2005 viewing and reading

Best New Release Film

Downfall : hardly a conventional biopic but a penetrating insight into the minds of Hitler and some of his acolytes as the Third Reich crumbled.

Best Novel read

Saturday (Ian McEwan)

Varieties of free speech

I recently came across this item from Spiked . While I don't agree with David Irving's holocaust denying think it's counter productive to threaten him with imprisonment for words he said years ago. He is variously described in the article as a "British historian" and a "racist crank", terms which you might think are incompatible with each other.

The case of Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer, is more interesting to me, not only because it is continuing at the moment but also because I'm reading Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation, which includes a lengthy chapter "The First Holocaust" on the 1915 massacres in Armenia. Fisk is well aware of Turkish sensitivities on this matter and draws attention (see pp 418 - 429) to some recent airbrushings and equivocations by the US and British governments and media. He also mentions (at p 430) other recent instances where discussion of the massacres has been aired in Turkey, while acknowledging the red rag responses they elicited .

Spiked, asserts that both cases are the same:

"both [ Irving and Pamuk ]could be incarcerated, not for physically harming another person or for damaging property, but for the words they spoke; both could have their liberty removed because they expressed views that the authorities - in Turkey and Austria - decree to be distasteful. And both of their trials are an outrage against the principle of free speech. You may or may not agree with what Pamuk said, and you probably are disgusted by Irving's weasel words. But this isn't about what either author said; it is about whether they should have the right to say it, and we should have the right to hear it. Freedom of speech, as its name suggests, does not mean freedom for views that go down well in polite society but not for views that stink: it means freedom for all speech, the freedom to think, say and write what we please and the freedom of everyone else to challenge or ridicule our arguments."

In today's Hurriyet the Turkish Justice Minister is reported as saying of the Pamuk case "All we need is democratic patience", whatever that means, though he "declined to give details of steps to be taken on the issue".

"Democratic patience" has, like most doublespeak, a bland fuzziness about it. Does it really mean "undemocratic impatience"? This would seem to be more in tune with the current environment of fear and anti-terror legislation.

UK appeals against Hicks

The BBC reports that the British government is to appeal against the recent court decision that David Hicks is eligible to apply for British citizenship. The story is accompanied by a photograph of a very youthful looking Hicks: doubtless it predates his incarceration in Camp X-Ray.

Vale Mr Packer

The first I heard of Kerry Packer's demise was this morning when I tuned into his TV network to watch the test cricket, a game he'd reshaped to suit his own ends.

The love of cricket seems to have been one of the few things that he and I had in common, but I wonder whether those who succeed him, whether family members or others, will share the same commitment to supporting the game. The panel of experts assembled by Channel 9 this morning at the MCG to deliver their personal eulogies - Richie Benaud, Ian Chappell, Tony Greig and Bill Lawry - reminded me of how much a part of the summer living room furniture they have become over the last 25+ years. The sight of them together on the screen also reminded me that three of the four are older than me. Some of them will be difficult to replace.

If Kerry Packer was responsible (which seems to have been the case) for choosing Richie Benaud to lead the commentary team then he deserves to be remembered as a benefactor of the game.

Christmas brought to you by whom?

Photo taken yesterday at the front of a local church. The sign in the foreground, with the sponsors' name featuring prominently, suggests that they, not the church, are running the event.

Incident in the Mall

I took this photo in Rundle Mall this afternoon.

I came upon the scene as the woman in the middle of
the picture was being led away handcuffed. There
had apparently been some trouble between her and the child being carried by the officer on the left
being carried by the officer on the left.

I didn't hear anything about it on the news tonight so I'm intrigued as to what prompted the strong police response. Any ideas?

Wikipedia under scrutiny

The ABC reports that Wikipedia plans a "fixed" or "stable" version to counter "potential abuse of its live content".

The fundamental Wikipedia idea of allowing open access to contributors is good though it does allow errors of fact and opinion to be posted and to stand uncorrected.

Try looking up Wikipedia's articles on some towns and cities you know or want to find out more about . You'll probably find major differences in the information provided, and sometimes what you'd expect to find, such as the population, isn't mentioned.

