success in making more information available to the electorate, not less. To put it another way: no one should leave the website dumber than they arrived. Willful obscurantism is unhelpful and even more unbecoming than publishing images of the prime minister’s teeth.

There is a second point that will be relevant mainly to the shrinking group of ACT voters. The party needs more firepower than this to avoid oblivion in the next election. Professor Jack Vowles, the head of the Politics Department at the University of Auckland, said in his analysis of the 2002 election results that core ACT support is steady around 3%, and any increases are due to situational campaigning. Performing to the echo chamber of a small online audience wastes both resources and time. The party has little of either.

* The employers claimed they failed to appear before the Authority because a daughter was in hospital. The hospital visit was in fact the day before the investigation. No explanation was offered for failing to submit a statement of evidence.

Do they know it's Christmas time?

2004-12-21T08:29:00.000+13:45

MediaCow writes...

We are going on holiday and shall be back in early- or mid-January, depending on our collective sobriety. This is where we will be:

Olivia Kember, our very own Beautiful Militant, is tracking down the foot/mouth painters of her undesired Christmas cards for a bottling.

Ben Thomas, the Man with the Mark of the Beast, was last seen passed out somewhere within Chantelle's bosom at Cafe 223. He continues to search for a Feature Story to match to his beloved Single Paragraph.

Mister Neil Falloon, the slutty sex kitten with a loud mouth, is still waiting for Christmas cards from Stephen Franks and Matt Nippert, but received a lovely signed photograph from Mary Lambie.

David W Young, who loves it when you say Abyssinia, is too earnest to take a holiday. He shall spend his down-time thinking about interior decorating.

And MediaCow, proud to be the only media commentator in New Zealand who worked out that Coran Lill is a male, is going to relax in a quiet paddock, happy that the Paul Holmes Replacement has been found, and hopeful that 2005 will bring a profile and startlingly large photograph in the Listener.

Have a lovely summer.

Sedation to Conspiracy

2004-12-17T14:08:00.000+13:45

Written by Mister Neil Falloon with extra Googling by MediaCow...

Tim Selwyn is being charged with seditious conspiracy – a “pretty scary” offence according to Gary Gotlieb of the Auckland District Law Society.

The last prominent case involving disloyalty to the Crown earned Dutch double-agent Harry Duynhoven boutique legislation to allow him to keep his seat in Parliament despite having sworn allegiance to a foreign power.

This time around it all seems like pretty frightening stuff – allegations of indigenous Ahmed Zaouis running around without Dominican friars to keep them out of trouble. Accusations of dark plottings in Grey Lynn to topple our Popular and Competent Prime Minister. A purported “conspiracy” – a cabal of anarchists bent on “exciting disaffection”.

These facts are not disputed: On 18 November an axe was lodged in the window of Prime Minister Helen Clark’s Sandringham, Mt Albert electorate office. After a tip-off to a radio station, flyers were found on the corner of Ponsonby Road. The flyers said the axe was a protest against “the Government's attempts to steal, by confiscation, Maori land in the form of the Seabed and Foreshore Bill”. A group of “concerned Pakeha” claimed responsibility.

Selwyn, who was a member of the ACT party in its earliest mid-90’s incarnation, noted to TV3 last night that seditious offences were a feature of war-time governments – but then, he continued, so were government land grabs.

The Land Grab

After the foreshore and seabed legislation was passed by parliament this year, Selwyn circulated a petition asking the Governor General to refuse the Royal Assent to the legislation, on the grounds that it contradicted of the second and third articles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

In an email accompanying the petition, Selwyn explained he believes the Foreshore and Seabed Bill:

“contains utterly unnecessary and discriminatory land confiscation provisions that will haunt and divide our nation should it be enacted. Access by everyone to the foreshore and seabed was all anyone ever wanted, and yet that was used as an excuse for a Government land grab. Rushed through parliament under urgency, it is a mess. I believe the Bill is, basically, unconstitutional…”

The Charges

Selwyn is charged with seditious conspiracy. The word 'conspiracy' would indicate the involvement of more than one person in an activity.

In this particular case, allegations against co-conspirators are conspicuous by their absence. Nobody has appeared in court charged with putting the axe into the window.

Selwyn says he is unsure which part of the “conspiracy” he is accused of participating in.

He says there is considerable uncertainty regarding the accusation he does face. (This perhaps befits a charge that nobody in this country has faced for at least 50 years.)

Selwyn says he has been given four contrasting descriptions of the charges that are seeing him attend court in his pinstriped suit. He says the charges have been incorrectly attributed to various sections of the Crimes Act, and the charge has been labelled in different ways.

One police document rather sweetly shows the charge against Selwyn is “sedation to conspiracy.”

The "Publicity Stunt" Angle

Some journalists suggest this could be a “publicity stunt” for Selwyn’s new venture, a current affairs magazine called Tu Meke. The project has been in the works for some time. A mocked-up sample, produced in April, the "zero issue", can be viewed here.

The (impressively designed) edition of Tu Meke includes a commentary on the Brash Orewa speech, consistent with the views expressed by Selwyn in his petition to the Governor General.

The “publicity stunt” theory appears to hinge on the assumptions that Selwyn is guilty and would admit guilt for the purposes of claiming credit.

The "Serious Test of Justice" Angle

University of Auckland constitutional law expert Bill Hodge expects the Bill of Rights Act’s freedom of speech guarantees to effectively eviscerate the content of the Crimes Act’s sedition laws, by making the scope for publications or statements to be regarded as unlawful much narrower.

Just Not Cricket

The conditions on Selwyn’s bail imposed yesterday included a prohibition that stops him straying within 50 meters of Clark’s electorate office in Sandringham Road. The restraint is reportedly minimal because the Crown accepted it may be unreasonable to remove his access to Eden Park across the street during the international cricket season.

Deathray of Sunshine

2004-12-15T07:32:00.001+13:45

Ben Thomas writes...

The house I moved into in late 2000 was one that no longer stunk of death. That’s because when the then-leaseholder took occupancy at the beginning of the year, she and her flatmates spent their first days in the large old Sandringham villa cleaning blood off the walls of two of its five bedrooms. The previous inhabitants were drug users – injectors, gone mad and finally succumbed to a sort of violent cabin fever. Their lease was terminated after the head tenant was found, having hanged himself from the tree in the yard, just next to the driveway. By the time I moved in, the tree was a shadow of its former self, a victim of the exorcism of the suicide and its aftermath – shorn of any branch that could support the weight of a human body.*

With its lopped off limbs, it stood as testament to a pathetic attempt to “suicide proof” the house in the future, as much as it did a totem of purification for the past events. But The Economist has posited that it may be exactly such “supply-side” measures that have contributed to Britain’s falling suicide rate [30 October 2004, offline, or available to subscribers].

The UK’s rate of self-inflicted deaths in 2003 was its lowest since the Second World War and, at 84 deaths per million people, is now among the lowest in Europe. The Economist suggests this is not because the triggers of suicidal behaviours have changed – that is, the demand for suicide – but because the means of suicide have become less accessible – that is, the supply.

A number of disparate factors seem to have combined to make suicide more difficult. For example, in 1998 pharmaceutical regulations made it harder for customers to obtain large volumes of pills at one time, and manufacturers began producing medication in blister packs rather than bottles. Since this time, the number of lethal paracetamol overdoses has dropped by 34%. The proliferation of catalytic converters fitted to cars, to reduce carbon monoxide emissions, has seen the number men gassing themselves fall from 672 in 1996 to 265 in 2002. The former changes were intended to reduce waste in the healthcare system; the latter, the result of pressures to be environmentally friendly.

Controlling the supply side of the market in suicide has been attempted in New Zealand, most visibly in the erection, then removal, then reinstallation of barriers on Auckland’s Grafton Bridge. The bridge, the largest single-span concrete structure in the world at the time, was built to connect the Auckland Domain with the central city. Its foundations on the west side stand rooted in an inner city Victorian graveyard, and the roughly hewn road, lit at night by gaslight-styled lamps, looks down – from a fair distance - over the southern motorway. It’s a favoured hang-out for younger Goths, a preferred sleepout shelter for the homeless, and a notorious suicide spot.

Glass screens lined the bridge’s footpaths from 1992 until 1996, when they were removed as being unsightly and unnecessary. Since the walls were designed to make life difficult for anyone attempting to get around and over them to the outside ledges, they were also fairly hazardous for council staff to clean safely. Then, in 2002, they were back. There was no fanfare – a short piece in the Auckland City Council’s newsletter, City Scene, referred to the construction of the “safety barriers” in response to the concerns of otherwise anonymous “health professionals”. Throughout, “suicide” went unmentioned in public discussion of the screens.

It’s easy to see symbolism in these things if you look hard enough. Grafton Bridge was steeped in triumph at the time of its creation – a symbol of the power of government as a force for progress and improvement, after the private Australian firm engaged to build it became insolvent. The suicide barriers, likewise, represent the “central planning” of the suicide market, as it were.

The results were examined in a study by the Canterbury Suicide Project's Dr Anne Beautrais:

In the four years following the removal of the barriers the number of suicides increased five-fold… [The] rate of suicide by jumping in the city in question did not change but the pattern of suicides by jumping in the city changed significantly with more suicides from the bridge and fewer at other sites.
-“Effectiveness of barriers at suicide jumping sites” A L Beautrais, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 35(5):557-62, 2001 Oct.

Curiously, the recommendation following Beautrais’s report was that the barriers be reinstalled. It’s difficult to reconcile that with the findings that they did not in fact deter any suicides, but merely redistributed them around the city, away from Grafton. Or rather, it’s easy to reconcile these recommendations with the empirical findings of the report, if the purpose of the screens was not suicide prevention, but a tourism committee initiative to get these unsightly, desperate people off our heritage-protected bridge. The only suicide I ever witnessed was a girl who jumped off the Symonds Street overpass, about two minutes down the road from Grafton Bridge.

Does this matter? Probably. If the Auckland City Council has $900,000 (the cost of reinstating the screens, according to City Scene) that it’s prepared to earmark for suicide prevention, there are almost certainly better ways to spend this money. The New Zealand Herald reports that overseas experts are queuing to investigate some of the CYFS initiatives with suicide survivors and families of suicides (two obviously high risk groups). The amount allocated to these schemes in the 2003 budget amounts to a little less than $700,000 per year, and evidence suggests they are actually helping to save lives. Nonetheless, more than this amount has been spent raising transparent walls to protect us from the mysterious thrall in which a century old viaduct is meant to hold Auckland’s inhabitants.

More from the previous report:

The bridge is a known suicide site and is located adjacent to the region’s largest hospital which includes an acute inpatient psychiatric unit… The majority of those who died by jumping from the bridge following the removal of safety barriers were young male psychiatric patients, with psychotic illnesses.
- “Effectiveness of barriers at suicide jumping sites” A L Beautrais, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 35(5):557-62, 2001 Oct.

Wait… did I forget to mention that? That it’s not a gothic allegory of protest, alienation – a monolith, spanning this world and the next. That it’s just the closest bridge.

Supply. Demand.

* My buddy lived in the single room next to mine for six months before he discovered, written high up with builder’s pencil on the painted green particleboard built-in wardrobe in the corner, the words “LIFE BEGINS 9/11/1999” – November being the month of the suicide.

An Open Invitation for a Bottling...

2004-12-10T17:35:00.000+13:45

Olivia Kember writes an Open Letter to Scribe (and then gives up halfway)...

Dear Scribe

How could you? I mean, really, how could you?

Don't you know that you're a role model, that you're among the Most Powerful People (Listener Power List, offline) in all of New Zealand? The twenty-third most powerful, I think. Perhaps twenty-sixth. Anyway, you're more powerful than almost four million other New Zealanders. Your every move reverberates. I'm reverberating just thinking of you.

As if, with your phrase that launched a thousand shit jokes, you hadn't already done enough damage.

...Oh blah blah.

When Bone Thugs n Harmony dropped by New Zealand to visit Ronald LaPread (ex-Commodore, now Remueran) they asked how we cope without guns. My sister explained that we bottle each other instead.

Scribe and/or his entourage are merely ushering in the next phase of hip hop. The one where everyone gets really aggressive and full of themselves and start bashing each other up. Surely it was inevitable. And, considering how far behind the American scene we are in that respect, it's about time.

Finding a Role Model

2004-12-09T07:28:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes a letter:

Dear Alan Ivory,

Thank you for your email to DogBitingMen. First up, you're right: the introduction to my last column on gay marriage was indeed "insufferably superior".

I'm glad you introduced yourself. I want to say thank you. It made my day to read what you did in 1979:

Along with others, I manoeuvred to sink a Bill introduced by the well-meaning MP Warren Freer which would have decriminalised homosexual sex only for those over 21 in private. We would settle only for equality.

We succeeded in sinking that Bill to the considerable anger of well-meaning liberals who accused us of biting the hand that fed us. (We should be grateful for being given some of our rights? We didn't think so.)

History proved you right to insist on equality or nothing. You and your friends formed the Equality Bill Campaign and drafted the legislation that would eventually become the Fran Wilde-sponsored Bill. It took five whole years, but your waiting paid off.

You came out a year before I was born. I wonder when things changed - when equality became something that we should delay for tomorrow's fight, rather than strive for today. I wonder when gay and lesbian New Zealanders started to think so little of ourselves.

I just don't get it. Why does everybody seem so excited about civil unions, when adoption rights and full marriage will continue to be kept only for people born heterosexual?

Let's look online. The flock of civil union advocates includes Xavier and Tristan from AbouTown, my mate Ben Thomas from DogBitingMen, Russell Brown, Jordan Carter , Constar, Dorking Labs, David Farrar, Generation Y Not? ... I'm doing this list alphabetically and can't be bothered subjecting myself to reading anybody past G, so we can just agree there's shitloads.

Meanwhile, other than the odd reasonable commentary this side of the argument is embarrassingly lonely. Ex-National Party MP Marilyn Waring seems the only public figure who gets it. MPs proposed lots of last-minute changes to the Civil Union Bill. Not a single member of parliament (nor even one of those supposedly activist "youth" wings of the political parties) proposed dumping the Bill and replacing it with a rewriting of the Marriage Act that would allow full marriage. Not a single one. Not even as a token gesture.

I'm really grateful you shared your experience. Maybe these things go in waves. Perhaps in another twenty-five years the gay kids of the current Compromise Generation will share your spirit and resolve. I hope so.

Kind regards,
David W Young

House Keeping

2004-12-08T07:00:00.000+13:45

Goldenhorse visited Ahmed Zaoui and posed for a photo shoot, but it certainly "wasn't a publicity stunt". This rates up there with "I almost forgot the moon". A fellow much cleverer than us usually sends us nice emails but once sent us this diatribe: "Yeah, sure ya did. It’s a gigantic rock orbiting the earth. It affects everything, from the tides to women's periods... How smart is this supposed ‘academic’ that you throw him in a small box for two years and he forgets about the moon? What else might he have forgotten over that time? Hmm?"

We're just quoting our letter-writer. That's all.

We are delighted to announce the results of our Pansy Wine-Naming Competition. You will recall that Auckland wine-makers created a new wine called Pansy "to thank their gay friends in the hospitality industry". We found this a tad patronising and asked for your inspired suggestions to help the wine-makers "thank" other groups in a similar manner.

