How I Spent My New Years

Over at d3vo you can see the 3-minute video taken at the New Years bach, where everyone says what their best moment of 2007 was.
Mostly of note for those who were there. You know who you are.

The Debased Electorate

Glenn Greenwald (18 March) on Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” address:

The entire premise of Barack Obama’s candidacy is… that Americans are not only able, but eager, to participate in a more elevated and reasoned political discourse… But in Obama’s faith in the average American voter lies one of the greatest weaknesses of his campaign. His faith in the ability and willingness of Americans to rise above manipulative political tactics seems drastically to understate both the efficacy of such tactics and the deafening amplification they receive from our establishment press.

The Times of London (21 March):

Polls show Barack Obama damaged by link to Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Barack Obama has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his pastor’s inflammatory remarks and the issue has become a serious threat to his presidential ambitions, polls suggest.
The surveys released yesterday point to an erosion of Mr Obama’s support among independents, a bloc that has previously backed him in overwhelming numbers, and particular alienation among white, working-class voters who will be critical to the general election in November.
They appear disturbed by the Illinois senator’s refusal to disown the Rev Jeremiah Wright in a keynote speech he delivered on Tuesday…

Zine Launch Tonight!

Continuing the theme of “words starting with zin, tonight is the launch of the zine “Seven Copies Of The Scream”, 6-8pm in Wellington’s Welsh bar.
For more info look here.
If you are overseas, well, you’ll just have to wish you were here.
(And tomorrow, we’ll discuss zinc, man’s best mineral friend!)

Olympics and Politics?

Kiwi equestrian gold-medal winner Mark Todd’s comments that if he went to Beijing he’d make some kind of protest against China’s abhorrent actions in Tibet are a sign of an undercurrent of concern that athletes around the world must be feeling.
It would be wrong to take Todd’s comments as too much of a sign – he’s an atypical case, an older athlete making an unexpected comeback at the twilight of his career and already with some gold in his closet – surely he has less to lose from official censure than the vast majority of young competitors. Additionally, it’s plain from the article that his comments were dug out by an enterprising reporter, rather than something Todd had intended to say. Still, Todd knows about the media and knew what he was doing. And the questions he answered will keep coming, everywhere around the world.
The current violence in Tibet, where an absence of free information flow is apparently concealing brutal state repression and perhaps the murder of citizens, is already casting a shadow over the games. For us in the West, Tibet is China’s greatest PR disaster, and the Olympics its greatest PR coup. The appeal to draw these two storylines together will prove irresistible to the world media.
China has already put pressure on governments to ask their athletes to sign a pledge not to speak about politics at the game. A number of athletes have spoken out saying they don’t intend to engage with politics at all. But that’s only to be expected; it would be an athlete with poor survival instincts, or a special case like Todd, who announces now their intent to cause a stir in Beijing.
There is a moral dimension to the Olympics, and I expect it to come to the fore in Beijing. It won’t be the first time there’s been a memorable protest under the five rings.

Zing!

Letters to the editor are best when you say out loud “ZING!” after you read each one. Try it on these gems from Monday’s DomPost:

“I have begun to notice Young Greens sporting badges stating, “I only date guys/girls that vote Green”. I find this bewildering because I would have thought that judging or having a prejudice against someone based on their political beliefs is against basic human, as well as democratic, rights.” – Oliver Gibbetson, Northland

ZING!

“So, Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast isn’t happy about the sum the Government will pay to deal with tagging. Perhaps she might consider topping it up with some of the money spent by the council-owned Art Centre to decorate its car-park walls with graffiti – I mean, street art. Mixed messages, anyone?” – Yvonne Guy, Wellington City

ZING!
Hoo boy, it’s a pleasure to encounter such rapier wit in this day and age.
(Elsewhere on the same page, Dave Hansford of Makara delivers a takedown to the shameful high-profile climate change skeptic piece by the ludicrous Muriel Newman, and the even-more-ludicrous climate change skeptic Vincent Gray does some ZINGing of his own.)

“We have to change the way we live”

Finished off my Writers/Readers week presence Friday night, seeing former World Bank head Joseph Stiglitz at the Michael Fowler Centre. Mostly the same old crowd – anti-globalization hippy types were thin on the ground, although Ed of Ed’s Juice Bar fame was a few rows in front of us.
After a painfully overlong introduction by the moderator (he actually got heckled by this most genteel crowd for taking too long), Stiglitz got into it. He was great to listen to, avuncular and friendly with a sharp turn of phrase, and while he’s obviously aware he just needs to drop a dig at BushCheney to get a crowd applauding he didn’t go to that well too often.
Mostly it was standard stuff from him – the IMF and World Bank and G8 are part of the problem, not the solution, because they are dogmatically applying economic models that do not work on the ground and make life worse for people rather than better. Good to hear him say it but nothing eye-opening. He talked a bit about the New Zealand context, and how our economy is so small that we’re stuck in globalisation now – even if we wanted to control our trade borders to the extent China and the US do, we couldn’t, because our economy would fall over.
In question time, audience questions quickly got on to the subject of the environment and climate change and didn’t look back. Stiglitz didn’t go into heavy detail, just wasn’t enough time for it, but generally weighed in behind full-cost accounting where atmosphere and water (etc.) are codified into the economic system so there’s some representative cost when they are despoiled. He made a point of saying that he believes we’re going to have to change the way we live, sooner rather than later, and that preparedness means ceding power and resources to the developing nations – somethng the developed nations are reluctant to do.
It was a great session but far too short. We could have sustained another hour, easily. Oh well.
So that was that. Thanks to the parentals for the gift of my WritersReaders week experience, and respect to my brother for going to all three with me.

“Most importantly, I’m a comic strip artist”

Garry Trudeau was Thursday night. My expectations of the Doonesbury creator were dashed – his reputation as reclusive and publicity-shy did not match up to the slightest bit of reticence or awkwardness, indeed he was incredibly comfortable before the audience and downright effusive. Sean Plunket would ask a question and he’d skid off on long, winding replies full of well-practised gags and insight. He had well-worn anecdotes for everything that was thrown at him, but there’s no cause to resent that – the guy’s a legend and just seeing him was neat.
Still, not much of note to report. Much more fun to be there listening than to read about it afterwards, I expect.
I was pleased by his opening words, where he said yes, he was a satirist and social commentator and even soap opera writer, but most importantly he was a comic strip artist.
Was even more pleased that almost the first question from the staid, politics-minded 50-something crowd (one always gets such a crowd at Writers and Readers week) called back to this, by asking him what other comic strips he enjoyed. No surprises in his response (Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side and currently Dilbert) but it was nice to hear. Classic newspaper strips are enjoying a surge in legitimacy with lots of well-assembled archival collections on release, such as the Complete Peanuts and Complete Popeye; I would have liked to hear more on that, but to be honest I’m a politics-minded dude like everyone else in the crowd so I was delighted with what we got.
For more on Trudeau, Grant enthuses here.