On the other hand, as the story above reports, the British science journal Nature has put Wikipedia's scientific credentials to the test by asking independent reviewers to compare 42 of its articles with their counterparts from the Encyclopedia Britannica.

"Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia," Nature reported.

British (but not Australian or US) justice for David Hicks?

The UK High Court ruling that David Hicks is entitled to be registered as a British citizen contrasts sharply with the Australian government's inertia (or deliberate refusal to intervene) on the matter. as The Advertiser says

The decision may not stand for long though http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1927540,00.html

For whom would you vote in this poll?

Here's an interesting field of candidates.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/bad_democracy/index.jsp

Last spin for the Routemaster

The BBC has reported the demise of the Routemaster bus on London bus routes:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4510410.stm

The spindoctors have puffed the bus's alleged shortcomings, such as no wheelchair access, as hard as they can, but have not surprisingly ignored an assessment of the bus as "the best ever model" and "actually more accessible".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4384318.stm

Does one need a PhD in industrial design to suggest that the rear platform could be modified to accommodate a wheelchair or two?

The companies who have grasped the opportunity to buy surplus Routemasters for a song and convert them into mobile bars etc have certainly shown a bit more initiative than Transport for London.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4509706.stm

The real reason for the phasing out is shown in this photo, which I took in May this year: it is cheaper to replace one human being with an automated ticketing system and several security cameras.

Has anyone considered the potential security benefits of having a human observer to monitor passenger behaviour?

More on the ABC favourite films

In today's Age Peter Craven has a piece about the ABC's favourite film show http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/movie-favourites-a-populist-grovel/2005/12/07/1133829659777.html. I don't agree with his suggestion that the survey should have been faked to produce a "more viable top 10" though I do agree with his conclusion that unless more is done to "treasure our film culture... it will be lost to history and we'll have a canon made up of last year's mush and modishness."

Response from Oxfam

Yesterday a person from Oxfam rang me to discuss the collectors doorknocking on my street. She stated that

• The collectors were genuine
• Oxfam has contracted an outside organisation (not named) to run the collection, and
• This method has been used for about five years.

I did not ask, not was I told, how much of each dollar raised this way actually ended up with Oxfam.

Oxfam diversifies its collection methods

Last evening I answered a knock at my door to find two young men standing there.

"Hi mate", said the one with the clipboard "have you heard of Oxfam?" I replied that not only had I heard of it but that I was a donor. End of discussion.

I wondered whether they were, despite their displaying what looked like Oxfam ID, genuine, so this morning I rang the Oxfam state office. I was told that Oxfam had engaged a contractor to collect door to door. I wonder how much of each dollar collected in this manner actually reaches Oxfam. In fact I wonder how much of each dollar that I donate to them actually reaches projects in the field...

Next generation movie preferences?

Last night I watched ABC TV's program "My Favourite Film" which featured the top 10 films of a recent nationwide poll. http://www.abc.net.au/myfavouritefilm/top100.htm


The results show how far my preferences (see my blogger profile) differ from those of those who voted on this occasion. I can't say much about some of the films, eg Amelie, because I've not seen them, but then not all last night's panellists, of whom Stuart Macgill was both diligent in his viewing and perceptive in his comments, had either.

I'd expected the voting to reflect my stereotype of ABC (more specifically At the Movies) viewers: ageing, with middle to high-brow tastes. I'll need to think again about this and to fill the gaps in my film viewing. But I won't change my favourites for the time being.

A man with his priorities right

According to this week's City Messenger (one of the Mr Murdoch's minnows). The Lord Mayor of Adelaide in his most recent fortnightly report listed the major events of the preceding 14 days. They were

1. Brian Lara's 226 in the Test.

2. Rupert Murdoch's visit to Adelaide.

3. Donald Rumsfeld's ditto.

I concur with this assessment.

Help from above for cricket umpires?

To the cricket yesterday and today. Australia completed a comfortable and deserved win today. The turning point of the game IMO was the West Indies' failure to gain a significant first innings lead (at least 50) when they had the opportunity, though the margin of Australia's victory was exaggerated by poor umpiring from Billy Bowden and Aleem Dar.