The best correspondence was from Wellington communications guru Susan Ryan, who suggested: "As a way of thanking women who drink more wine when they're stressed with PMT, how about a bloody little number called "Period Red"? The bottle will have a second convenient use when empty as an effective smiting object for anything that pisses these women off. They could also work on a "Don't fuck with me" Sauvingnon Blanc for the summer bloats.".

We like it. Ms Ryan, we're sending you a little bottle of something to say thank you.

Mr Neil Falloon believes this site needs some 'mainstream credibility'. The rest of us think it's too late for that. But to humour Mr Falloon and his brilliant similes, here's some writing that people did recently for The Listener.

Click the links and boost our self esteem:

Interview with Emily Barclay by Olivia Kember
Why we should celebrate the commercialisation of Christmas by David W Young
A defence of nepotism by David W Young

Finally, here's a link to someone new. The authors of IHATENZ have plenty of time on their hands, access to PhotoShop and poor photo-editing skills. They tried demanding that we link to them. We ignored them until they took a compromising photograph of Russell Brown snogging Lyndon Hood. In the background you can see Mr Neil Falloon waving.

Riddled with Pathologies

2004-12-07T15:49:00.000+13:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes…

It is September. Act MP Stephen Franks, ex-commercial lawyer and Bill Gates impressionist, is pulling on his coat after a business lobby dinner. In the past week, he has been sitting on the Justice and Electoral Select Committee hearing oral submissions on the Civil Unions Bill.

According to underground conservative sources, Franks has been asking pro-Bill submitters how they justify legal recognition of homosexual relationships, but not bigamy or bestiality.

It’s an odd line of questioning, unless this is being treated as a policy focus group for the rural ACT voting base.

With John Banks declining, Franks is a key man for the right. I ask him whether he is feeling focused.

“I ask [about bestiality and bigamy] because, frankly, I get bored,” he says.

“Most of these people are saying the same things and, while it’s new and interesting to them, we have heard it all before. I ask the questions as an intellectual exercise…”

I picture Stephen Franks as a reactionary Sacha Baron-Cohen.

“…although none of them have come up with a good answer yet.”

Talking with Franks can be daunting. True, he lacks social grace, street smarts and any ability to recognise his own shortcomings – or put out a press release that lasts fewer than seven pages. But he is every bit as book-smart as people – fans and detractors alike – allege.

His mind is not like a steel trap. More like a Swiss Army knife that, once the can opener has proven ineffective, can offer a dizzying array of alternatives: a magnifying glass, a pocket knife and a bottle opener. Most of these contraptions will prove utterly useless, but all will look nice and shiny splayed open to gleam in the sunlight.

It’s about family, I tell him. Married heterosexual couples save more and demand fewer of the state’s resources. Family and commitment, I say, should be encouraged. Homosexuals, I tell him, have no greater right to my tax dollars than indolent, unloved heterosexuals who save less and leech the public health system with their fetid lack of self regard. Franks is unrepentant.

“Well, I love my dog, but that doesn’t mean I should be allowed to marry it.”

But, of course, even dogs have legal rights in the relationship with their owners, through the Animal Welfare Act.

“Yes, but I could have my dog put down any time I wanted.”

So perhaps the relationship between a dog and its owner is not analogous to that between two people.

No matter; Franks’ mind is today like a Catherine Wheel, spinning phosphorescent sparks into the darkness.

I ask about the incentives for harm reduction, in promoting commitment. Gabriel Rotello pointed out in Sexual Ecology that even a change to serial monogamy, with no reduction in the total number of partners in the gay community, would cut down the spread of STDs enormously.

Franks will have none of it.

“We’re talking about a community that’s so riddled with pathologies… harm reduction can’t be the aim of the Bill.”

He’s got to get a drink, he says.

So do I.

If a Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood

2004-12-03T13:44:00.000+13:45

So Susan Wood is the new Paul Holmes, and Mark Sainsbury is the new Susan Wood while still being the old Mark Sainsbury?

Right.

We didn't predict it, but nor did other esteemed media commentators. In fact, the only person who foresaw Great Things for Susan Wood was The Truth astrologer Don Murray whose personal website states that in 2004, "positive Pluto-Venus sextile moves [Susan Wood's] career nicely ahead."

Bill Ralston's decision was not particularly adventurous, but Susan Wood will do a jolly good job.

We're happy for her. As DogBitingMen said earlier, she's cheerful, luvverly, friendly and nice. She's the sort of telly person you'd want to work for if you worked in telly, isn't she? She'd say thank you to the person who powders her nose. (Not a drug reference - editor).

In this age when every noddy releases a CD, writes their autobiography - has a blog - and shares their home, family, dogs and hernias with underwhelmed viewers, Susan's old fashioned niceness seems admirable.

And maybe that's what we're looking for, today. MediaCow's favourite TV presenters, Peter Williams and Simon Dallow, are the sorts of gents that would put the toilet seat back down. We've moved on from the days when we expected our telly heroes to throw histrionic nelly fits behind the scenes and stuff their Larger Than Life personalities into our lounges.

Here's to nice people winning.

Foot in Mouth Charity

2004-12-03T08:00:00.000+13:45

Olivia Kember writes...

The envelope was addressed to my flatmate but the letter inside was for Sir/Madam, and printed in wobbly blue letters:

We are a group of seriously disabled artists who through illness, accidents or birth defects have lost the use of our hands. We paint or write by holding the brush or pen in the mouth or between the toes…

They were selling Christmas cards. The cards were enclosed and were pretty standard fare – plenty of candles and angels, pohutakawas for local colour, a bit of gold trim, the nativity delicately alluded to by a couple of shepherds.

It is difficult to find a method of selling that pleases everyone. However this method enables us to describe the background story of the cards produced from our original paintings which required physical hard work determination and patience…if you would like to purchase the set of attractive cards at $16 incl. GST, please use the enclosed remittance form.

And underneath in red, “Tommy Waru – the original of this letter was written by Tommy using a brush held in his mouth.” Then a picture of Tommy, brush in gob, painting a blue landscape.

My flatmate is very generous. His name would appear on a lot of charity databases, probably in bold with a gold star. But even he was revolted by the arrival of cards. They were unsolicited. They were ugly. They had syrupy, badly punctuated slogans of the “wishing you every happiness” variety on the inside, clearly not written by the mouth and foot artists but stamped straight from the Hallmark block.

But there they were, and we had to do something with them. None of us wanted to pay for these cards, since they’d been forced on us. We didn’t want to use them without paying, either. We didn’t want to use them at all. They were embarrassing. We speculated about sending them back, which, in our apathetic flat, also seemed incredibly hard. So they sat for a few weeks.

As a direct marketing ploy they’re almost brilliant. They sat and oozed guilt, especially when you turned over the letter and saw pictures of the artists at work. Underneath the slogan “Self-help – not charity” was poor old Grant, who broke his neck playing rugby and loves painting flowers. Poor Wayne, who suffered “a freak accident” and is now tetraplegic. Rob, whose accident and disability are mercifully unspecified, is shown with Prince Charles, who apparently praised the way he painted snow.

The Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists is an international organisation, and the queasiness engendered by their selling strategy is shared by some mouth and foot painting artists. According to Simon Smith, its founder Erich Stegmann thought that his lack of arms and mouth-painting technique were irrelevant to the quality of work, and that selling a painting using pity was worse than not selling it at all. Stegmann’s followers obviously don’t have those qualms. Smith says the British MFPA gives artists an income whether they create pictures or not, making their income a subsidy for working using their mouths or feet. “It's a case of ‘Isn't it marvelous, aren't they clever!’. A party trick which is seen as more important than the work itself.”

If multiple sclerosis or an accident reduces you from fully-functioning to quadriplegic, completing the tedious process of learning to draw with your mouth indicates at the very least enormous stamina and courage. What it has to do with artistic ability is another question. But if you’re trying to flog your wares – and as Simon points out, getting a much better than market rate for doing so – you need to ask why people would want to buy them.

And in this case, out of pity. No matter what the AMFPA’s bumf might say, it’s emotional blackmail. Simon suggests sending the cards you don’t like to people you don’t like, twinking out any references to the AMFPA and the orifice with which the brush was held and using as normal. He doesn’t specify whether or not you should cough up the cash.

My plan was just to leave them lying around until they got lost, but that’s rather unsatisfying. One suggestion has been to send them to the MPs who expect their marriages will be undermined by the passing of the Civil Union Bill, since doing so will fulfil Simon’s first instruction, postage to Parliament is free and they’ll probably be in need of Christmas cheer. A friend has just pointed out that it’s quite expensive being disabled and perhaps I should give the painters a donation. He’s right, dammit. But it’s not going to the MFPA people. The NZ Spinal Trust donate button doesn’t work so I’ve gone with the MS Society. Now I can burn these damn things with a clear conscience. Unless, of course, you give me a better idea.

The End is Nigh

2004-11-30T17:21:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes earnestly once again:

Finally the civil union debate minces into its final days. Once the Civil Union Bill is passed, getting the Relationships Bill through should (one would imagine) be a formality, even if it is going to come embarrassingly late.

As our MPs prepare to vote, doesn’t it feel more like a referendum on shirt-lifting, vegemite-drilling ar.se banditry than anything else? Any pretence that this is anything other than almost-but-not-quite-gay-marriage seems to have been dropped by both sides.

Both the supporters and the opponents of the Civil Union Bill seem quite burdened by their self-righteousness. Their hearts are in the right places. The opponents believe they are helping New Zealand avoid slipping into a moral morass. The supporters are just as pious: they see themselves unshackling a minority from inequality.

Of course, neither group will actually achieve their goals. Neither sin nor (state-sanctioned) discrimination will disappear.

The two sides have a lot in common. Both vastly overestimate The Other. For social liberals, the Religious Right is a massive and terrifying Bogeyman. For social conservatives, the Gay Lobby fulfils the same role. Overseas the Religious Right and the Gay Lobby might be large and well-organised. But I’ve seen both sides up close in New Zealand, and I don't think either is particularly strong. To my eye, they appear fairly well-matched.

Believing in evil Bogeymen means a lot of energy is wasted on fear and paranoia.

In this fight, it has meant masses of political and social capital have been used up in extremely divisive and non-constructive activities. Campaigning that included print media advertisements and the lobbying of MPs (incidentally, did both sides remember to get Kenneth Wang?) went overboard on rhetoric, while under-delivering on evidence. Advertisements that list a whole load of names? Bible quotations? Gee, thanks for taking the people of New Zealand seriously.

This battle bubbled away under the surface for months, giving shape to the Destiny march and leading to (some accurate) accusations of bigotry from both sides.

Yet I believe this was the wrong battle. I support full gay marriage. No argument exists for a civil union that is not also an argument for full marriage. I do not believe, as Russell Brown’s straw man does, that “the defeat of the CUB would somehow open the way for same-sex marriage”. I do believe that the passing of the CUB will make it harder for full marriage to ever be allowed. I don’t think this battle should ever have been chosen – and certainly not before first trying for full marriage.

Brown has been one of the few protagonists in the CUB debate who has actually argued his case rationally. So I'm sorry for giggling when he mentions he is "standing behind" his gay friends in this debate. I just get an unfortunate mental image. Anyway, It's interesting that his friends and my own have such different viewpoints. I suspect it is a generational thing. I'm 24 and came out quite young. His friends are in their 40s and seem to have belatedly identified as gay.

The civil union bill will be passed. The Relationships Bill should get through too - without it, the CUB has no bite. Once both pieces of legislation are passed, some people will be rather happy and others will be rather angry. I think both sides will be over-reacting.

Like most New Zealanders, for me personally, it won't have much significance. And not just because of my opposition to civil unions. I don't let politics drive my life to that extent. Nope, it won't have much impact because my partner and I are already engaged to wed next year. In our own way. After that, in the medium-term, we will sort out how to have kids. But in the meantime, our ceremony will be just right for us. It will be a demonstration of our love for each other. And that's really what matters.

We Were Bored

2004-11-26T07:22:00.000+13:45

Slightly Edited Conversations between David W Young and Ben Thomas:

DAVID: I’m getting bored of Matt Nippert pretending to be “Lyndon Hood” at Fighting Talk.
BEN: I know. The worst thing about Nippert ghost-writing Hood's pieces is that he doesn't even save his best material. it's like this creatively barren dumping ground for his diary entries.
DAVID: We could pick a fight with him. But fights are so Two Weeks Ago. Besides, I think Nippert gets aroused when you say nasty things about him.
BEN: We could make him fight someone else. Someone equivalent.
DAVID: The internet version of two weedy guys slapping each other's forearms in the playground after their glasses have fallen off?
BEN: Exactly. Then we can get others to pile in and create a stupid-blogger-bitchfight. It can be like Sweeps Week.
DAVID: But who do we choose to fight “Lyndon Hood”?
BEN: Leave it to me. I’ll find the perfect match.

Friday, November 19: Aaron Bhatnagar’s weblog:
Lyndon Hood - self-appointed tit, Lower Hutt
Found in the blogosphere today is a post by sporadic blogger Lyndon Hood, from the blog Fighting Talk.
Lyndon, who I have never met, takes it upon himself to post a ficticious conversation between ACT Leader Rodney Hide and himself. After reading the post, I find it completely believable that Lyndon does have voices in his head conducting interviews… Lyndon Hood describes himself tongue in cheek (I hope) as a self-appointed dramaturg. Self appointed tit is closer to the mark I'm afraid.

DAVID: You are a genius.
BEN: Thank you, thank you.
DAVID: Do you think Matt Nippert will respond as "Lyndon Hood"?
BEN: Rile him up. Make sure it happens. He hates local body politicians ever since the anti-vagrancy by-laws in Wellington. I think they were called the ‘Nippert Regulations’. Play on that.
DAVID: Very clever. I will. By the way, we should really use our powers for good, one day. Not today.

Wednesday, November 24: “Lyndon Hood’s” weblog:
Now, Aaron
… I wouldn't normally be offended (and I certainly wouldn't be surprised) by a right-wing ideologue sneering at somebody who disagrees with him. Especially when said ideologue's name is written in such big letters at the top of their blog… Why are you so angry Aaron? Is Rodney Hide your momma, that you rage so when I diss him?
… Aaron, you called me names… Anyway, Aaron (if that's your real name), you wrote a post to sneer at me and you'll no doubt describe me as whinging now. So we're even now, right?...

BEN: Damn, that was lame. "You called me names"?
DAVID: Bugger. Do you think Bhatnagar will even respond?
BEN: It'll be tough, but I will rile him up.

Thursday, November 25, 2004: Aaron Bhatnagar’s weblog:
Lyndon Hood - part two
Lyndon Hood, who I described as a self appointed tit in a previous blog posting has taken umbrage with my comments and launched into a spectacular Fallujah like offensive in his most recent blog posting. Except he's on the insurgent side. And like any fanatic, he appears to desire his own being slaughtered (if even metaphorically) by choosing to respond to my criticism…
Still, his response shows that he has some spine. I like that. It looks very nice on my home office wall.

DAVID: This is getting boring.
BEN: Time to bring in a few more players?
DAVID: How about Simon Pound? He's the guy who washes Simon Dallow’s coffee mug at the end of Agenda – and did you know Pound's been made co-host of that new Charter queer television show starting in 2005? Apparently he once might have had a near-gay experience.
BEN: People with weak chins always get lucky.

