Friday, December 14, 2007

What is worth watching on the ABC?

Really enjoyed Henry V and Compass stories of real people in monasteries, but what a drought during the week. Worse , it goes from drought to desperation.
Australians are very good at getting the technical bits right; they know from the yin pedants, that reality is tops , but they forget that, on the yan side, some reality is really the pits and we already spend enough time there . Watching people in the pits is not entirely pointless ( if we want to be technical ) but its clearly only of longterm interest to those who haven't got the point .

The ABC version of Shameless (The librarians ) might make some of the audience feel better about their home/work life, but the producers should not be under any illusion about why they will not have a job in ten years. You must have a script and you must not go to sleep at the tripod - this pitstop stuff is adding rivets to the industrys coffins.

How long before U tube takes over?

Monday, November 05, 2007

What do Landline and The Abbey have in common ?

---Both in cloisters-one group just doesn't recognise it
Political discussions affecting farmers are all around the subject, but not on it . The terrible tragedy for rural producers is that noone on LANDLINE (ABCTV) yesterday ( even the reporters on Landline) was aware that they MUST get beyond the uneccesary and relentless pressure of dumb simplicities ----to what really threatens farmers interests. The topics were short term , drawn from the panic pressure agents. Droughts and abuse of animals will come and go, but idealists ( vegans, guilt projection and exploitation of the weak ) will go on forever .

By the time these limited vision myopic distracted conversations are over , the too hard basket of middle ground on sustainability discussions ( and their abuse in driving idealist causes )will again be avoided.

The Nationals ( and the Libs ) would do well to go into retreat for 33 days just to see whether they are truly radical disciples of a living liberalism: are really supporting sound science on sustainability (look at the way the fed waste money on the bleeding wasteful) Are the conervatives just retreating to some dated old and familiar rickety structures- defenders of some form not substance that only vaguely resembles reality - suffering with age the dangers of tired and inadequate institutional and religious constraints.
Where is the living faith of liberalism, or is it NOW just the dead face of opportunism and greed ?
Farmers , (like markets) , aren't perfect, and its only a matter of time before the Nationals policy of " pretending they are perfect", calls the Parties relevance to truth telling on the tough questions of sustainability into question .
Farmers need friends who can face the truth ---not more fantasy or holy huddles and ignorance ( see below) or even worse, the recognition by the opposition that the whole story is not being told and that " you are hiding something" . There isa way out for rural communities and its not one the nationals are putting wheels under ! Beware those force motion and who don't really care that there is some middle ground and sound science to build on .

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Out of the whirlwind

John Hartigan ( Andrew Olle's memorial lecture Sunday )gave a very entertaining and exemplary testimony to the mystery of authorship in the real world. It was amazing to hear,despite all the noise of mere words that surrounds him, to have him picture with some clarity ,the business of purpose and perspective for witnesses;
Like Hughes had done in documenting/ reporting Tom Browns schooldays in the hour before , Hartigan repeated the age old truth about where you will find it; The business of reporting what really happens is a responsibility, that, while appearing to limit our own creativity (surely the great temptation for all his staff and those at the ABC ) the very laying of one's hand upon one's mouth and the proceeding no further (than reporting to editorializing or spiritualizing with eg - worm type subscience) gives authors authority.
Power and authority are often confused . Knowledge is power . Who has percieved the breadth of the world ?Job Who knows the worlds limits? Certainly not the predictable old priests at the ABC who restrict our diet to a dull reactionary and dry monism; One that clearly limits the passion for creativity. He who recognisies the world limits has made a good start to the adventure of authorship and creative vision. Time the ABC did what Hartigan suggested and get practical scientists reporting on the air waves .( you thought they did that? - listen to what he said and look at the kindergarten level of science and rhetoric study on ABCTV )

