From The Morgue

So state-owned-enterprise Solid Energy has hired a private investigation firm to place spies inside New Zealand environmental groups. (Story. Unsurprisingly, Nicky Hager’s name is in the byline.)
The Sunday-Star Times, which is clearly (and rightfully) delighted with itself for breaking this story, confronted Solid Energy Chief Exec Don Elder who said “So what?” That’s not me providing an amusing summary of an extensive comment. Those are the words appearing by his name in quote marks in the SST story. It’s sickening. If the quote is accurate – and I have no reason to doubt it – these words should haunt Don Elder for a long time to come.
Stuff is currently running a picture of one of the spies, a 21-year-old student of Wellington, “Somali”. Their confidence in running a picture suggests they have airtight documentation, even though she denies involvement:

Evidence suggests a second student, Somali, was paid by Thompson & Clark to join two Wellington groups – Wellington Animal Rights Network, which protests about vivisection and cruelty to animals, and peace group Peace Action Wellington. Over the past two years, she was a core member of the groups taking minutes at meetings and joining all their activities -while reporting to clients interested in the vivisection and arms industry intelligence. She denied any involvement when the Star-Times confronted her last week.

The Wellington Animal Rights Network? Peace Action Wellington? These are the organisations that have been compromised? They are the big threats that must be infiltrated and compromised? What this demonstrates is the power imbalance at work in this society – not only can powerful organisations run roughshod over the public good and insulate themselves from public criticism through sheer might, but they can also deploy their resources to undermine the same public criticism they’re already ignoring.
And for all that, this kind of infiltration is not just unethical, it’s also strategically foolish – New Zealand is too small for this kind of spying to be impregnable, and these inevitable revelations are going to hurt the companies concerned far more than Valerie Morse with a loudspeaker ever would.
The most staggering thing is how little I’m surprised by this. We’re a small enough country to reign in the madness, we’re capable of better than this, and yet we continue eagerly on the downward spiral. It’s enough to put you off your Sunday brunch.
Next on the New Zealand news: righties say “So what?”, the Labour government says very little at all, and lefties wonder whether what hit our heads was just another acorn or actually a piece of the sky.

Cruel Intentions. I went in to see the flick itself for cheap laughs and the kiss. (See also.) I walked out astonished that it was (A) very very good and (B) blessed with the best marriage of music-to-movie I’d ever heard in a cinema. And then paid to see it again a few nights later. That good.
I’m listening to the soundtrack right now. It is fantastic all the way through. Every You Every Me, Coffee & TV, Colorblind, Comin’ Up From Behind, Secretly, You Blew Me Off, Bitter Sweet Symphony… Seriously, can anyone offer a challenger? (Excepting orchestral scores, here.) The Crow and The Lost Boys and others have their champions, but, man. This is what the pop music during the movies is all about.
Amazon has samples.
(In future, the pervasive network will detect our emotional state and play appropriate soundtrack music based on what is happening to us and those around us, yes.) (Billy – chateaux. Oui.)

While roaming the world, Cal introduced me to her friend Greg, who then became my friend Greg. Greg is currently posted in Saudi Arabia, and he sends out absolutely fascinating emails describing his life. He has kindly agreed to let me reproduce one here. So here it is!