Thursday November 25: Simon Pound’s weblog:
And coming down from the roof like Sting...
Aaron Bhatnager and Lyndon Hood are having a ruckus. But what piss poor job they're doing of it.
There are no verbal fireworks, no cutting or incisive insults, no gore, no money shot. Just pomposity from the only man capable of being voted out in the one ward in the country where having a rich dad is an advantage, and, on the other side, drivel from Lower Hutt….
I wouldn't have thought, Aaron Bathhater, Auckland Political Activist that you would be so active these days, what with the being voted out and all. Sorry I wont mention it again. (Loser)
And Lyndon, stick to web design, Aaron Barklater had a point: it wasn't funny…..

DAVID: That was fairly good.
BEN: Yeah, but he has the cruel wisdom of Simon Dallow to draw from. Dallow is an evil genius.
DAVID: I aspire to being like him one day. How about we bring it all home now? We've might not have gotten Free World Blog Leader Russell Brown involved. But we could go for quantity instead
BEN: What made the world wars truly global was the participation of all the minor players, like Abyssinia and Indonesia – the real backwater nations that just wanted to be part of it. So we need to get them involved by prodding and poking them.
DAVID: I love it when you say Abyssinia.
BEN: Let's do it.

Over Thursday and Friday...

DAVID FARRAR AT KIWIBLOG: "I thought the Matt Nippert/David Cohen/Neil Falloon war was far more funny. Is Lyndon Hood really Matt Nippert? I never got that impression."

SAGENZ AT NZPUNDIT: "having read both sides of aaron/nippert they seem to make a pair of really old droopy grandma's breasts really."

PHILOSOPHICALLY MADE: "I was warned before joining Philosophically Made that it was about policies, not people. Just this once, I feel like publicising my affinity for disobedience. I used to think Aaron Bhatnagar was pretty cool… That was way before I joined the blogosphere or discovered Mr Bhatnagar's political convictions… Now, I see Mr Bhatnagar for what he is: an 'active member' of the C&R ticket in local body politics in Auckland. Riiiight.

JORDAN CARTER: "I am taken a bit aback by it. No other comment to make really."

MR T AT PHILOSOPHY, ETC: "I tend to keep my fingers out of blog-wars, because I'm not into social commentary, but rather into looking at the validity of arguments. As such, I don't try to push social positions very hard, although I do state mine.”

LEFT AND LEFTER: “They are having a little bitch fight. It does not seem to be too serious. They are both adults, they can sort it out themselves. Sorry, but you won't see a posting on something as unimportant as that from me."

ABOUT TOWN: It seem Aaron "With targets this big I don't even need to aim" Bhatnagar has been at it again. This time getting into a scrap with the long haired Lyndon Hood .
I'm glad someone who couldn't get elected to a community board has taken up something more sporting. I guess he is angry because unlike the US we don't elect our Dog Catchers and he might have had a really good shot at that.
I was told of Aaron long before I saw his blog. I was told he was Rabid... I crusied past his blog and he seemed normally anough. Talked about his new MAC and life with out his front door. Then he went off about the peace foundation and I could see the slim veneer of sanity slip…
Aaron you scare me and I wish you had been answering that door when that little old lady had come calling.

BEN: He’s referring to the car crashing into Bhatnagar’s house, isn’t he?
DAVID: God. I didn’t realise we would provoke death-threats.
BEN: Mind you, it’s a fairly poor death threat.
DAVID: It’s still a death threat
BEN: I think our work here is done.

Fair and Balanced

2004-11-24T07:29:00.000+13:45

These are two actual questions from a 2004 NCEA Economics Exam worth four credits:

The New Zealand government provides 'free'... education at state secondary schools. Explain why this results in a better resource allocation than the free market...

And:

Explain why using 'free market' policies causes income inequality.

Some readers will agree with the underlying assumption present in both questions: free market bad, interventionist government solution good. Some won't. But everyone can agree this world view is hotly contested. And if the question were put the other way around - "Explain how using 'interventionist' policies restrains economic growth" - then the unhappiness would switch to the other side.

Basically, if you were writing an economics exam, wouldn't you try to avoid questions so obviously based on contentious, politicised arguments?

Just a thought.

Beautiful Militants for Zaoui

2004-11-22T08:00:00.000+13:45

Miss Olivia Kember writes...

Who is Jeremy Elwood? Five hours at the Kings Arms on Sunday led me to this conclusion: he’s a well-meaning bastard whose unfortunate conviction that “comedy is one of the most potent forms of political statement available to us” almost transformed me from a casual Labour sympathiser into a supporter of whoever would have the power to cut off his PACE benefit.

I was at a Zaoui benefit gig. Nice people, happy to fork out fifteen dollars to hear nice bands, happy to play for free and a bit of publicity. Dave Dobbyn looked like a chubby Castro in his little revolutionary cap and sang about virgins. Don McGlashan sang about Korea. The Brunettes sang about… well, whatever, but they tactfully dropped “You Beautiful Militant” (“you pick up your gun, and shoot everyone”) from their set.

But bloody Jeremy had to get up in between and harangue. “What I like best about New Zealanders is we’re not afraid to stand up for what we believe in.”

Rubbish. Most New Zealanders can barely complain to a waiter, let alone pick up a placard and picket. But clearly his New Zealanders are not mine. There’s a sad gap between the ones that protest – and protest and protest – and the rest.

I’m in group two. Despite my theoretical support for their aims, I just don’t like activists very much. I don’t like their hair, their righteous t-shirts, their simplistic slogans, or their sincerity. I loathe Thursdays in Black, and Alannah Currie’s wailing made me want to forcefeed her with genetically modified toads. I also can’t stand activists who graft other protests on to whatever protest they’re actually at, or the ones in silly costumes. And I particularly hate the way they congratulate each other for having the bravery to stand up for what’s right. As if, in this case, there was anything particularly noble about coming to a concert.

Besides, despite Don McGlashan's best attempts, Zaoui is not a hero. Just because he may not be a terrorist doesn’t mean we have to idealise him. He’s a democratically elected leader, as Jeremy chanted over and over again, but then so is John Howard. And Bush. Zaoui might turn out to be some sort of Nelson Mandela-in-training, but we’ll have to wait and see for that. In the meantime the best we can assume is that he’s an ordinary man.

But then Deborah Manning, Zaoui’s lawyer, got up to speak and I felt ashamed. Whatever Zaoui’s merits, his family have to eat, and those who bothered to come along on Sunday scored his wife and kids $4000. And – whatever the Prime Minister might say about process – two years’ detention without charge is a disgrace.

I’m also increasingly sceptical of anything involving the SIS. The spy’s briefcase found at a bus-stop and containing only a pie and a Penthouse, even the bungled burglary of GATT Watchdog’s Aziz Choudry suggested a reassuringly bumbling incompetence. We might have spies in New Zealand, but at least they’re crap. They can’t do us any harm. Besides, what is there for them to do?

Pick on iwi, it appears. Their shambolic handling of the Zaoui case, from the ‘lost video’ they made to the ‘casing video’ they accused Zaoui of making, suggested a more sinister side to their fumbling, while the latest revelations from the Sunday Star-Times make it clear: the SIS is shit.

It occurs to me now that there probably was a spy at the Zaoui concert. Lurking in a "Stop America’s Racist War" t-shirt, worn as bait in order to lure sympathisers into a chat about the need to acquire fake passports. Thinking she was just another comrade, I didn’t speak to her, but in retrospect she seemed too…obvious. Or maybe Jeremy was the spook, which would explain why he was so not funny. Who’d join the NZ SIS? Nothing of importance to do, and no one to tell…an ideal career change for a failed comic.

Conjoined Triplets

2004-11-19T07:05:00.000+13:45

Ben Thomas writes…

Buses

Auckland luminaries such as David Tua have lent their support to a campaign for free public transport.

I can’t speak ill of David Tua - unless we are revisiting his title bout with Lennox Lewis in 2000, in which case I would say he doesn’t move his head enough. But what I do feel comfortable saying is that I have never seen him riding the bus with me. Trudging around Ponsonby and Newton I have, however, often seen a large four wheel drive with the number plate “TUAMAN” and an iconic depiction of David covering the side panel. Perhaps he drives it to the bus stop.

As regular bus riders, David Tua and I know that bus fares don’t dissuade anybody from getting on a bus. A Free Bus has girded its way around the CBD since 2002. The only people who use it are students who take it to their Victoria Street bus stops (they then pay), and from their bus stops to the University. The only other popular destination is the casino.

I can believe that Grant Morgan, Socialist Workers’ Party crank and Resident Action Movement activist, who is behind this initiative doesn’t have bus fare, but this seems a pretty extreme way to fix the problem.

……….

A minimalist launch

I am walking past one of the innumerable minimalist private galleries on Karangahape Road. Like them all, it usually seems cavernous, empty. Dwarfed by a snowy surround of white walls, a tiny painting sits like a pinprick in the centre of the eastern wall. I can’t even discern what it may depict.

On the southern wall, although the visual equivalent of white noise makes it hard to determine the interior angles of the yawning space or distance of any form, a rectangular canvas sits, slightly raised, giving the impression of being suspended in a void. Staring at it makes its edges throb in and out. Size is impossible to judge. Otherwise, the room is bare.

Tonight is the occasion of a minimalist soiree. Dressed in tails (man) and black evening dresses glittering with jewellery (women), three revelers are sipping wine from flutes and enjoying animated discussion about art in the bay window. In the opposite far corner, within shouting distance even if the likelihood of an echo is uncertain, two others laugh as they drink and eat canapés. The rest of the gallery is empty. There is no music.

……….

223

There’s minimalism of another sort at Café 223, on Auckland’s Symonds Street, where Thursday is “Beer and Titties Night”.

Café 223 is an anonymous bar/café on a slight round in the footpath, opposite Khyber Pass Road. It’s rare to see more than a couple of regulars in the small space inside its ranchslider door – 223 is a generic “Sky and Tui” style sports bar which struggles to attract blokes over its more down to earth neighbour, the Edinburgh Castle, and young urbanites over the painfully hip Odeon Lounge down the road.

Tonight, there is barely room to stand. About forty men are crowded around the salient feature, a red felt pool table set off to the side of the bar, abutting the staircase which, in one of 223’s previous failed incarnations as a punk venue, led to the band area. The crowd is almost exclusively from the construction sites opposite, on the corner of Khyber Pass Road, which seems to spew forth new apartments every day. Some are still wearing their safety vests; there are a couple of hard hats on tables. The younger ones, under thirty, are heavily tattooed; two wear full moko. Playing pool is a twenty-something guy, and a slim, large chested brunette wearing a one piece latex nurse’s uniform unzipped to the waist.

DogBitingMen scoops the Herald on a regular basis. But a clipping pinned to the office partitions which separate the bar area from the “casino” – three pokie machines – shows that we have been outpointed by the Truth on this one. It has already profiled and interviewed “Chantelle”, and printed its piece along with photos of her wearing a Hawaiian lei and holding cocktail mixes. It’s a tie in with the interview, the part where she says “One day I’d love to work in a bar on the beach, like that movie Cocktail”. I also learn that patrons are surprised to walk in off the street to see her dispensing drinks without a top.

I can understand their shock. In the time I am there, she doesn’t come close to serving anyone a drink, seemingly more interested in playing pool and soliciting tips from customers. It’s tough getting a drink from the barman, because he seems more interested in watching Chantelle.

As a de facto strip club, Café 223 technically comes under the definition of “commercial sex premises” in the Auckland City Council’s district plan. It is well outside the area bounded by Fort and Customs Streets, and its blackboard’s crude chalk drawing (body in green, hair in yellow) of a topless woman probably constitutes ground level advertising within the meaning of the bylaws.

Observations, gleaned from original research: The number one topic of conversation at strip clubs proper is the dancers themselves. When young guys, and older guys, go to clubs and believe they are chatting up the dancers, they will discuss that dancer’s career. (Interviews conducted between 1999, 2001. Subject sample: patrons, friends, employees, former employees. Possible biases in study: early interviews conducted drunk, in strip clubs). They will ask how long she has been working at the bar, and they will ask what the other customers are like. They will hope that she says “they are weird and creepy and shallow and nothing like you.” Another favourite question is, what do you do other than dancing? Young male students, in particular, are disappointed if dancing turns out to be her full-time job. As if that’s demeaning, somehow. As if now they have nothing in common.

Very few patrons have a strip club experience – they have a meta-experience. They are longing for an out of body experience, not for themselves, but for the dancer. They discuss the dynamics of straddling strangers for money in an abstract way, with the woman sitting exposed on their respective lap. Always, do you enjoy this line of work? Never, are you enjoying this right now?

Right now, Chantelle is waving a cup in my face and saying “the more money you put in the pot, the better it will be at 8 o’clock.” This is the scheduled denouement – when, the top having long been discarded, the rest comes off. I shake my head. I live in a cashless society, I tell her. My ex-flatmate moves to put a twenty in the pot, which she grabs from his hand. She climbs on the pool table, gets down on all fours and places the rolled up note in a place where it would not normally go. I’m not sure what point she is trying to make, but it strengthens my resolve to pay by EFTPOS and never handle change in the future.

I’m thinking about this. Back as a student journalist, it was easy to detach and look at everything as a potential story. See? I wasn’t like those other guys. It was research. This is research. I have a duty to readers to report faithfully what is happening. What is the audience like here. Mainly older Europeans, younger Maori, a scattering of Samoans Where are her tattoos placed. A dragon over her left mammary. Must have hurt. Tribal design on her foot. Something else on the calf. I don’t care about this. There is no soundtrack, just a big screen showing Juice TV. Dei Hamo’s video, We Gon Ride.

Chantelle is naked now. She’s leading a middle-aged guy with soft curls falling out from a central bald spot to the centre of the crowd, who are whooping and applauding. Her wide, leather belt is around his neck. After a series of complicated gymnastics, she ends up on his back, and is taking to him with the belt, wielded as a strap.

He is rearing up and down – less like a bronco, or a stallion, than like an old car belching smoke and about to stall. He is becoming flushed with the effort. The cracking sound of the belt through the air as Chantelle strikes again and again is more satisfying than the dull thud against his cushioned backside. His mates are laughing. I am laughing, trying to remain a journalist. Am I laughing with them, or at them? Are they laughing at their workmate, now bobbing as if trying to free part of his body that is stuck somewhere, already sunburnt face beet-red now, panting – or with him? And Chantelle. She’s laughing, too. Part of the service? With? At? This isn’t erotic. This is stupid. But watch me laugh.

Donna's World View

2004-11-18T06:31:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes...

As MediaCow recently noted, I worked for Donna Awatere Huata for three great years.

In a move that was surprising for everybody involved, I got a job working in parliament for the Act party and became Donna's press secretary, roughly a month or so after her stomach stapling. Over the next three years I felt I became very close to her. I thought I was her confidante. I was her staunch defender and fierce advocate. She told me we were "spiritually attuned"; I counted her among my closest friends.

With the glare of hindsight I can see I was naive and gullible. Yet, at the time, I felt more loyalty to her than I ever had to anybody. I strongly admired her, perhaps even idolised her. She is a remarkably talented, intelligent person. She had the potential to achieve anything she wanted. She inspired me to work very hard for her.

In the end, after everything had turned upside down and inside out, I was one of the last people working for Act she or Wi would talk to. (By then they didn't like what I was saying.)

I visited her new office once, a few weeks after she had been suspended from the party. We had a stilted conversation. We haven't spoken since.

I have many memories, anecdotes, impressions, but I'd like to keep those bottled up and away from the uncompromising harshness of cynical hindsight or retrospective thinking. Regardless of everything else, we were a great team. I miss that. I think I miss her.