Hartigans counsel of words with knowledge about Rupert Murdoch were a gift many of us appreciated. We want Murdoch to do well and encourage the freedom that routes out evil and doesn't just sit on it . We want Rupert to follow in his mothers footsteps; build up and not tear down the heritage of freedom that is hidden from so many in the West ; the heritage of free speech and full authorship . The recognition that evil is not just in raw power in the US(eg in that predictable but pathetic ABCchurch chant) but resides much closer to home.
Good perspective brings the recognistion that even if we could control governments we have not the power to set bars and doors for good in governance- maybe even in our own households . The power of the words of truth are not ours to control . The power is truly in the hands of His people. Dostyefsky might have said. "If there is no God, there is no good government" .
After all Rupert is only a man - but how a man of power percieves that gift can help determines just how much freedom many potentially great minds have to thinking positively about faith , freedom and the very wonder of authorship itself .
Well done to all involved .

Saturday, September 08, 2007

ABC rivers run dry

It was the 3rd item on the news on friday, but was it news? The reporter on this most seriuos issue of climate change and its implications on Rivers was a retired expert from business . Presumably retired experts from business have more credibility on salinity and risk management than anyone else in the State. Not sure what he was worried about but he better hope his boat is ready for the return period .
It seems that Everyone is allowed to comment on important envirmatters on the ABC- esp if it has a climate change angle .
Expertise is not a issue really when it comes to telling the story
Helps explain why the Sydney agrrement will mean very little. Grist, at least , are taking the problem of unprofessional conduct and supernatural expectations on environmental agendas seriously. For more than hot air on environment , you need to report only experts !

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The savage irony of using image makers to win arguments

Cousins and his page limited colegues are losing the battle because they have forgotten where real credibility on the environment comes from . The real world is 3 dimensional, but most arguments about the environment are 2 dimensonal- superficial ( Julia G and G cousins speak on lateline in last few days )Labor would win hands down if they stopped playing dumb falt earth games on complex questions like earthscience- like even the incumbents do .

There is something deeply paradoxical about the Cousins crass campaign to overturn Turnbull over the Tamar -its not going to work because Cousins is playing a game that doesn't win hearts and minds. True converts to the big picture need to confess and repent of using the image game. While Turnbull may play a slightly different version of quick fix, it works better than a pile of mere words and makeover merchandise. - the section of the audience relevant to changing the mood only have to smell sus and they are off with thye cando merchants - esp when eco development is in the wings and the fearmongers are on the prowl .Nice picture but nasty cop hidden away! The emdia can talk up a earth issue as damngerous as a paper mill but if doesn't present facts of risk its bound to fail - even in this religiously media driven age.

Those who get labelled as anti -industry ( the above mentioned characters ) need to be seroiulsy countering the talk with competence , but do they ? The reactionares seem to throw away the really pointed arrows ( the risk scientists) and use the superficial- Geoffrey Cousins use of famous faces will carry about as much weight as their alterative: the very hot air stragegies .
The paradox is that, in being writers themselves they have allowed the 3 dimensional image to be lost to the more "common man" game of 2 dimensionsal arguments using "over the bar" beligerance - Both the left and the right are playing the same game and likely to lose to just one person who knows the real risk , makes decsions and stands by them .This not ought to be so -Conservation needs harder heads and better targeting- otherwise both sides of politics will fine tune nothing to work better( the real aim of consrevation )

Rudd and Garrett too , ought to dig a bit deeper before they hitch their sails to the superficial - what is said to be gospel on paper and is built largely on puffs of hot air in the media . Last election Labors eco credentials brought them undone - why won't there eco superficality bring labor undone again this election esp when the true 3d of environment is such a potential winner - esp when the libs can still play their simple silly old accountancy games on ecosytem management. Why ? - because the opposition don't seem to be able to do anything deeper themsleves.