18 Rabii II 1428H (corresponding to 5 May 2007AD)
Salam aleikum min il Mamlaka, Peace and greetings upon you from the Kingdom.
I am now into my fifth month in the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia I have learnt is a land of contrasts and I’m finding some of my earlier stereotypes were too simplistic in construction and in need of some fine tuning. As with any place, the longer you spend somewhere the more you come to understand it. Daily frustrations are growing fewer. I now, generally, know when prayer time is and can avoid being locked out of (or locked in) stores during the compulsory five daily prayer breaks. I have also learnt that to push in a line is not considered ‘rude’ in the strictest sense, and if I can do it stealthily (a little more difficult given I’m a white foreigner and stick out), then I can save a lot of time (please don’t judge! – “when in Rome”).
My new car has helped out a lot too in the transition into Kingdom life. I’m now cruising the streets of Riyadh in a 2007 Toyota Yaris. It isn’t the huge 4×4 I had promised myself in New Zealand, but then while it may cost only six New Zealand dollars to fill the tank, I have, we have, a responsibility to our climate – and the large gas guzzling Humvies and 4x4s that circle Saudi roads only contribute to the city’s and our planet’s pollution. I also figured it would be more manoeuvrable too – and fast. Did I say fast? Saudi has the highest per capita road fatality rate in the world (most accidents per capita too). I drive using my mirrors, and use my horn more than is natural. Currently I have the stock standard Yaris horn, which I have decided needs to be pimped up into a fog horn. Given Saudi drivers, it is survival of the fittest, or rather largest or loudest. My small Yaris needs to be loud.
We’re on a virtual lock down at the moment. We are not allowed to go into the desert because we’ve been warned by the Foreign Ministry here that there are terrorist attacks likely against westerners (its been in all the papers). As such we have been advised to stay inside the city boundaries. Its meant a major inconvenience to me, as the desert is one avenue of entertainment that I can enjoy outside of the Diplomatic Quarter, residential compound and City Centre (I usually go to the desert with Saudi and Yemeni friends). Given there are no bars, nightclubs, movie theatres in Saudi Arabia (all considered haram, and evil), social activities tend to be limited to cafes (of course only with male friends – men can’t sit with women in restaurants – unless in special curtained off areas for “families”). Sometimes people get around it and simply pretend they’re married. Its risky as getting caught by the religious Police is an ever present threat.
I joined up with the Riyadh Hash house Harriers for a while too – in other cities they are known as the “drinking group with the running problem”, in Saudi there is no drinking, but the desert runs are great. Its getting warm now, early forties, so I’d be guessing my running in the desert days are soon to come to an end for this season – while the desert is fun, dehydration is not. Its only going to get warmer. Mid fifties are apparently the height of summer… but I can wait for August for that.
I had dinner the other night with the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Four of us from work went. It was, to put it mildly an interesting, yet warming encounter with what you could term the religious right. Imagine a group of middle aged men, all with huge beards, dressed in their white thobes and red head scarves, meeting to discuss the perceptions of Islam and Saudi Arabia in the West. It was an enlightening experience. They were warm, jovial, and honestly interested in dialogue and hearing our perceptions. One observation I have come to very rapidly is that Saudi Arabia is a confusing country that is misunderstood by the West. The people are very introverted (unlike their gregarious Egyptian neighbours), and unlike us in New Zealand, they do not tend to take to strangers quickly. A private people, devoted to their families, and strict with their religion (which is more than a faith, it is a way of life, constitution, legal code and a societal order).
I think events of the past six years have challenged Saudis to consider who they are, and how they fit into the global framework. They are a nation of contrasts, there’s the official line on most things, yet a definite subculture that often exists beneath. Saudis are known throughout the Arab world for tending to be cold, which while on the face of it sometimes appears true, underneath exists a web of desert culture and tradition, where I’m told “smiling” has traditionally is interpreted as a sign of weakness. The intermarrying of the nomadic tribes (first cousins marry) has meant there has been little need in the past to extend friendship to strangers. Society has been closed, and to be blunt it hasn’t needed to open up. A case in point is the difficulty in obtaining Saudi visas. You can’t visit this place unless on a religious pilgrimage to Makkah or Medina, or if you are sponsored by someone already domiciled in the Kingdom (such as myself). Oil revenue has meant the tourist dollar, sought by so many other countries is not needed here – and to bring it in would mean the introduction of western ideas, freedoms and sins.
So, I live my day soaking up the culture and trying to be non judgemental. Rather accepting the differences as merely that, differences in a way of life that is a virtual antithesis to that of New Zealand. Yes, I miss the greenery of home, friends, family, the ease of life. Here I have desert and heat, a tight knit, and small western expat community, and a handful of Saudi friends who are brave to also stretch out over the cultural divide to embrace that which Saudi society is not yet prepared to allow, mixing of the sexes, small screenings of DVDs at friends houses with projectors, and talk of the Kingdom of the future, the societal changes that are underway, the pressures to bring about reform, peacefully from within the Monarchy or more forcefully through the sword, eg Al Qaeda and other Islamists.
Anyway, enough from me.
With love and regards from the Kingdom,
Keep in touch,
Maa’salam and Peace,
Greg

Thanks for this Greg.

Look, he and his bride are just getting into their tiny tiny car.
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This gag was funnier when Bill Watterson did it in Calvin & Hobbes. Which strip I mention on account of a gift recently received from a faraway blogger. (Thank you!)
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Things done since returning from Melbourne at midnight on Friday:

• Fixed a broken front tooth.
• Helped make a short film for the 48-hour film festival.
• Unpacked. Rearranged all the furniture in the apartment.
• Got internet set up (this took NINE HOURS of today).
• Played netball (twice) and basketball.
• Prepared for and ran the grand finale of Slayers East.
• Attended two cocktail parties.
• Started a new work contract.
• Did my taxes from last year (mostly).
• Developed material for Masters.
• Came down with a very nasty cold.
• Cold medicine has pseudoephedrine in it and I have had only two hours sleep in the last forty-something and la la la la coldrex la la la when I closed my eyes to try and sleep last night I had crazy hallucinations of giant bugs sort of like a ganzfeld effect only with bugs they were staring at me. But I feel fine. Stupid cold.

I have a significantly large backlog of email and snail mail to clear. I have not read all the blogs I like to read. Forums haven’t even had a look in. And how is it that I’m not even enrolled yet and I am up against Masters-related urgent deadlines?
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Another thing I did, courtesy Wellingtonista, which I did read:

• watched the first episode of the new Flight of the Conchords series, which has been freely released by HBO into the many tubes of the internets.
• It has the American girl from Peep Show in it. Yay for Peep Show.
• That is all.