Today Donna finds out if she is booted out of Act.

The logical part of me knows it's simple: Act voters wanted nine members of Parliament. They no longer have nine MPs and that is Donna's fault. Therefore, no matter how flawed the Waka Jumping legislation is, Act should be allowed to shed her, especially before she gains extra taxpayer-funded perks at the end of this parliamentary term.

But, emotionally, I find the issue less clear. At a gut level I don't want the court to rule against her. I don't want it to be over this afternoon. This part of me wants to see Donna escape the clammy embrace of the courts and wriggle free from the clutches of politics on her own terms.

It's bigger than that, though. Fundamentally, I don't want her to be shackled by reality.

Donna is a master of self reinvention. But I don't think she has ever stopped at recreating her image. Our 'spiritual attunement' came in large measure from my willingness to believe in the world that Donna created for herself.

It was a world that was larger and brighter and more magical than real life could ever be. In that world, she has never done anything wrong, she is above accountability, and she has nothing to apologise for. In that world, she is a legend first, then a diva, a motherand a saviour of children.

Yes, this may seem far-fetched, especially to people who have never met Donna. But it didn't seem so at the time.

I learned from Donna that blind faith can be remarkably comforting. It was a frightening thing to find out.

And I've now learned that even a belated gift of the power of vision doesn't mean you will allow yourself to fully see.

Thank You, India

2004-11-17T07:30:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes...

An AAP piece from this morning’s New Zealand Herald:

Homosexuals embrace Pansy Rose

SYDNEY - Australia's gay community has been quick to embrace the newest pansy in town - a fruity little New Zealand number produced by Auckland winemakers Kim and Erica Crawford.

Pansy Rose has been aimed at the lucrative gay market, which polishes off around $4.5 million worth of wine each month, according to the wine's creators.

The Crawfords originally produced the wine to thank their gay friends in the hospitality industry.

Now, I’ve owned a CD by Madonna and another by Cher, and I’ve even wanted an anatomically correct Billy Doll. But pink wine called Pansy Rose that I’m supposed to buy because I sleep with men? I’m sorry, but that’s going about thirty mincing steps too far.

I know, I know: it’s supposed to be tongue in cheek. It’s a tribute to their numerous gay friends (who all conveniently work in a stereotypically gay industry). But it’s just not working for me. It's really, really not working for me.

Let me just run a scenario past you.

What if, having “thanked” their pansy friends, Kim and Erica wanted to thank all their Asian mates... Would they launch a wine called, “Squinty Eyed Chardonnay”? And would the newspaper article begin, “Australia’s Asian community has welcomed the newest chink in town – a yellowish number produced by…”?

DogBitingMen introduces a Competition:

How do you think Kim and Erica express their undying gratitude to all their Maori and Pacific Island friends? The handicapped? Lesbians? Any other minority group?

Go on, come up with a wine name yourself, and we’ll suggest it to Kim and Erica.

Send us your light-hearted, “tongue-in-cheek” suggestions by email. We'll publish the best.

(If you'd like your entry to be anonymous, please say so).

(A note: We would ask gay men to participate in this competition, but we're aware that hairdressers, hospo staff and florists probably won't have easy access to computers. And lesbians will be too busy playing cricket. So it's up to you heterosexuals. Make your children's children proud).

My Two Hats

2004-11-15T07:00:00.000+13:45

Miss Olivia Kember writes...

Thank you, David. Unaccustomed as I am to being the recipient of such enthusiastic puffery (see Welcome to a New Contributor, below), I think it's necessary to make the following corrections:

1) I wear two hats. One is a black and yellow cap embroidered with"AMI Insurance Autobody Repair competition 2004". That is not because I entered an autobody repair competition, but because someone less well-versed in PR than Mediacow thought it would entice me to an apprentices expo last month.

The other hat is made of towelling and has red, orange and brown flowers on it, and I wear it with a bit of the brim down and a bit of the brim up. Like a gangster. [Editor: I thought we weren't going to write about Matt Nippert anymore?]

2) I'm not producing a bfm show anymore. I do book reviews for them every fortnight, and I am currently plodding through "Planet Simpson", a Springfield nerd's bible. It's full of nerd facts like, "Burns's use of 'Ahoy-hoy' when he has to use the phone while Smithers is away is derived from Alexander Graham Bell's suggested telephonic greeting". I like nerd facts. I am, after all, a nerd.

3) I sort of trained as a journalist for one year at AUT but I failed photography and only got the shorthand certificate by cheating. Thanks to the Listener for giving me a job before the results came through.

4) I did learn the flute for about twelve years. I even teach it. Whether I can still play the thing is an entirely different matter which I'm not willing to investigate.

All the rest is true.

Swelpmegod.

Welcome to a New Contributor

2004-11-14T09:10:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes...

The DogBitingMen team is very proud to welcome our newest contributor, Miss Olivia Kember.

Olivia is talented, witty and intelligent. She wears many (perfectly coordinated) hats, including the 'Producer of a Radio 95bFM' big red hat. (Yes, we too were amazed there was anybody left at bFM who didn't have a weblog yet.) Incidentally, the bFM she works for is not this one.) Olivia is trained as a journalist. As well as her radio gig, she works in telly and in print. She is a great flute player.

Her addition does create the inevitable question: DogBitingMen or DogBitingPersons? We'll sort that out in due course, perhaps when we get a Queer Eye-style makeover in the next few weeks. (Our site is going to be as stylish as our newest contributor). In the meantime, if MediaCow can be called a man, so can Olivia.

Welcome.

Silent Letters

2004-11-12T06:58:00.000+13:45

MediaCow writes...

Nobody in telly-land was hugely surprised when TVNZ revealed it was canning teenage news show Flipside. It was expensive programming that rated poorly. NZ On Air funding wasn't available because it counted as "news".

But the interesting thing about TVNZ's decision was that Flipside was pure Charter. Most yoof aren't gonna watch a news show no matter how it's packaged. The remaining teens who do want some current events after school aren't catered for by anybody else. Sure, the audience was small - but providing a service for "smaller audiences" and "extending the range of ideas and experiences available to New Zealanders" was what Chartervision was supposed to deliver.

I'm not a fan of the Charter. But I find it strange that pro-Charter politicians haven't at least drafted media statements mourning the loss of the show, or asking what message this sends loyal TVNZ staffers who are toiling away to implement the Charter.

Wow. We did that without once mentioning Flipside Hotties.

One MP not afraid of a challenge is Tariana Turia, outraged on behalf of Donna Awatere Huata that Awatere Huata's plan for a face-lift and tummy tuck was released by the private hospital that performed a stomach stapling on her. "It gives me little confidence in our health system if patient confidentiality can count for nothing," she said. The information was included in an evidential statement from the surgeon, which was then presumably released by Auckland District Court to Dominion Post reporter Deborah Diaz. It was a good scoop, and it was a little interesting that so much ostensibly private doctor-patient information was made public... but because this was delivered through an evidential statement, it doesn't seem Turia has anything to go on, does it? You'd think, if Turia was right, that the Herald would use a media law expert or medical ethics person to back her up.

(In the interests of full disclosure: an author of Dog Biting Men, David W Young, was loyal press secretary to Donna Awatere Huata for around three years. This period included the time she received surgery and lasted until her formal suspension from Act.)

According to people who should know, The Listener's Page 94 man Steve Braunias has been snapped up at the last minute by the Sunday Star Times, after the Herald thought his hiring was a done deal. How very cut-throat the world of arty literati types must be.

And thanks to fascinating emails received, MediaCow has a few more questions about the Hannah Hodson shift from TVNZ to TV3.

Did Hodson actually know she was dobbing in the source when she faxed Jayson Rhodes?
If so, had Rhodes promised her/TV3 anything in return for the delivery of the source's head on a platter?
Did Bill Ralston know the extent of what had just happened when he hired her?
What's up with the Y in Jayson and the H in Rhodes?

Emailed answers would be lovely.

Back to Basics

2004-11-10T07:16:00.000+13:45

MediaCow writes...

It's time for some good old media watching.

From the 'Where's the Outrage' file... hasn't TV3's Hannah Hodson gotten off incredibly lightly over the Asher saga? Here's what we know: Another TV3 reporter was given a copy of the log of Iraena Asher's 111 call by a "trusted" police source. Ex-TV3 employee and current police spokesman Jayson Rhodes rang different TV3 journalists, asking for the source of the leak. He was understandably told to "rack off". Then Hodson gave him the log. A fax number on the document allowed police to track down the source of the leak. One assumes that Hodson had noticed the fax number. Which means that she deliberately gave away a colleague's source.

TV3 news boss Mark Jennings immediately asked Hodson for her resignation, which makes sense. But within hours, TVNZ news boss Bill Ralston gave her a vote of confidence by hiring her for Close Up at 7. This makes less sense. Ralston's justification? "I'm sorry for the source but it was not a mistake made at TVNZ, it was made at (TV)3." Bizarre. TV3 may foot the legal bills of the source.

Contrast Hodson's treatment with that of Renee Kiriona. Kiriona was a green print journalist who made a silly mistake - plagiarising in what she thought was an early draft - and got blasted in every publication in the country. Hannah Hodson is an able and experienced broadcast journalist who put a colleague's source in danger of losing her job. Hodson gets a new job. The number of print stories about her actions? Just three.

Another 'Why is everything so quiet?' story from abroad... It seems weird the UK hasn't seen an anti-tabloid backlash this week. On Sunday the Sunday Mirror revealed a 21-year-old television soap star had sold fake stories about his supposedly virulently heterosexual sex life. These 'fake' stories had appeared in rival The Sun, and the Mirror didn't hold back in gloating. Its article strongly implied the actor was really gay.

After opening his newspaper on Sunday, the actor took an overdose of paracetomol and then slashed his wrists. His suicide attempt was unsuccessful, but made the newspapers. Now The Sun is publishing daily updates on Parker's condition, while the Mirror has gone completely quiet. I'm just surprised the rest of the media aren't seizing the opportunity to engage in moral outrage about the Mirror going too far.

In one of those titbits that we know you love... Page 94 of the Listener is due for a makeover soon, as is the books section of the New Zealand Herald. Subtract 1 from Wellington, carry the 1 to Auckland.

And finally, isn't it tempting to make fun of the profile and startlingly large photograph of self-styled social commentator Russell Brown in this week's Listener? We won't, because it would just reveal how jealous we are: We're not yet old enough to grow chin hair like that.

That's enough for today.

The Mark of the Beast

2004-11-08T07:05:00.000+13:45

Tales from the Employment Relations Authority

Ben Thomas writes…

[Passages in italics are excerpts from the decision of Dzintra King in PMP Print Ltd v Barnes, Employment Relations Authority, Auckland Office, unreported, AA317/04, 28 September 2004, Member Dzintra King.]

As David W Young intimated in his excellent piece in the Listener, New Zealand's new frontier of justice is employment relations. Usually the employer is put on trial: it must “justify” its actions to the ominously named Employment Relations Authority. However, since 2000, an employer has also been able to use this machinery of the state to hold its employees to account.

PMP Print Limited sought a determination from the Authority as to whether the applicant’s instruction to the respondent, Mr David Barnes, that he comply with a new time keeping process, which involves finger scanning technology, is lawful and reasonable and in accordance with the contractual provision relating to time keeping.

The relevance of this, in a political-media context, is that the Authority is a much more interesting beat for daily newspapers than the tired old criminal courts. With abundant advertising dollars in the print media, it is a new theatre for playing out age-old dramas.

Mr Barnes refuses to use the system. He told me he didn’t feel that the company had the power to demand a fingerprint and it went against the grain with him. He seriously doubted its legality but could not point to any legal argument in support of his view.

The Authority is the newest and best news source for gory conflicts dripping with salacious details – the modern day equivalent of the Truth's “morality reporting” on divorce hearings. In an age of moral relativism, it is reassuring that the Authority can, and in fact is required by law to, deem some actions “unjustifiable”. The language of employment law – reasonableness, duty, obligation – is of a timbre rarely heard in mainstream society nowadays.

Mr Barnes also told me that the taking of biometric information would result in his being stamped with the Mark of the Beast.

The Employment Relations Authority is, officially, an “informal, low level tribunal”. It is not a court, and its investigations are not conducted like hearings. The "member" (the equivalent of a judge) can take on an inquisitorial role and is free to question the parties, witnesses and members of the public with impunity. The process is flexible and so, counter-intuitively, can resemble television courtroom antics much more than the real thing.

I enquired whether he would have a problem with using his left hand. Revelation 13:16-18 refers to a person being marked either on the forehead or the right hand. Mr Barnes believes the Biblical reference was to both hands.

In the drab criminal courts, 85% of defendants plead guilty and 90% of those who do not are found culpable anyway. In the Authority, employers and employees can bring claims, and the win-loss record is much more evenly shared.

The difference between the Authority and criminal proceedings is the difference between watching gladiators fight, and Christians being fed to lions.

He said he would let the police take his fingerprint. I asked why he would do that if the consequence was that he would not be able to participate in the Rapture. This is referred to in Revelation 20:4. ‘And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads nor in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.’

Or perhaps it is more like the teenage-nerd card game, Yu-Gi-Oh. At any point in proceedings, a party can deliver the winning blow with one of the employment law trump cards: the Health and Safety in Employment Act, for example. Employees’ safety is paramount. An employee wielding this card may declare “my right to a safe work place beats your contractual right to set my work hours, you capitalist exploiter”. Or (in a cunning reverse made possible by the Air New Zealand drug-testing case) the employer might say, “your right to a safe workplace beats your right to privacy, so pee in this cup, you meth-addled loon”.

Health and safety is an automatic win. But in its absence, parties may win a clear points decision by playing combinations of lesser rights-conferring legislation - the Human Rights Act, say - and paint the other party as having unlawfully infringed those rights.

When this matter first came to my attention I was anticipating an argument on the grounds of indirect discrimination on the basis of religious belief. However, it is clear that Mr Barnes cannot sustain such an argument. If he had a sincere religious belief that he would be denied the Rapture because of the requirement to provide a fingerprint he would have to apply that to the taking of fingerprints by the Police as well as by the employer.

As one commentator recently noted, defamation laws stop all the best stories from being told. That's why bored journalists should see the Authority, with its public status and human drama, as an untapped goldmine.

Now is the Hour

2004-11-03T07:25:00.000+13:45

The DogBitingMen team write...

This is the day the world has been waiting for.

Armies of lawyers watch like hawks for the hint of a decision. They are ready to swoop and contest. The officials who must announce the outcome cannot put a foot wrong...

Paul Holmes has left TVNZ, and it is time to find his replacement.

Having successfully predicted the trifecta at the Melbourne Cup, DogBitingMen is on a winning streak. We’ve put this to good use to create our very own tip sheet for the Decision That Will Change the World. Think of this as Holmes Idol. In no particular order, here are the candidates that Smart People are talking about:

Kerre Woodham
Pros: If Judy Bailey is the mother of the nation, Kerre Woodham is the nation’s older sister’s unruly best friend. She speaks truth to power in the pages of the Herald on Sunday and has won praise for “telling it like it is”.
Cons: History. Woodham unsuccessfully followed Holmes in the prime-time 1ZB talkback radio slot, bleeding off a third of his hard-won audience within a year. Does not execute irony well in her Herald on Sunday column: it remains unclear whether she identifies with the redneck bigots or latte-sipping liberals. Then there was the Hamilton restaurant thing...