Turnbull is winning the war of words on the environment, not because he is necessarily right, but because he make s decisions not points of order ;

The new /old left haven't worked out their own intellectual and process weaknesses on the deep matters of ecos - they prefer to win a point on a piece of paper and in doing so allow the crowd to lose sight of the purpose .the 3 dimensional purpose - The left, like last time, when latham left himself open down in tassie FORGET that economic credibility ( their well known weakness) is rightly linked to an even deeper eco credibility ( their unknown weakness-- though they may fool many by talking so much about it )

Rudd and Garret better watch out - One slip on envir talk is probably more damaging to their eco credentials than they realise !Copyright Emperors Academy

Friday, August 10, 2007

Midwinter Sunday night blues

It seems it takes a commercial rerun like midsummer murders to get ABC Tv management to stop preaching at us on sunday nights .
Great to hear the ABC public telling (ON 774) that they feel starved of substance on sunday nights ( and the traditional sat and sun nights) . Boy have we been waiting for a while!
Not a ABC limpit in the country has been happy with the stale old cynical church service preoccupations of the ABC left on sunday nights. No hope just grumpy old cynics? The sermons are always about "whats wrong with the world" ( the old world that is ; the predictable period drama that is revisionist history - mcluhan would turn in his grave at the media abuse );always the same old theology - "we know better than the past"( why buddhism is better etc etec ) Give us a break !!!!!

Robin hood was good - it raised the spectre of evil; a reality ABcchurch has yet to come to grips with.
As for midsummer murders - we love it ; we don't mind a bit of population control - No we are not finding new ways to deal with problems and reducate ourselves into a tis. We like to remind oursleves before we agian hit thge real world running on Monday about what our SOLID education has prepared us for the week ahead.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

The Club -more interested in how it looks, than how it works?

Thwaites and Bracks resignation is interpreted by ABC Lateline panel last night as "good timing" - not even a hint from the cool cats club of “political realists” that "something is wrong" .Why?

Does it not disturb the thinking public that men say they want to leave politics for the same reason they appear to have been there in the first place –personal reasons - the high values in our society are ........ Is the world of politics now just like the world of business – a world where only self is worshiped and glorified. May explain a lot about the grinning going on on last nights church.
Not a word, for example, from these clever critics about “public good”. Has post modern politics come to this – a façade.
Perhaps what we witnessed on ABCTV was a hastily called meeting of the Machiavellian Club –more interested in how it looks, than how it works .

Bracks is happy, Kroker and Cameron are happy, but should the people be happy?
What is Brumby going to do ?
Grinning like Cheshire cats maybe neither of the cool cats of political observers are really across the landscape– maybe the universe is bigger that they think – maybe they are a bit limited by the world view of mere cats whiskers . Copyright emperors academy .

Friday, July 13, 2007

Swindle -

Tony and Robin have reason to panic
1. --if they threw all they could at the the swindle film , their panel of supporters was not convincing
2-- Popular maybe? they so like so many our society are vulnerable to simplicities and the desire to simplify
-- In relation to 2 they need to read the maladaptive tendencies of the modern media age ( outlined in the towards 2000 telecom report)
--In relation to 2 above ABC needs to recognise the poor standing of scientists ( the panel wasn't mostly scientists as the film mostly was!) and the irrationality of having a high standing of technological fix in our culture ; common confusion of science and techno fix as the same thing.
.
--Both of them ,as organisers, failed the test of good debating - they got too involved in the subject and they had no adjudicator .
-

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Will the ABC ever regain its ability to hold debates?

Much is expected of Tony Jones tonight . Will he bring the ABC back from the brink of predictability. When will ABC managemnet stop the ageing reactionaries from their withering vines of pedantry: from stifeling us with the same old same old .
ABC managemnet seem at last to be stopping the wannabe prophets of the future from getting their way - when will the ABc realise we the audience, are really switching off ( even on wednights after S&S) ,to nothing , or even occasionally SBS for some relief from their boring deterministic diatribes ( almost like the ABC wants to just like some clone of something predictable ) .