Back from warming the earth by flying to and from Melbourne, and glad to be home in Wellington where I face the twin joys of masses to do and no phone line or net access from home.
In the continuing break from blogging that this will cause, I invite you to entertain yourself with last year’s entry for the 48-hour film festival, Monster Hunter IV: Beyond Repair, featuring me as the monster being hunted:

Among this weekend’s activities has been this year’s 48. Madness! But good, healthy madness. More info in due course.

Today, Saturday 12 May, is moving day. Cal and I shift into our new apartment in Coromandel St in the lovely Wellington suburb of Newtown. We’re in the old maternity hospital, St Helens, so if you are a Wellingtonian of a certain age there is a good chance you will have emerged wailing into life right about where we’ll put the television.
Tomorrow, Sunday 13 May, we go to Melbourne for a week.
Yes, this could have been planned slightly better. But. We are coping.
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Wellington Comedy Festival is on. Saw ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ tonight, an adaptation of the Carroll “agony in eight fits” with much of the original wordplay and a bunch more besides. It took a while to get going, the large cast seeming to take about fifteen minutes to settle in, but then it ran well; or perhaps it’s just that the best material comes later on. In any case, there were some wonderful bits. My favourite was the reinvention of Carroll’s poem ‘Jabberwocky’, which isn’t even part of Snark – it’s from Looking Glass. Although it shares with Snark a great deal of Carroll’s delicious invented vocabulary. Neat. Also saw The Improv Divas, which was refreshing, funny, sequinny and improvised. A grand night was had, all told.
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The Buffy-inspired RPG ‘Slayers East’ is almost at the end of its run, and the penultimate episode was something quite special. Which just serves to really put the pressure on us for the last episode, in a week and a half…
Anyway. If you ever wondered I enjoy roleplaying so much, there’s part of your answer.
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Blogging will, unsurprisingly, be light-to-nonexistent while we’re away.

goodbye.
He has timed this announcement to align with the historic developments in Ireland, which he has repeatedly tried to frame as his true legacy. But the shadow of Iraq is long and it may darken him yet. I hope it does.
…what he deserves: to fall from grace, spectacularly, hugely, humiliatingly, with all his self-delusions laid bare…
Good riddance.

Over in the land of Livejournal, the word ‘meme’ has a special meaning. They are activity-chunks completed online and then posted to your journal, where other LJ friends will see it and perhaps do the activity themselves, posting it to their journals, and propagating the meme in so doing. The vast majority of meme activity-chunks are multi-choice questions which you complete to determine “Which Pirate of the Caribbean/type of pie/Spice Girl are you?”, but there are a variety of other formats. (An important secondary type is the list of interview questions you must answer.)
There are many reasons memes work the way they do in LJ. For example, they provide a socially-acceptable prompt to engage in person-to-person comparison – “Hmmm, she’s a cocker spaniel, I wonder what I will be?” and, for the interview-style memes, to reveal things about yourself in a strategic way. (The connection to schoolyard “slam books” and “rating books” and “interview books” and so forth will be obvious to anyone who encountered those phenomena.)
One LJ meme has just been used as a weapon.
The ‘LJ-mojo’ meme asked a bunch of questions about dating activities or preferences and then produced a graph of your ‘LJ-mojo’. This meme has spread far and wide – a google for “LJ-mojo” returns 2,800 hits – despite the fact that it was impossible to interpret. Many of those who posted it expressed confusion about what the graph represented. However, the graph looked interesting and attractive, and so it spread.
It came to my attention last night that this was all a scam, and the payoff was just delivered. The LJ-mojo graphs have been replaced by one of the most infamous and disturbing images on the net. The creators of the meme deliberately made it opaque in meaning, visually attractive, and connected to the “who dated who” gossip treadmill that drives interaction everywhere in order to suck people in – and then they dropped this nasty surprise on a lot of unsuspecting people.
The perpetrators are actually known to some friends of mine. They are tiresome, irrational, and have an inflated sense of their own internet-awesomeness. The word ‘juvenile’ is insufficient to describe the kind of inane activities that have drawn them to my attention before.
It’s a dumb plan, anyway. Memes spread far and wide then disappear into the archives, never to be seen again. They haven’t spammed this image across many thousands of computer screens – they’ve changed the destination of an image link that will sit unaccessed in the backwaters of many thousands of LJ archive indices. Their grand scheme to horrify the masses is a damp squib of failure.
Still, the principles of their intervention make for a really interesting idea – luring people into posting an image far and wide, and then replacing the image. Social hacking. Adbusters-type people are probably sitting up stroking their chins about the possibilities.
If you must dig deeper, start where I heard it first, at xenogram’s LJ. And if you know someone who did the meme, or if you did it, quietly dig into your archive and delete it. But try not to look at the picture. (Seriously not kidding; it’s the kind of thing that would get you fired.)

I used to think that, in order to have adventures, the crucial thing was to have a club secretary.
In other words,
(1) With your friends, form a club
(2) Give the club a nifty name like “the Hawks”
(3) Decide who will be Club Secretary
(4) Have adventures, probably involving smugglers of gold ingots
When I look back on those childhood years, during which I never did have any adventures, I am forced to ask myself the question: did we choose the right club secretary?