Simon Dallow
Pros: Experienced and intelligent, Simon Dallow has only recently developed the on-screen assurance that should come naturally to someone who takes home Alison Mau each night. Has made a very good fist of Agenda. It is probably the best news show in the country now. He finally possesses gravitas.
Cons: The primetime slot is about branding more than quality interviewing or analysis. It can be difficult to create a sexy brand from the 8.30am Saturday morning shift.

Greg Dixon
Pros: Holmes will not be told what to do by a Ghanaian. Greg Dixon, 47, will not be told what to do by anyone over the age of 25 because "they are all sell-outs and phoneys”. The 7pm slot would be an ideal platform for Dixon to shock apathetic middle New Zealand out of its bourgeois complacency. Has already self-consciously demurred at the very idea of being a news presenter.
Cons: Possibly has contractual commitments to Fuse magazine which would prevent him from assuming the role. His loathing of corporate juggernauts might cause him to bleed on-air.

Russell Brown
Pros: Is there a journalist, commentator or scholar in New Zealand with the extraordinary breadth of knowledge that Russell Brown possesses? An expert on Chechnyan, American, Middle East, Australian and Point Chev politics and culture, Brown’s chances have been talked up by New Zealand’s greatest media ethics-purveyor and broadcasting commentator, Russell Brown, who hinted heavily today, “you might be seeing a bit of me in the media over the next week or two”.
Cons: Has Brown’s “we’re not married but have a perfectly wonderful relationship” wife Fiona Rae been involved in underhand tactics on Brown’s behalf? Notice that in this television review column Rae systematically rips apart perceived competitors for (sort-of) hubby’s potential job. New Zealand doesn’t like cheats.

Mikey Havoc
Pros: Mikey Havoc was seen as a serious contender at the beginning of the year during succession planning, and is lobbying the network hard by all reports. Seen as having the Holmes touch with the ordinary folk after Havoc and Newsboy’s World Tour traversed the country in a way that only Holmes or It’s In The Bag have done. He is charismatic and experienced; as a former Push Push frontman and DJ he would put out a better Christmas album than Holmes.
Cons: Then came Quality Time. Widely (and justifiably) derided after “investigative journalism” turned out to be dumbed-down Michael Moore gags and “satirical” interviews where Havoc sneeringly mugged for the camera while bemused guests looked on. Was always a risk, even before he blew his credibility.

Kate Wrath
Pros: Everybody likes a slutty sex kitten with a loud mouth. Look at Mister Neil Falloon.
Cons: Is Middle New Zealand quite ready for a show hosted by a rightwing chick-with-a-dick?

Peter Williams
Pros: He can be a good interviewer. He is laid-back and suave. Appointing him would highlight a move away from personality-driven television.
Cons: Appointing him would highlight a move away from personality-driven television.

Ian Wishart
Pros: Wishart is actually not a bad investigative journalist, and has extensive experience. Although Investigate is panned by pundits and ignored by the media, Wishart’s constituency of the conservative, disaffected and paranoid is closer to Holmes’ natural audience than many in TVNZ news might like to admit.
Cons: New Zealand is not ready for the truth. Proportion of respondents to Investigate readers’ poll who would vote for the Destiny Political party (50%) slightly higher than in the general population; may cause controversy when Wishart breaks his exclusive story about the proven existence of God.

Eric Young
Pros: He’s an empty slate that wears nice suits and sits beside Kate Hawkesby in the evenings. He is so good at facial expressions that you wonder who is hiding under the table in front of him, and what they are doing to him. Bill Ralston likes him. (This is not intended to imply we think Bill Ralston is under the table in front of him).
Cons: He’s called Eric. His evening contorsions have not converted into a ratings bonanza alongside the solid performance of TV3’s Nightline.

Damian Christie
Pros: Intelligent, articulate interviewer with wide broadcasting experience and range of views.
Cons: Will only get the offer if Russell Brown turns it down.

Aja Rock
Pros: The daughter of Bob Rock has had a meteoric rise in profile in the last few months. One local commentator points out that "a Google search produces no hits for Aja that predate Celebrity Treasure Island”, leading one to wonder why she was on that television programme.
Cons: As the sad face of Ben Lummis staring out of newspaper front pages reminds us, New Zealand should not be allowed any more fake celebrities until it looks after the ones it has.

Susan Wood
Pros: She’s cheerful, luvverly, friendly and nice, yet doesn’t veer from questions that others would avoid – like saying to Jack Black, “I just wondered about you and this thing with young boys”.
Cons: New Zealand hasn’t forgotten the time she didn’t turn up to work because her child had locked her in the wardrobe. One wonders if Holmes kept her as his understudy because he felt safe that she’d never take over his job. Better suited to a chirpy breakfast show. So long as they don't call it Morning Wood.

Bill Ralston
Pros: Ralston certainly has the track record; it’s possibly a shame this opportunity didn’t come along years earlier for the man who is now a suited head of news and current affairs. Was it Ralston’s idea to precede Holmes’ farewell speech with a (much longer) story about a retiring 50-year veteran production line worker at the Dunedin Cadbury factory? “They moved the chocolate years ago; the chocolate's all in Auckland now”, the southern stalwart informed the nation. Is Ralston itching for a hands-on role?
Cons: Who would replace him as the TVNZ News Bigwig? Mike Hosking?? Giggle. Surely experience shows Ralston being coach-and-player doesn't work.

Michael Barrymore
Pros: It would stop him from writing an utterly dreadful column for the Herald on Sunday.
Cons: It may interrupt his return to stardom through the Maeroa Valley Amateur Dramatics Club.

OUR PICKS:

Mister Neil Falloon: Heart says Wishart. Head says they will get to him before that can ever happen. Then it will be up to Ralston to be a man and prove his critics wrong.

MediaCow: I’m a big fan of Williams and I really like Dallow when he's not preening for a women's magazine. I’m not sure if I can warm to somebody named Eric.

Jimbo Hopkins: I'm not convinced we have identified a winner yet. If anybody could find Lindsay Perigo, wouldn’t he be great! (Editor's note: Hopkins watches Shortland Street anyway).

Addenda and Errata

2004-10-29T07:23:00.000+13:45

Media Cow writes…

With regard to yesterday’s vigorous excoriation of local weblogs, we would like to clarify that we didn’t mean your weblog. Your weblog is great, ask anyone.

That's a Multinational Idea

2004-10-28T07:42:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes...

While MediaCow and Neil Falloon have been struggling between them to turn New Zealand bloggers, the media and anybody else who can read against Dog Biting Men (personally I think they are weak for not listing the blogs they hate or publishing an actual photograph of Matt Nippert), I've been busy writing.

I don't just write earnest polemics on gay marriage. I also write earnest polemics about business. Wouldn't you love to have me at your next party?

That was a rhetorical question. And the business columns I write (for the Listener) are in fact more light-hearted, lightly-opinionated pieces than earnest polemics. Hopefully that will encourage some of you to click the link below.

My latest fortnightly column is titled Hating with impunity and asks whether multinational corporations are really the super-villains of our age. Please do read the column and keep me fed and watered.

Say Sorry Like You Mean It

2004-10-28T07:23:00.000+13:45

Here at Dog Biting Men we’re not very nice about our competition.

I’m not talking about the faux rumble with Fighting Talk; Ben Thomas and Matt Nippert set up that self-indulgent shit-fight over a beer** while Mister Neil Falloon performed an unseemly act on Patrick Crewdsen in the bathroom. (Those Herald on Sunday folk and bathrooms…)

I mean our habit of being disrespectful to the earnest, pasty-faced white men who write almost every terrible weblog in New Zealand.

We’re sorry.

We’re sorry for giggling at the pompous prats with four readers a day who indignantly declare, “I have made the solemn decision to remove The New Zealand Herald from my list of links because I object to its biased coverage of...” Pfft.

It was thoughtless for us to suggest that the Herald might not care deeply about this carefully calculated snub, especially when planning it kept the blogger awake even after he had finished his nightly porno download.

We're sorry for suggesting nobody cares. Despite the fact many local weblogs receive absolutely no feedback, their authors should continue to believe no subject dies until they have had their say. Yes, the world is demanding to know whether you would vote for Kerry or Bush, and is aching to find out what you thought of the Orewa Speech. The world is just a bit shy about telling you. Kind of like you are with girls.

We apologise for the amusement we gain from weblog authors who recycle online news stories. The ones that provide a link, say, to a Dominion Post article about John Tamihere standing down as Minister, and then deliver incisive commentary like, "wow. A minister is standing down. This could be bad for Labour".

Dozens of New Zealand weblogs do this, on the left and right of politics. We apologise to each of them. We would never blow away the secret behind their success by revealing that Copy is CTRL X and Paste is CTRL V.

(An extra apology to the guys who not only regurgitate news, but weren’t bright enough to find it themselves in the first place. These ones link to the same story as everyone else and then say, “with thanks to Blogger So-and-So for tipping me off to the story”. Extra apologies because Mister Neil Falloon laughs extra loud at you.)

We are sorry for not joining in the orgiastic self-congratulation as local devotees celebrated the Worldwide Blog Community's expose of Dan Rather's faked documents. We foolishly thought that was similar to authors of Buffy fan-fiction celebrating the latest Booker Prize winner. We forgot it was a shared victory for the collective mind.

On a conciliatory note, we would like to acknowledge the other awesome uses to which this nerd hive-consciousness has been deployed in the past: exposing inaccurate Star Trek references and Lord of The Rings continuity errors. Wow.

[We realise the apology angle became tired about three paragraphs ago, but we’re nothing if not persistently irritating. So on we go...]

We apologise for thinking “fisking” is a ridiculous expression. (Mister Neil Falloon once tried fisking a Flipside Hottie but she slapped him in the face so hard he lost a tooth.) We’re sorry for critiquing the term “blogosphere”: we were wrong not to feel like cosmonauts in a weightless universe.

We will never laugh again at the fools who can’t spell shit. (We're being literal. We mean the people who type "shti" or "siht".) We will stop finding it funny that one person called the Labour government scantimonious.

And finally, we will stop mocking people who link to The Onion. You’re right, somebody who has managed to find your obscure and pointless weblog just might not yet have heard of the freakin Onion.

There are some people we won’t apologise to.

These are the people who, despite our best attempts to mock, we actually read and enjoy. Perhaps they can write, pass commentary without sounding like a turd, or purposefully make us laugh. (Or maybe they just have lots of readers and we’re scared that if we pick on them they will never link to us again).

Because of our jealousy we hate them even more than we hate the failures. In no particular order (other than that the complete arseholes come utterly last), they are:

Deborah Hill Cone – by Deborah Hill Cone. She glows with pregnancy and writes with zest.

In for a Penny – by Simon Pound. Bastard has a good name, too. But a weak chin.

Cracker – by Damian Christie. But his story about laser eye surgery made our stomachs turn.

Aaron Bhatnagar – by Aaron Bhatnagar. He might not be loved by voters but we don't mind him.

November 9 - by A School Teacher. He writes about life. A weird life, but it's still life. And that's good.

Hard News – by Russell Brown. A small, obscure weblog with 20 readers. Deserves a bigger following.

Fighting Talk – by Matt Nippert, Patrick Crewdsen and their parents. Wankers, the lot of ‘em.

If other local writers could aim to produce a tad more originality, we would be hugely grateful (although it will make us spend more time sitting on our chairs and less time rolling on the floor doing belly laughs).

And if any of us at Dog Biting Men could write or attract more than two readers a day, we’d try to do something original with this site rather than self-indulgent punditry, childish playfighting and sarcastic apologies.

Sorry.

** Ben Thomas would never be seen dead in a pub with Matt Nippert. But the bit about the bathroom might well be true.

Nippert in the Bud

2004-10-26T06:00:00.000+13:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes…

Matt Nippert, you are like an itch that enjoys being scratched. Just as well, because you’re going to be scratched like a lame horse, from the race to survive in the blog jungle.

You think you’re gangsta, Nippert? Dre was coming straight outta Compton with an AK. You’re coming straight out of Grey Lynn with an AK 05 Festival Pass. You marvel at the rolled up pants-leg stylings of Scribe and original Pt Chev gangster Russell "Simmons" Brown. Brown is no gangster - his leg is rolled up because his gout needs fresh air.

You have no understanding of history, Matt. You have lost touch with your roots, because they are buried under too much hair. You are not the biggest dog in the yard, Matt, you are just the shaggiest. You are not Dolf Datsun – you are the ugly one from The Have.

You say I’m not underground, and maybe it’s hard for you to understand how the first blogger to make the cover of Time Magazine can still be underground. It’s because I didn’t try and take alternative media to the masses – I brought the mainstream underground, like unreclaimed coastal land. I’m sorry if you missed that bus, Matt, but it wasn’t scheduled to stop outside Verona. And if you didn’t see me on the cover of Time, you might have to take another look. I’m in the background, on the left. No, the other left.

My demise “is an issue that needs to be seriously discussed”? My funeral won’t be anything like you describe – I know, because the last time I killed myself I went to the wake just to tell everyone it didn’t hurt as much as I expected. Then I wrote a book about it, and the world praised my confessional journalism, but you don’t see me boasting about it.

Like I’ve said, I was sick of you before I ever heard of you. You’re like a little Chihuahua, yapping at my legs and crapping in my yard. I’ve had it with your crap, Nippert, and I’m going to address the problem at its source. It’s time Patrick Crewdson stepped forward and cleaned up the mess his lap-dog has made. That’s the only scooping that will be happening at the Herald on Sunday any time soon.

I’ve got some fighting talk for you right here, Crewdson, so listen up – if you can tear yourself away from the Vodafone chatrooms long enough to stop pretending you are a 20-something female journalist pretending to be a teenage girl to get the big story, you low-life. Stick to the human interest stories, I hear Renee Kiriona has some good leads. Maybe it’s time someone interviewed Tawera Nikau again.

You work for a rag trying to trade on the good name Garth George made for the Herald over the years. Garth George is rolling around in his grave. Can you imagine what he would be thinking if he had lived during the time of the internet and found out what you were up to? The only thing missing from the Herald on Sunday is a topless page three model - but I’m sure that prostitute Nippert can be persuaded to do it for a jug of Double Brown or, more likely, just the chance to see his name in print again.

Kind regards - the kind where I see you in Hell

Neil Falloon

The Liberals are Wrong to Support the Civil Union Bill

2004-10-20T18:40:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes…

I’m probably not particularly good at being gay. I don’t feel I belong to any special 'community’. I dislike identity politics as much as the next (generic) guy.

But because I am That Way Inclined, I do dwell on some issues more than my straight mates. I get hit pretty hard by stories about the homosexual panic defence or an honest account of someone living with HIV.

The old line, There, but for the grace of God go I, never quite disappears no matter how Middle Class Establishment I become.

And every now and then, my inner OUTrage burns me like a branding of a pink triangle. (On such occasions, like many people succumbing to identity-based arguments I fall easily into the trap of believing I have a monopoly on the moral high ground or sole ownership of self-identifying experience. For that, and my naturally pompous style, I apologise in advance).

Watching what passes for ‘debate’ over the Civil Union Bill has made me frustrated and angry. I’m not interested in debating the fundamentalists who promote eternal damnation – I doubt many will be reading this article. I’m more interested in talking to the social liberals who have bought the spin that this is a two-way fight between them and the fundamentalists.