Hopefully JONES won't get distracted . If he's not a scientist he may well be distracted by those who industry is distraction .Lets hope he gets with the new age and says "At end , well the debate appears to only have started , if you are interested , you can follow real debate more closely ( Heresy and horror ---- abcchurch is not the final word on gospel ) on following blogs .Wow wuldn't it be great if it happened . Time the lumbering logomachists supported scientific not journo debate- greek idol bleeters who are not scientists . bleeters who quote scientists to suit ONLY their part of their argument- adding to the story instead of reporting what is said ------ with its limitations

The question TONY ( and stick with it till you get and answer) "Is co2 clearly linked to the warming and HOW " .


Or if you do that one well ---"Isn't there a risk if you proponenets of cahneg continue to us ethe medai the way you do that the momentum for real cahnge will be lost ?' more on here

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Well done Noel

Your beauty mate . It wasn't racist but respectful truth telling and about time !

Monday, May 21, 2007

Denton does well

The home of sell, sell sell is no place for any of us to easily overcome our fear of people who come across too strong. Those who by their very vehemence can be expected to ignore people, logic and reason .
Denton could well have presented a case that they are all mad, and got away with it . Yes, Faith people are dangerous especially those “Christains” who “ believe the impossible-“ - and can you believe it " they have heard from God personally" . Andrew did well to both present and let us hear what he heard from that strange group .

Be realistic unbelievers - It's a wonderful story that these salesmen are selling It's a story that's almost too good to be true—an advertisers dream ??? Some relief from the cynicsm of your friends ;
Forget the label - were' all religiuos . Like people who believe in strong government, for all the right reasons -there is lots of careless words. There are lots of careless words said by those who take Christ's promises seriously too , but that rather should draw reporters to what the man said - not what his followers say .especailly when they celarly insist on obedience to those words - not the speculation beyond them .
Thankfully the key salesmen was pretty clear about the dangers of false faith and the sufficiency of His revelation Cynics trying to paint his followrs all mad don’t get anywhere accussing them of using more dangerous weapons than reporters think they are prepared to use ( passion and idealism) - seems to me they hold more cards than the poor people they cut and paste into their pictures and should just " report them " .
You also don’t win the reason war by ignoring the ammunition esp when Christianity is ready and willing to fight stand and stay on words alone. words that are known known known

Zapruder have done well to demonstrate that at least one of the fears of many Australian non believers , is not sound . The fear of those who “hear God personally” is generally well constrained by the very clear teachings of Jesus (even across the book to the author of Genesis) on the sanctity of every human decision - and that includes the sanctity of the lives and minds of all men and their freedom to chose what they believe.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Punching questions -if only

O Brien ( 7:30 report) asked the question of the century , but Chaney didn't really answer it .I wished for a moment that we had Carleton back. Australias bureaucarcies and the change for changes sake merchants need a big bomb under them - noone seems game or competent in their questioning, even when given a good lead like Chaney gave. We don't need change; we need competence and consistency.
Trioli ( lateline ) didn't ask the tough questions of the leader of the Wentworth group , maybe because she is in awe of professors . I used to be too, Virginia , until i worked out in the real world . Be like richard(afternoon in shep ) and doyle - (in a tinnie ) ( 774); Get out in the real world and meet a few experts who haven't got tickets on themselves and who don't cause the people to stumble because they have.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Government guaranteed investment

Every thinking person since the dawn of history knows that good intentions provide the fodder for the greatest waste and disaster .

When ministers of the people play merry careless hell with tax incentives its even worse because they start a drip feed they can't stop .Sure they get results but not ones that put plannattaions where they make the most sense. The market will decide they say hypocritically knowing that tyhe taxincenetives make such discretion unlikely and maybe even uneccsray - they can afford the best land when theu need to use the marginal land .
MIS will be one of those types of investements because it fits the bill of goverenment guaranteed = giuranatedd that by the time the goverenmnet realises the long trem rate of return is sus and all the the smarties ( managers ) who run them , have made their killing,
.
Thwaites was as keen on the idea as Hawker was and thats the rub - they are only bubs . They did not throw their own money but allowed billions at a rash of rural invetsement that t will do little to reteurn anything like a good return to invetseors in the long term . Good intentions that slash and burn the rural areas where they are now located.