Do you progressive thinkers believe you’re taking a brave stand by dissing Destiny Church and mocking Maxim? I’m sorry, but shaking your fists at the Baddies of the Moment doesn’t make you courageous. When your posturing is taken away, do you really believe in the coherence of your arguments?

Here's my point-of-view: The fundamentalists are right when they argue the legislation is deceitful. The Civil Union Bill is a cowardly half-measure. It will continue to prevent gay couples from adopting children or getting married. Those are the exact two rights that I want. I'd even say they are the only two rights that I want.

My partner and I want to marry. We want to raise a child. Sure, I thank you for fixing odds and ends of legislation that ‘discriminate’ against me in ways I never knew and never noticed. But the discrimination that keeps me awake at night – the discrimination that hurts – is the line in the sand that stops me and my partner from being allowed to raise a family. Why aren't you fighting for that?

There are no arguments for a civil union that do not apply equally to full marriage. Therefore, I believe that to endorse civil union and reject full marriage is to actively engage in the stigmatisation and discrimination of gay couples.

As American commentator Andrew Sullivan has written, opposing the extension of marriage rights “is an incoherent position — based more on sentiment than on reason, more on prejudice than principle. Liberals, of all people, should resist it.”

In New Zealand, social liberals line up on both sides of the political spectrum. Russell Brown and David Farrar ask you to send your money to the Civil Union Bill promotional department. It’s a slick operation. I’m sure they will win.

I believe Brown and Farrar both mean well. But their advocacy, if successful, will make full gay marriage that much more difficult to obtain any time soon. (You can picture the arguments: “We gave them civil unions back in 2004, and they’re already greedy for more – when will they shut up?”)

Will either of them join a fight for full marriage rights? And for that matter, do either of them plan to actually 'register' their relationships as civil unions? If not, for whom do they believe they are fighting?

The supporters of civil unions often say they support this as a "compromise" position. I agree it is a compromise... a compromise that provides straight couples with a whole new option, yet allows just a few-more-rights for gay households. Personally, that's not a compromise I can support.

Early on, I talked to Tim Barnett about the Civil Union Bill. I really wanted to be able to support it. He explained that this option was chosen over full marriage because it was more likely to be passed by parliament. It was a "pragmatic" decision. That was when my support evaporated. Imagine if anti-segregationists had opted for a “pragmatic” solution: black American Rosa Parks still could not sit in the "whites only" seats at the front of the bus, but whites would have a new choice – they could ignore the signs and sit with her.

Proponents of civil unions argue this Labour administration is as gay-friendly as New Zealand Governments will get. It was actually National that signed up to eliminating discrimination against gay couples; Jenny Shipley even looked at opening up marriage but then lost the leadership. "Gay-friendly" Labour has taken two parliamentary terms to come up with its "pragmatic compromise”.

I do agree that it would be a hard fight to convince the current lot of parliamentarians to support full marriage. But I think we should at least have had the debate. Support for civil unions has grown since campaigning started - is it not fair to assume the same would occur if we were battling for full marriage?

Labour has foisted this option upon New Zealand. I don't believe it was the result of a groundswell of popular support from any community. The cynic in me wonders if it is just a politically astute move to appear pragmatically middle-of-the-road and avoid a full debate on gay marriage which would split Labour’s ranks far more than this legislation would.
Ben Thomas gently suggests I might be being contrarian. I’m not – or at least, I’m not a comfortable contrarian. It doesn’t feel good to be yelling loudly for a position that most people reject. Feeling like a traitor to the team is not cosy. When I think about the bigots who will take heart from my arguments, my skin crawls. I really don't want to be trotted out as 'the gay guy who agrees with the conservatives'.

But, try as I might, I can’t embrace civil unions. Nor will I pretend to be grateful for the efforts of those that are fighting to give me just some of the rights that they currently enjoy.

--
In April the Listener published a short argument I wrote for gay marriage that was aimed to a broader audience than this piece. It contained a couple of the same arguments and is available as Uncivil Union here.

Corrections can be a Cow

2004-10-19T07:30:00.000+13:45

MediaCow writes…

If you run a newspaper then having a Corrections and Clarifications column can be jolly helpful – it allows minor errors to be amended at little ‘cost’. You called the pensioner on page 8 May Viscount, and her son is upset because her name is Mavis Count? No problem: it can be easily fixed.

But sometimes the space can be used to tuck away massive u-turns that should really be given more attention. In today’s Herald, the Corrections & Clarifications (not available online) contains several errors that should have been signalled in the columns or news space where the errors were made.

Let’s focus for now on just one entry:

New Zealand’s ranking in the World Economic Forum growth competitiveness index fell from 14th place last year to 18th this year. It did not rise five places as reported in the Business Herald on Friday. And New Zealand did not rise one place to 17th in the business competitiveness index, but was unchanged at 18th place.

In other words: “We mucked up the entire story”.

The Herald used a Reuters article which was correct, but at some stage incorrect local information was added.

Other papers, such as the NBR, got the news right – New Zealand had dropped in both ‘growth competitiveness’ and ‘business competitiveness’. On the positive side of the ledger, we were still in the top 20.

The correction was printed yesterday, and the online version quietly amended. But the clever fellow who updated the website story forgot to change the headline (“NZ gains, but Finland is the competitive winner”), and obviously didn’t realise that the Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive’s comments no longer make any sense (he thought New Zealand's new positioning was positive).

It’s good to be upfront about errors and it is great the Herald has a Corrections and Clarifications column. That is the right place for run-of-the-mill mistakes.

But when the error is a biggun, this not-for-the-website column can give the impression that its authors are trying to slip one past their readers.

Newspapers don’t need to indulge in ghastly ‘mea culpa’ articles every two days, but if they did give significant treatment to significant balls-ups, they would provide greater reason for reporters to avoid them in the first place.

A Man In Full

2004-10-15T17:17:00.000+13:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes…

I am having a hard time deciding which party to go to on Hubbard's Winning Day, because I have standing invites from both Diana Hubbard and the inner circle of Citizens and Ratepayers Now. The decision is made for me when I receive an urgent phone message from intrepid NBR journalist Coran Lill.

“Falloon, I’m stuck in the oak tree beside the Hubbard house. There’s nothing happening here – Mrs Hubbard was dancing around with the Bible earlier, but she’s just sent everybody home because it’s past Mr Hubbard's bedtime. Here’s the problem: I’m stuck in the tree – I’m too short to get down, and I’m too precious to the NBR to jump. I can’t track down Jock. Can you check out the bar, and if he’s there, send him along with his long pole?”

Jock Andersen, if you’re reading this, consider the message passed on.

Suddenly I have plans. The last time I visited our new Mayoress, she had a noticeable shake, like an electric shock running through her frame. Then her right arm shuddered and headed for the ceiling. It was closely followed by the left, reaching to the heavens in a shuddering fit of biblical emotion while her devoted voice hit the rafters. Much like her behaviour in Church.

Like Dennis Connor, Neil Falloon is always on the winners’ stage. I make a call to Ben Thomas, and send him to cover the C&R party...

After The Laughter

2004-10-15T17:08:00.000+13:45

Ben Thomas writes...

I’m drenched when I arrive at the Citizens and Ratepayers Now ticket’s somewhat optimistically titled 'Victory Party' at the Playhouse tavern on Queen Street. It’s fitting: a substitute English pub with hunting lodge-styled wooden tables and chairs. And no young people causing havoc nearby – incumbent Mayor John Banks, a C&R ally, has seen to that over the last three years. The crowd is old, traditional. By their looks, some are kept alive solely by the oxygen of political power, a power the faction has wielded in Auckland local governemnt for almost 70 years without interruption.

It is 1 pm, and with 95% of votes counted, the scrutineers scurry in clutching the spreadsheets of vote counts for the expectant crowd.

As the results are read out, it becomes clear all is not well. The knockout blow comes early: Banks has been thumped by cereal maker Dick Hubbard by a margin of 12,000. The mood in the Playhouse is pulled up off the canvas momentarily as the Raffills dynasty is reconfirmed in Mt Roskill. That’s the end of the comeback. The “bellweather” ward Eden-Albert is a whitewash for the left. Then reeling; there are sick sounds and groans, and finally, as the results keep coming, silence.

Citizens and Ratepayers Now, an amalgam of ACT- and National-aligned local body activists, has been worse than decimated. Going from a majority (13 councillors out of twenty) to merely seven, it has ceded control to City Vision, the Labour and Alliance ticket. The community boards offer no solace – even Aaron Bhatnagar, the closest thing to a community board rock star, has been dumped from Hobson in favour of the also-right, but anti-motorway Action Hobson.

National Party MP Maurice Williamson is performing the autopsy like a skilled surgeon. And a practiced one – it’s 2002 all over again inside the Playhouse as he holds forth on the “swing to the left, away from the right – it’s a swing whose time had come.”

The major problem here was that C&R failed to distinguish themselves sufficiently from Banks. “People were telling our team in Eden-Albert, ‘we’re not going to vote for anyone who is on Banks’ ticket’, and there was no way to get across that we were different from Banks.”

Unsurprisingly, perhaps. Williams, who read out the results, is actually Banks’ scrutineer today. Nick Albrecht, the C&R campaign manager, works in Williamson’s electorate office.

Albrecht looks shattered, and Williamson is trying to console him.

“Auckland University did a study, and they found that a great candidate will be worth 500 votes, and a great campaign might be worth another 500, but any loss by more than 1,000 was unavoidable.” Probably not the best advice where community board routs may attract 5000 votes in total. Another well-wisher comes up to Albrecht.

“But did you enjoy it? I mean, do you think it’s something you’d do again?”

Silence, as the question sinks in.

I tell every candidate I meet that I have voted for them, no matter from which ward or region they hail. My story is that I have moved several times since the general election and have failed to update my details on the electoral role. Which is true. So, I had to cast a special vote, and the address I nominated was in exactly the part of the city they happened to be standing in. Which is not true.

In fact, like almost 52% of eligible voters, I didn’t cast a ballot at all. It was not a cry in the wilderness against the party system that now dominates local body politics. I simply couldn’t get out of work long enough to get to the registrar of electors and cast a special vote. Still, as the saying goes, if you didn’t vote, you can’t complain. And it feels as if it would be a terrible social faux pas not to join in the complaining around me. Somehow churlish. So I lie.

One unsuccessful candidate in the Eden-Albert ward is lamenting the liberal bias of the media.

“It’s funny how Cathy Casey managed to get in Sideswipe (in the Herald) twice in the last week of campaigning, with her car being stolen”, his emphasis falls just short of sarcasm “and then returned the next day. You know, her husband is Matt McCarten, and he knows a little bit about campaigning.”

General murmurs of agreement.

“I mean, even if she didn’t know about it, it could have been a City Vision supporter who did it.”

Time to join in, I suppose: “Hell, even if the person who took the car didn’t know who it belonged to, they would have been a City Vision voter.”

Laughter.

Jamie Lee, an 18 year old Young National, was successful in his election as an independent to Council in Howick. After the People’s Choice (C&R for community boards in some areas) recognised his zeal, they offered him a clear run for the Community Board on their ticket. He refused. After between three and six months of door-knocking, he has scraped in. He’s elated, on the other end of the phone with various Young Nats at the C&R wake. Jubilant, and in their early twenties, they tell him they will take him into town and get him drunk.

Local body politics has become little more than a theatre of conflict for the national game, like the third world during the Cold War, in Auckland at least. As soon as the results are digested, they are seen not as a tragedy in their own terms, but as portents for the 2005 general election.

“It was raining like this in 2002,” one ACT supporter says, grimly pointing to the Aotea Square drizzle.

The day before, a One Network News poll showed public support for the National Party continuing to fall, and there is a general recognition that Williamson’s “swing” has been going strong for around five years now, and shows no signs of abating.

I stand around picking at the platters of snacks – spring rolls, chicken nibbles, potato wedges – laid out in anticipation of celebration. C&R has paid for food but no alcohol. Very few are drinking at all, even for solace. Every great civilisation’s decline is heralded by a slide into decadence except, apparently, Citizens and Ratepayers Now.

The crowd of supporters thins as it shuffles towards the doors, a greying throng that dissolves into the overcast outdoors. They are somber, stoic, until the end.

I need some knee-pads

2004-10-11T07:00:00.000+13:45

David W Young writes...

This week the Save David W Young From Being Fired campaign asks you to click this link. It will take you to my fortnightly column in the Listener. I am still not convinced that anybody reads it voluntarily, so I get on my knees every two weeks and beg. This week’s column is all about dismissal.

A bunch of writers who don't need knee-pads to make people read their columns are the folk who write for the New York Press. It's my favourite newspaper. Not just because I’m one of those shallow Big Apple worshiping bores who thinks the city is magical, but because I love America’s 'alternative' street-press city newspapers, and the New York Press is one of the best examples I've found from the genre.

This is from a recent Crime News column:

...Another one of those self-centred, inconsiderate schizophrenics had to go and make a hash of everyone's pleasant lunch by killing himself.

Stanley Goldsmith was a 69-year-old bike messenger who'd been working for the same law firm for the past 14 years. On Tuesday morning, he ascended the exposed staircase to the 48th floor and made his leap, landing 10 stories below, near the firm's lobby. He left no note, so his motivations remain unclear. It's perfectly reasonable, however, that he woke up that morning with the cold realization that he was a 69-year-old law firm bike messenger.

The New York Press publishes annual lists of the 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers (here’s 2004’s version) and is currently carrying out a “search for America's worst campaign journalist” called Wimblehack. It’s not all negativity, though: the property columns are fascinating, the current issue has an enlightening story about the world Rock Scissor Paper tournament, there's usually at least a few well-written and interesting features or profiles, and the columns are outstanding.

The Press recently received a letter from (Rupert Murdoch-owned) New York Post’s lawyers pointing out the paper’s new-look logo was similar to the Post’s. The Press editor responded: Do they honestly believe that anyone would confuse us for them?

The New York Press backed down and changed its logo. It also went a step further and changed ‘Page Two’ to the “F*** You Rupert Page”.

Who put that there?

2004-10-08T06:55:00.000+13:45

Meanwhile, a journalist added a strange paragraph - without any context or explanation - to the bottom of a story. Ninety-nine percent of readers couldn't work out why the paragraph was there, or what the implication was supposed to be. The remaining four readers just marvelled at the oddness of such behaviour, and ended up having a bit of a giggle about it.

An Open Letter To Matt Nippert - Have A Read, And Mullet Over

2004-10-07T10:22:00.000+13:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes…

Matt Nippert is the worst writer of his generation.

I said it, Nippert. Are you happy now? You’ve needled, you’ve prodded. You’ve called my reportage a “joke”. You’ve said that as a “serious journalist” I don’t exist. Well now you’ve got my attention, and I’m tired of you already.

You want to be the biggest dog in the yard? What makes you think you are bigger than the NBR? That’s a massive dog, Matt – it would be a three storey high dog. Do you believe in three storey high dogs? Of course you don’t, and I don’t either. I’m in the reality game, and I’m calling you out.

You write about how Russell Brown blogs, and you blog, and David Cohen doesn’t blog like you’re the toll-collector on the information superhighway. But guess what, Nippert? I am blogging. Al Gore may have invented the internet, but Neil Falloon made it mean something.

You like to be the subversive face of the mainstream media, but that’s like being the dangerous one in a boy band. All you need is a goatee, you ho. You’ve grown puffed up and arrogant on the platitudes of your mainstream peers. You think the whole world is just one big air guitar competition.