With care these wannause power merchants might have encouraged the david jenkins of this world to add value to their farms . Now we have a hotch potch of monocultures and mediocre products that are unlikely to ever pay for themselves

Pay for themselevs in ways which unlitimately goverenmnets are supposed to manage money.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Listen to earth scientists , not scaremongers

I used to think Foreign Correspeondent checked whether they were running hype instead of real reporting. I won't watch it as much now knowing its wastes listeneres time by not listening close enough when they go visisting islands overseas . supporting sensstaionalist trivailiazation and plain ignoring of tentonic activiy on the pacific faults . The flooding or sinking of islands is all down to global panic indeed. The big picture of the pacific islands and risk out there was not mentioned , neither was the risk term pretensioning.

I'm sure the Solomon Islanders this week wished reporters spent their time supporting effective warning systems about known and real risks rather than looking for evidence of dangerous and man induced global underwatering which they themselves are in no position to sort-- fact from fear, big picture from mere fact .

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Roxon - a definite Labor handicap

Lateline . Unable to address the proper processing of accusations and deal with the issues -Lateline forum FRIDAY was little more than a vehicle for a noise fest from an incompetent wannabe trying to get her word in edgeways - and in the way of anything deep, she got !
This is a woman who aspires to be attorney general!??

Monday, February 19, 2007

Crisis driven consensus

(McMullan gets the experts to solve the watercrisis all in 60 minutes - a mirror of the quick fix going on the election stage at the moment .
Crisis driven consensus- using pressure but not one that would offend our new Pc way of working ?
If such resolutions happened at your home it would seem too good to be true.perhaps these stage sets are for fantasy distraction and entertainmnet . We resolved something really difficult without anyone getting heated- we must be more evolved than our parents ?
The solution : Everyone will just pay more for water --unfortunately its more predicatable than it looks - such a bucket brigade would really help their 4 causes The audience just pays bigger taxes and the money would come to them! The leaders are right and we pay to be wrong . The wonders of consensus .

Perhaps there is no crisis - its just a media and cause driven fundraiser ; water is getting to SA's in the driest period on record , the only bit of the dead Murray to get an unchallenged option was its dead mouth -something it has often had in its long history. lots of recently failed innovations (water trading and focus on rice ) ignored and Cullen unable to talkk about something real and deep like flooded cities or bare paddocks

Why didn't Cullen hit home with the amount of irrigated land likely to go out of production in the next twenty years. He choose rather to ignore the dig at the careless rice critics and refer to some dying red gums .His advocacy of the ricing mechanism suggests he is more an engineer and market sycophant than an economistwith an ecology focus .They might as well call the new Murray Darling commission the J curve interpreters because they will have little time for little else if they try to price water .
Why did the Wentworth guru advocate market solutions when the bucket is empty one day and full the next. why does he talk diversity not the myopic monocultural market motivation theory - different economic paradigms apply to rainfed, rooffed and riverfed.maybe thats the idea - agree to fund more research - the outcomes are less important .
I suggest The only ones to benefit from higher water prices will be the institutions and the speculators. The only ones to feel the pinch ( as mike young so willinly admitted re cities )
will be the producers who will get their options and security slashed and their methods of using the stuff increasingly questioned . When the economists and non practicals in that group couldn't even admit to the ravishing stupidity of a monocultural market solution that has already proven its incompetence and can't put diversity of apprach into prcatice the people who alerady have tanks and mange water well will,sure as eggs, be cut savagely and unfairly .
And its all in the name of winning the election - is it not?