You’re not underground. You run around with your Listener buddies, talking about “alternative media” this, and “Critlient doesn’t suck goatballs” that. I’ve got news for you Matt. That Qantas Media Award doesn’t mean you’ve busted the alternative media above ground. It means you’re a sell-out. The underground media doesn’t respect you. When I get together with Ian Wishart, Jock Anderson, and Jim Hopkins, we laugh at “Matt Nippert and his little Qantas”. When we can even remember your name, that is. Usually it’s one of Hopkins’ humorously derived epithets instead. Like “Matt Dippert” or “Crappin Pert”.

Sometimes we use your other names, your pathetic childish pseudonyms “Lyndon Hood”, “Tom Goulter” and “Max Johns”. Take some responsibility.

You take snide swipes at Cohen like you’re Ana Samways with a speech impediment. You say his love of books, in this html age, is “quaint”. Maybe you should follow David’s lead and go read a little something called “Know Your Role Matt Nippert, You Phoney”. Haven’t seen it? That’s okay, because 15,000 copies are being hand delivered to Auckland homes overnight. And there’s a rumour that photocopies of Metro’s "Drivel Corner" have been sent out all around Howick, although Nicola Legat says she hasn’t given permission. I don’t know anything about it, Matt, I was with John Banks the whole time. But maybe you want to think twice next time before crossing people with powerful friends.

You think you are a hardman, a rock star. You run your mouth about how you want to write for the “serious pages”, like you have gravity. You are not hard, Matt. You are not rock. I am hard. Even as I type this, I am harder by the second. Greg Dixon is hard. After the ASPAs, while Russell Brown was holding your hair back as you vomited into the Shakespeare’s toilets, Greg Dixon was threatening to smash my head in for recognizing him from his picture in the Herald. That’s a man who hasn’t sold out. He told me how he cuts himself every night to purge APN Holdings from his veins, and falls asleep to his own cries of anguish. When was the last time you cut yourself, Nippert, you wannabe? When you were clipping out Brown’s latest mention of you in his Listener column? You will not die before you are thirty. You are no Greg Dixon.

You think because I am not involved in your love triangle with Brown and Cohen that I don’t exist? That’s the best our mainstream journalists could come up with? Pretending I’m not real? Perhaps, when you are sipping your mocha selloutte and playing air guitar to a Martin Winch record in Starbucks, you should watch your back.

Like a Holocaust denier, you cannot continue the charade for long. The tide of history will wash over you like the waves over King Cnut. I know your type, Nippert, and you are just another Cnut from the Hutt Valley.

Yours sincerely

Neil Falloon

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Fear and Loathing

2004-09-30T17:00:00.000+12:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes...

It is late on Friday night, and there are now only 14 days left in Auckland’s Mayoral race. I am sitting in Grand Central, a Ponsonby bar. I have come here in an effort to escape Auckland’s tiresome celebrities and political strivers, drawn to prominent bloggers like atoms into a vacuum, scraping to make an impression and warrant a mention. I have come to mix with the real people of our thriving metropolis and see which way the political wind is blowing. I am slouched in a corner sofa beside the flickering hearth of the Central’s fiberglass “log fire”.

Two well-turned-out young people enter. They sit, a tired blond woman perpendicular to me and her male companion next to her. He is loquacious and drunk. The city is high on political intrigue.

“I’m Dan, this is Kimberley,” he holds out a meaty hand. I introduce myself.

“Great to meet you, Neil. So, what do you do?”

The Auckland equivalent of hello. I am a fireside chat host, I say, gesturing to the flames as if there was nothing more obvious. I’m glad to be talking with you both tonight, I continue. Now, why don’t we start with Kimberley. Maybe she could tell us about her day.

“I didn’t really do much - I work at an undertakers.”

Hmmm. A good angle to see the remaining stocks of John Banks supporters, I venture. Is she an undertaker? An embalmer?

“I do make-up.”

Apparently the training for making up a corpse is exactly the same training as for creating an Orc on The Lord of The Rings, or going on to Hairdressing Academy. Local body politics melts away; there are issues of importance to be discussed tonight.

So, I ask – is the natural look in?

“Sorry?”

The no make-up look, I explain. Is it popular this year?

“We try to make it look as natural as we can in most cases; people don’t want their loved ones to look as if they are ready to go out during a funeral.”

Sometimes, she says, families provide photographs for reference – rarely have the deceased themselves appended these to wills.

“What do you really do, Neil?” Dan asks. “This isn’t a full-time job.”

I explain it keeps me occupied. I feel close enough to these people to confide I also have a blog. It is a mistake. The bartender, clearing glasses nearby, is one-time reality TV stud Logan from Sky 1’s The Player. His ears prick up, and he looks over expectanty. I hastily escape, wishing Kimberley well.

On Ponsonby Road I see the last unblemished Christine Fletcher hoarding in the city. Her gleaming smile unsullied by the crude campaign which has seen her “No Spin” slogan uniformly converted to “No Spine”.

From among the forest of hoardings, a shadowy figure emerges suddenly. The outline is male, dressed in the baggy clothing and hooded sweatshirt typical of a Dick Hubbard voter. In one hand, a can of aerosol spray paint - the tool of trade and recreational drug of choice of the underhanded Hubbard mob – and in the other, a large stencil of the letter “E”. I am transfixed in horror as - with mechanical precision - the sole pristine Fletcher billboard is altered to proclaim her lack of spine.

The figure risks a sideways glance, and I stare into the dark heart of this street hoodlum. Even wobbly with beer, my vision blurred and his face shrouded in shadow, I can clearly make out the distinctive features of disgraced John Banks campaign manager Brian Nicolle. Just as the Herald suspected, Nicolle is and has been the source of all evil and unrest during this, and probably every other local body election ever run.

As he scurries away, he drops the stencil. Examining it, I see it is heavy, cut from production film, with sharp angles at each corner. It is a professional job; a far cry from the snips and construction paper with which Banks and I have whiled away many an idle hour in the Mayoral Chambers. Proof that the Mayor has nothing to do with this, or any of Nicolle’s other malarkey.

The voters must know. Responsible voters will have already posted back their ballots within three days of receiving them. And responsible voters will have voted for Banks anyway. Instead, I need to break this news to the indolent, the apathetic, the lazy and uncivic. I call Fuse magazine.

My attempts to reach Paola Ghirelli meet with frustration.
“She’s not here,” the insolent APN lackey at the other end of the phone tells me. “And between you and me, if you want a future with Fuse, maybe you should be talking to Greg Dixon anyway. Apparently he has powerful internet backers.”

I smile. The word is out, and so begins another campaign, more covert than the thousands of reproduced Metro magazine hatchet jobs on Banks which were sneaked into Auckland homes without even the targeted voters becoming aware of them.

The truth will not come out tonight, then. I close my cellphone, and turn to find a taxi. I walk past Herald columnist and Ponsonby local Brian Rudman, who sighs as he sees the already defaced image of Fletcher. A square of card with an “E” cut out of the middle falls from his hand to the ground, and he walks away, dejected.

Mark My Words

2004-09-29T17:03:00.001+12:45

Ben Thomas writes...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. You know? It just sometimes feels like they don’t.

1999 saw the release of Ten Things I Hate About You, a Hollywood high school comedy based on The Taming of the Shrew. The younger sister, snobbish and superficial Bianca, was established as something of an airhead early in the film by means of the following exchange:

Bianca: There's a difference between like and love. I mean I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.

Chastity: But I love my Skechers.

Bianca: That's because you don't have a Prada backpack.

Oh, how I laughed. And yet, just five scant years later, Saatchi and Saatchi guru Kevin Roberts has written a book about his vision for the future of advertising; Lovemarks: a future beyond brands. The concept of a ‘lovemark’ (an unobvious play on trademark) is explained on Roberts’ website:

Lovemarks reach your heart as well as your mind, creating an intimate, emotional connection that you just can’t live without. Ever.
Take a brand away and people will find a replacement. Take a Lovemark away and people will protest its absence. Lovemarks are a relationship, not a mere transaction. You don’t just buy Lovemarks, you embrace them passionately. That’s why you never want to let go.
Put simply, Lovemarks inspire 'Loyalty Beyond Reason'.

I am not some inter-nerd proselytizer who would equate anything distasteful with the hateful Nazi regime of 20th century Europe just to score cheap points. But “loyalty beyond reason” sounds like the kind of marketing slogan dreamed up in a 1930’s German prison, not the rolling hills of Karekare. More to the point, self confessed “adidas-lover” Roberts should be jeered on the Jerry Springer show for his predilections alongside those who would prefer to form a relationship with a rubber woman or a pair of stilettos, rather than promoting his twisted manual in the reputable media.

I am interested to find out why Roberts is not, in fact, being jeered. Traditionally, the line trotted out (at least in public) by advertisers and their lobby groups is that advertising merely informs consumers about products in the marketplace. Now this is obviously bunk, but it is the comfortable lie that allows us to continue on our way and cope with the cognitive dissonance. But Roberts has released a book describing how he intends to remain a wealthy and influential figure by manipulating people into forming an intense emotional bond with products. The kind of thing that should push him over the line from disagreeable eccentricity into cartoonish super-villainy.

It’s possible that these intangible feelings for the product add value of their own. Virginia Postrel’s The Substance of Style makes the argument that aesthetic values are every bit as legitimate as functional ones, even with regard to what used to be considered purely functional items. Even so, aesthetics are at least qualities of a product that stem from something intrinsic (being its appearance, in most cases). 'Lovemarks' are a conscious effort to shift away from consumers respecting a product, to making them irrationally desire it for entirely extrinsic reasons.

So, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Anyone who defends the “intangible” values created by a lovemark had better be prepared to stand up and make a strong case for the selling of Papal indulgences, or the hawking of pigs’ teeth and splints of wood as the relics of saints by the Catholic Church.

Don’t worry, the sophisticated consumers of internet culture cry. We are “savvy”. We are “media-wise”. We know what they are up to.

We know, and we don’t care. Fun fact: it is easier to find a job in a High School teaching ‘media studies’ than teaching classics or history, and it is the preferred back-up discipline for English teachers. Because English is not about books, of course – it is about ‘texts’. Media studies is essentially watered down deconstructionist theory. It teaches students to analyse and interpret advertisements. And the news as well (but mainly advertising, for the same reason juniors study short stories rather than novellas). The purpose, ostensibly, is to allow the kids to form a detached view of what the advertiser is trying to do, and how it is getting its message across.

What happens, though, is that they are taught the dialect of advertising. This language is the new cultural capital. The kids (as a generalisation) who do media studies don’t form an oppositional stance against the advertising, or even an apposite one. Instead, they see the ad as a work of art – recognizing and praising superior technique and production, in the same way they might watch a virtuoso musical performance. Understanding advertising is easy; they are trying to sell you something. But we forget that as we appreciate the advertiser’s appreciation of the genre, and their appreciation of our appreciation, as they “subvert” the form through self-conscious referencing.

The much vaunted “media savvy” of the younger generations is just a further way youths are co-opted. Who first told you you were “media savvy” anyway? That’s right – a marketing company.

A shining local example is the Vodafone advertisement for its PXT message service. Two graffiti artists are shown abseiling down the face of a Symonds Street billboard depicting the Vodafone logo. They add “strokes” of spray paint to form a rudimentary camera icon around the logo, its “lens”. The ad is shot at night, on a handicam. The protagonists wear makeshift disguises – Groucho Marx glasses and moustaches – and congratulate each other and the camera man, who is self-consciously part of the narrative.

In other words, the ad appropriates almost in its entirety the imagery and language of culture jamming. It evokes the now familiar footage taken by and of activists covertly defacing corporate advertising; getting evidence of horrific battery farming practices; etc. It suggests danger, subversion, and rebellion.

And yet, obviously, nothing subversive is happening. It is every bit as subversive as if they showed a fat, overalled man in a cherry picker replacing the skins of the Stella Artois billboard across the road. Vodafone is just doing it on the cheap.

The battle is long lost, in the post-satirical future in which we live. And it’s not all depressing – there’s fun to be had with the co-option of the anti-establishment. Popular t-shirts bearing the iconic depiction of Che Guevara portray the revolutionary killer as looking remarkably like the Coke symbol, after all. And Whitcoulls, New Zealand’s largest chain of book sellers, displays Naomi Klein’s No Logo in its marketing section.

Looking Out the Window, Counting Aerials

2004-09-27T07:00:00.000+12:45

David W Young writes...

I'm really not quite sure why conservatives hate New York Times columnist Paul Krugman so much. Is it because he's good at self-promotion? Or just because he's good?

Anyway, in my New Zealand Listener column on business this week, I channel Krugman. Actually that's a grandiose overstatement. Let's say I channel Krugman's dog... my article has whiffs of Krugman, but is definitely much dumber than the real thing.

Krugman loves to argue that 'a company is not a country'; being a successful businessman doesn't give you the credentials to run a nation's economy. (Here's Krugman making that argument far more coherently.)

In the article I mention the North Korean official news agency website, to which I am addicted. Unfortunately in recent months they have dropped the publication of inspiring anecdotes about the Leader, but you can still access the gems through the archives. Here's an example:

One day in April Juche 68 (1979), an issue of
introducing a new process for better food of people, especially children, was
raised at a conference. Officials were hesitant about building the new process
for financial reasons. At that time, Kim Jong Il told them to start the project
without delay, saying that even the national safe should be emptied for the
happy life of the people, that nothing should be spared for their sake and that
this was the calculation method of the Workers' Party of Korea.

While on a journey by train for personal guidance to Jagang
Province in January 1998, he looked out of the window, counted the number of
houses and the number of aerials installed on the roofs and found that the
numbers are not equal. He took measures for equally distributing television sets
to local people.

One day in December last year, he told officials
what makes him pleased and happy. He said that when he hears that people are
well off, his fatigue disappears at once and he feels strong even after working
without sleep and meals. The people's pleasure and happiness are what makes him
pleased and happy, he added. His popular traits are a source of the Korean
people's absolute worship, loyalty and devotion to him.

Defused

2004-09-24T17:00:00.001+12:45

MediaCow writes (hopefully for the last time about student media for the next decade)...

Thank God for that. Thursday will be the last scheduled 2004 issue of Fuse, the New Zealand Herald’s “tertiary student publication”.

Editor Paola Ghirelli has signaled to her bosses that she will not be back. Word around APN is that Ghirelli’s decision was prompted by negative reaction from students towards the publication. This included poor reviews in the predictably hostile student press, and a mass defection of volunteer contributors after the publication’s second issue.

That second issue had seen the wannabe students promise investigative journalism over whether Auckland student politician Greg Langton had been funded by the Maxim Institute (Russell Brown put the story together nicely) and had lied about his National Party roots. Ghirelli even boldly stated in her editorial, “we ask… the hard question: are you a member of the National Party?” Stuart Dye (a grown up reporter) asked the hard question, and dutifully printed the scamp’s answer: he had never been seriously involved. It took campus magazine Craccum to hunt out the awfully-difficult-to-obtain information that the lad’s name was still on the Young National website as Tertiary Council representative.

Worse, by my reckoning, a record reviewer in the same issue stated that on her “new” album, British singer Joss Stone covered all the “soul standards like… Fell in Love With A Boy”, which was originally a White Stripes song released in 2000. Not quite a soul standard.

After its first issue the publication was already flagging a possible change to being a more general “youth” supplement, rather than being dedicated to Tertiary Students.

Traditional newspaper mores dictate writing for a reading age of between 12 and 14, which only stands to reason for a mass circulation organ. However, Fuse is a specialist publication aimed at a population defined by its high level of education. Where the editorial team should have been providing if not more beef in its news then at least more wit than the average Spleen contribution, it was persevering with processed production line newspaper fare. An apologetic admission to writing for Fuse can be found online on Simon Pound's website, and complaints can be found in the letters pages of many traditional student publications.

The repositioning of Fuse for “yoof” may be less of a make-over and more of a post-factum rationalization of its standard of content.

The $30,000 question is: who will replace Ghirelli?

Fighting Talk's Matt Nippert has suggested the Herald hire someone with student media experience. A number of Nippert’s FT cohorts are looking for work, and of course the recently announced ASPA honour roll (covered sensationally by Mister Neil Falloon in these pages) could act as a ready-made shortlist for the Herald (with the added bonus that Craccum, whose editors Ghirelli has described as “thuggish”, would be ruled out of contention).

Taking a chance on a kid, however, doesn't quite seem the Herald’s style. APN also owns New Zealand Listener, a haven for student rag editors made good such as Tim Watkin and Alistair Bone.

Media Cow and his friend Mister Neil Falloon like to think outside the square, so we want freelancer Greg Dixon to apply for the job. Dixon is writer of the creatively-titled "Greg Dixon’s Weekend" in the Weekend Herald. He seems to have finally been given more latitude since Granny’s weekend makeover, such that some of his vitriol actually approaches the level of the better student magazines. Moreover, despite being a professional who has been around the game a long time, he seems to have the appropriate maturity level. The fact that he’s actually an old fart is something we can live with.

The Torment of Having A Small One

2004-09-24T17:00:00.000+12:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes...

Russell Brown seems to have little experience near political campaigns. Today Brown questions Brian Nicolle’s description of most campaigns as "chaos".

Nicolle – John Banks’ campaign manager – made the comment to a NZ Herald journalist, while trying to explain why he probably wouldn’t know if a member of the ‘campaign team’ had organised for articles about mayoral candidate Dick Hubbard to be distributed to the public.

I’ve only participated in one political campaign. I intend to avoid ever repeating the experience.

Each day started at a sparrow’s fart with a conference call. The team discussed the day’s plans, major lines of attack, weaknesses and issues. After that phone call, everything just got messy.

Enthusiastic, not-very-bright souls (infuriating people I call the “True Believers” – every political party and candidate has them) would constantly get enthusiastic, not-very-bright ideas which they would decide to implement. Like crudely defaming the Prime Minister at every town hall meeting in her electorate, whilst proudly declaring which political party they worked for.

Things that were completely, thoroughly planned would fall through. Things that could never happen would happen. This was a very well-run campaign, which garnered a successful result. And yes, “chaos” was exactly the right word. I find it easy to believe that many things happen in the campaign without Nicolle or Banks knowing about them.

And talk about pots and kettles… After slagging off “hatchet jobs”, Brown suggests – with absolutely no evidence – that Banks might be close to the $70,000 spending cap and thus couldn’t afford to own up to the brochure, even if he did know about it.

Brown has missed the nation’s most fascinating campaign election, occurring south of the Bombay Hills. In Hamilton the mayoral frontrunner is the principal of “teenage pregnancy capital” Fraser High School, rather famous disciplinarian Martin Elliot.

During an electoral forum recently, Elliot waved his little finger at a woman and told her he had “good knowledge” his competitor, local advertising guru Michael Redman, had a small penis.

It gets better. Questioned by a journalist about the comment, Elliot responded: “I think that Michael (Redman), at this stage of his life, hasn't got the big balls (to make key decisions for the city). I think my balls are bigger than his."

The NBR will have to dig a little deeper than just following Mrs Hubbard to church if it wants to find out those kinds of details for its next attack on Hubbard. Perhaps it could send Kate Wrath to do the job?

At the time of going to press, we could not confirm the suggestion that Redman plans to respond with billboards that say, “At Least My Man Tits Are Better than Your Man Tits”.

Well done, Hamilton. You’re finally going to get a mayor that you deserve.

Make the Fag Write About Interior Decorating

2004-09-23T13:00:00.000+12:45

David W Young writes...

There are two rooms in the Beehive that I doubt will ever be renovated. Both are decorated in early 1970s shades of newborn-calf-shit brown and are sorely in need of a decorator. Even that enthusiastic chap accidentally employed as a decorator for The Fence could do wonders here. (Incidentally: can somebody in Auckland please politely encourage the lad to wear shoe lifts? Watching the top of his head bob around a bedroom feels distasteful).

Back to parliament... The first Beehive room that will never see a builder's crack is the Beehive Theatrette - the lecture room where the prime minister delivers her weekly press conference with the New Zild flag drooping behind her. (Scoop has images of the Beehive Theatrette here and here). The second is the main pub known affectionately by its room number: Three Point Two.

These rooms won't be renovated because no government wants to be seen to be extravagant. It's not very complicated: every other area of the Beehive can be refurbished, but not the portion that you and I see on television every Monday night, or the watering hole.

For some reason, these two rooms are my favourite areas in all of parliament.

I haven’t worked for a government so I haven’t spent much time in the Beehive Theatrette. I would have spent five minutes longer there if Labour press secretary Jocelyn Prasad hadn’t spotted me loitering at the back of a ministerial announcement and spanked me until I left. (I was a press secretary, too - but for an opposition party. For some announcements I would sneak into opponent’s briefings and pay attention at the end when journalists asked questions. I’d take note of who asked the sceptical questions and what criticism they were implicitly making. My employer would then be first off the mark with a response, because we wouldn’t have to wait for the media release to arrive electronically. More importantly, our media release – on a good day – would echo the areas journalists were most cynical about. We would follow up the release in person with the media who seemed least convinced at the announcement).

I have slightly more experience pestering people at Three Point Two.

My very first time there was heart warming. I was introduced to a former prime minister’s harried press secretary. The poor man wanted to drink, not get introduced to an upstart like me. But he also seemed to feel he had an obligation to pass his wisdom to the next generation. So he fixed me with tight little eyes and jabbed his handle of beer at me for effect.

“If you want to know how to get on around here, mate..."

He paused to heighten the dramatic effect and leaned forward.

“...you’ve got to learn how to drink properly.”

He glared at me to show he was serious, and returned to drinking.

That was when I realised that I was going to enjoy working in this special, special place.

Single Paragraph Seeks Feature Story for Meaningful Encounter

2004-09-23T11:06:00.000+12:45

Ben Thomas writes...

Needing to buy new shoes one Sunday, I ventured into the city.

Walking down Queen Street across from Myers Park, it struck me that the three haggard men with Australian accents in front of me looked very much like part of the Australian contingent at the previous night's Trans-Tasman MC Battle. As usually happens, there was a reasonable explanation for this, and it transpired the trio were in danger of missing their flight to Sydney.

I gave my phone to the one who had been eliminated in the first round (let’s call him “the fat Ali G” whose “only Battle was the battle against obesity”, as local boy Cyphanetic introduced him), and the baby faced guy who didn’t make much of an impression (by his surprised stage manner on Saturday, you’d think a seven foot tall Samoan man had never threatened to rip off his head and ejaculate into his stomach before). And so I was speaking briefly with the lanky, bearded Dragonfly. He had been knocked out of the competition by MC Ali, a crowd favourite who excoriated Australia’s shameful record on race relations, and finished off by rhyming “whakarongo” with “go fuck a homo”. He told me about his job.

“I’m kind of a social worker with at risk kids. I work in government funded programmes doing hip-hop workshops and classes, to build up their self esteem. And then on weekends I’m up on stage with these kids – sometimes the same kids - and I’m like,‘You’re Nothing ! You ain’t shit!'”

Then I visited the Footlocker, a central city footwear store, but I couldn’t find any shoes I liked.

Don't film me - I'm praying

2004-09-21T07:00:00.000+12:45

MediaCow writes...

Should church be off-limits to the press? Auckland mayoral candidate Dick Hubbard thinks so. "Saying prayers in church is a deeply personal moment and I think no reporter under any circumstances has got any right to go and comment on somebody's body language in a moment of prayer," he told the New Zealand Herald's Bernard Orsman.

The reporter who had gottten Hubbard's awful rainbow tie in a twist was National Business Review's rising star Coran Lill. As part of a comprehensive series of articles looking at the political ingenue, Lill popped into the (charismatic) St George's Anglican Church in Epsom when the mayoral challenger and wife Diane Hubbard were at prayer.

He wrote: "I could tell things were about to get good, but I wasn't quite prepared for what happened ... First there was a noticeable shake, like an electric shock running through her frame. Then the right arm shuddered and headed for the ceiling. It was closely followed by the left, reaching to the heavens in a shuddering fit of biblical emotion while her devoted voice hit the rafters."

This colourful description earned him the scorn of media commentator and breakdancer Russell Brown, who said Lill had descended to the gutter. I disagree with Brown. Neither Mrs Hubbard nor her church-going should be off limits.

As she subsquently told the Sunday Star Times, Mrs Hubbard wants to reactivate the dormant role of Auckland's mayoress. That's a big call, and means that voters get more for their buck than just Dick.

The wannabe Mayoress is the first to acknowledge that faith is a large part of her life. She believes Auckland would be more beautiful if more people embraced God. What better way, then, to convey a snapshot of her personality than to do what Coran Lill did? Brown read his piece and saw mocking. I read it and saw an attempt to flesh out public figures that we know very little about.

In his column, Brown wrote: "I wonder if all the people who got up in arms about the Herald's really rather sober assessment of Banks' claims for himself - and all the stuffed shirts who have been noisily defending the churches from "liberal fascists" - will have something to say here?" I'm not a member of either group. But to be a little playful, here's my question for Brown: Where was the scorn about "hatchet jobs" and "acid" when Metro Magazine did its own 'expose' on incumbent mayor John Banks?

Post script: MediaCow placed an illegal $20 bet with the best press secretary in parliament that Dick Hubbard would win the mayoral race. The reasoning at the time was: how could anybody vote against Berry Berry Crunch? MediaCow expects to lose $20, however: Hubbard has run an abysmal campaign, and seems rather short of ideas.

Being There Is Everything

2004-09-20T14:29:00.000+12:45

Mr Neil Falloon writes...

I am loitering at the foot of the Auckland University Student Union , whose students’ association (AUSA) is hosting the inaugural Aotearoa Student Press Association Awards. Traditionally these would be awards for blatant pornography dressed up as freedom of speech. Today – to use an analogy as predictable as it is mundane – the student press has cleaned up its act like a newly legalized brothel, and is whoring itself to the mainstream with unprecedented boldness.

The function is black tie – the original, ironic intention being that black dinner suited patrons would be swilling beer and eating pizza, according to convenor Patrick Crewdson. Hep media irony threatens to blow its own brains out with a shotgun with the news that Mary Lambie, of Good Morning fame, is compere. More widely-read writers such as David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers have already dissected the folly of the ironic pose in modern discourse, and United Future and Destiny Church have pointed out that young people are no good, so I shall not follow such tangents here.

The ceremony is sponsored by the Listener, and will be giving out gongs for best publication, best features writer, best cartoonist, and Most Able Finlay MacDonald Impersonation. Southern publication Critlient is favourite for every category, having attracted plaudits from prominent New Zealanders such as Russell Brown and national air-guitar champion Matt Nippert. Representatives of the true underground conservative media have been excluded, and I am looking for an in.

Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury and Tim Selwyn sweep up the stairs. In order to seem as if I have been invited, I make conversation with the original enfantes terribles of student media, who recently resurfaced on C4’s Dissident TV. Bradbury has since been offered the editor’s chair at Rip It Up. I ask what the mysterious Selwyn, dressed for the world like a Gestapo officer, has been doing.

“I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of the situation in Iraq, with the American occupation. The US line is that they want to conduct elections and get out, but there’s little evidence that they have a timeline in mind – I was interviewing a guy from the Pentagon the other day who is in charge of civilian contracts there worth $18 billion. He says the infrastructure frame work goes until 2007, but there’s no comparable estimate in terms of setting up a government.” I nod knowingly. I edge behind my companions into the room as they receive their name tags. Selwyn continues.

“The thing is that according to files I’ve been sent the American army’s own polling of occupied territories shows they are in no position to conduct elections – only 50% of the civilians they have spoken to still support the war.” This sounds fascinating, I say. Who is he writing the article for?
He blinks. “Article?”

I search for a spare seat. Thankfully, a number of invited guests have failed to show up, and I can take my pick of positions. Unfortunately, many of the no-shows are prominent personalities enlisted to judge the awards, and so I am stuck with Steve Braunias’ place. A student upstart eyes me suspiciously. I wave him away with a snort. Satisfied I am indeed Steve Braunias, he leaves crestfallen.

Listener deputy editor Tim Watkin is delivering the keynote address. Tim was news editor of Massey University’s Chaff in 1992, before moving to Craccum the next year and later becoming a pro-worker agitator (and journalist) for the Herald. He is delivering a vivid re-imagining of ASPA’s origins as a part of the organised labour movement, founded less to sell advertising nationally and maximise revenue and idea-sharing, and more to allow editors and staff to negotiate consistent employment contracts across the country.

I have no time for such revisionism and make my way to the bar. Unfortunately, as Watkin leans close towards the microphone and breaks into the chorus of The Red Flag, others have had the same burning need for a drink. In desperation, I tell the dapper fellow in front of me I will pay for his drinks if he orders two more Heinekens. He introduces himself as Ant Hiron – editor of Nexus in 2001. Now, he is a regional organiser for the Services and Food Workers Union, and will gladly accept my kind offer on behalf of “the workers”.

I take a breath and stumble over to Flipside hottie Olivia Kember, who is here with a camera in tow. As she is distracted, I inform the cameraman I am Karl from Howick College, and I have many important things to tell my peer group about the benefits of Judith Collins’ proposed changes to abortion legislation. Kember is busy feeding lines to the Craccum table, which they promptly yell out as abuse to Watkin, and the camera trains back in on the assembled drunkards.

Watkin is floundering – as a representative of both the proletariat and the hateful mainstream media, and bearing a remarkable resemblance to Rove McManus, he stands for everything the Craccum table despises - at the moment, anyway. Worse, the home team have finally clicked that they will not be receiving any awards apart from best cartoonist.

“Do your fucking research!” someone at the Craccum table yells, apropos nothing in particular, after a remark about the ASPA logo. “Tell us how big your cock is”, someone else offers on a more conciliatory note.

The ceremony concluded, Critlient having picked up its mandatory awards, I make a beeline for Mary Lambie. She is speaking with ASPA convenor and bright young thing Crewdson. Much shorter in real life than in print, he is having a hard time fixing the statuesque Lambie with his smouldering stare. I talk loudly and conspicuously to a nearby wench about how Mary was the constant factor in my life during a fictional six months of unemployment. Intrigued, she makes her way over, sparkling in a sequined Trelise Cooper top, and asks which magazine I am with. I explain I have no truck with student journalists – I am here covering the awards for my blog.
"You have a blog?" she asks, her eyes widening. "Like, a real life one, with all your thoughts about politics and everything?" Her arm has slipped around to the small of my back now, and I can see where the conversation is heading. What is it with women and blogs?

Making my apologies, I exit into the bracing air of the University grounds. I arch my head in the direction of a pungent, wafting smell and see that under the stairs Russell Brown has set down a square of corrugated cardboard, and is teaching Matt Nippert to breakdance.