Today Billy Bowden added to his mistakes of the previous days. He called a 5 ball over during the morning session and on one occasion stopped the bowler half way through his run up to upbraid the West Indian fielders for some alleged infringement, which looked and sounded to me like one man clapping before the ball was delivered.

These lapses seem odd for a man who has recently claimed that God is his "third umpire in a way" http://sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2005/11/09/scgad09.xml&sSheet=/sport/2005/11/09/ixcrick.html . It would be interesting to know how God communicates his decisions to Billy: on the cricket field they seem to come through very quickly and to favour Australia more than the opposition.

Perhaps there is something to be said for referring more decisions to a third umpire: an earthly one with access to good technology would suffice. Maybe the batting side should be given a certain number of challenges to umpire's decisions: this idea was discussed on the ABC radio commentary during the test. And "elite" umpire training needs to be reviewed.

Perhaps even the third umpire could be the ultimate decision making authority

The hills and the valleys of test cricket

It was another very good day of test cricket at Adelaide Oval today, despite some lapses by the Australian middle order batters (note PC usage) and the West Indian fielders.

The first session was a la recherche de temps perdu (ie a throwback to the past): hard grafting with wickets falling regularly. 48 runs from 27 overs, for 4 wickets. Hey, this wasn't in the script but it was good to see the West Indian bowlers lift their game. Bravo was magnificent (as his name suggests) and even Fidel Edwards (will his name preclude him from gaining entry to Orstrailia when the new sedition laws are in force?) bowled at the stumps and earned a wicket.

Unfortunately for those who were hoping that the Windies would adminster the coup de grace after lunch. Fidel couldn't maintain the pressure and Hussey (who before lunch might have done more both to protect Symonds and to move the score along) and McGill took advantage of very slack bowling (what did Fidel E have for lunch to make him bowl so loosely afterwards?)

Ramdin dropped Gilchrist from a sitter (but AG didn't last much longer as Chanderpaul took a good catch). Hinds also dropped McGill from as easy a catch as must have ever been offered in test cricket. When the Windeis batted again Ricky Ponting at second slip caught Devon Smith with a catch that as good aas one could hope to see: Lee delivered at about 150km/hr, Smith edged downwards, Ponting moved forward (how could he in the nanosecond?), caught the ball and retained his balance.

B Lara (cont)

Today Brian Lara scored another 24 runs which was sufficient to make him the top test match run scorer of all time. Congratulations to a master.

The ABC has engaged another master West Indian - Tony Cozier - as part of its radio commentary team. His comments are a combination of incisive analysis of the play and graphic description of the match ambience. IMO only Richie Benaud of current commentators rivals him.

Another magnificent innings

Brian Lara finished the first day of the Australia - West Indies Test on 202 not out of a total of 7/352. His innings began with intense concentration and very careful, almost wary, shot selection. In the middle session he moved from 27 (out of 71) to 106 (out of 194) gradually revealing his full hand of strokes, while still maintaining his concentration apart from one or two foregiveable lapses. He sprinted to the 200 mark in an over in which he made Brett Lee (who otherwise bowled well) look like a net bowler, or parkland cricketer.

And this is his second great innings at Adelaide this year: the other his 156 against Pakistan in a one day international in January, which I also saw. Unfortunately I won't be able to be at the Adelaide Oval for the start of tomorrow's play but I feel as I've just consumed a magnificent meal - I'll leave the wine comparisons to the Cricinfo reporter who shares my opinion http://content-aus.cricinfo.com/ausvwi/content/story/227179.html.

Letter to the Editor

Today's Advertiser published an open letter from Mr Rumsfeld "Secretary of Defence" (sic) thanking everyone for making his visit to "your beautiful city" such a success. Interestingly it was published in the Letters to the Editor section, and wasn't even the lead one. It did at least precede those written by the regular correspondents such as Paul Scott Wattle Park (today's contribution a characteristically pithy statement " Bring on TramsAdelaide") and Brian Wreford Morphett Vale (requesting express trains from Oaklands to Salisbury, a variation on his usual theme of extending the Noarlunga Line to Aldinga).

I wonder whether Mr R sends an open letter of thanks to the people of each city he visits. I'd like to see what he says to the citizens of Baghdad.

Despite Mr R's description of his meeting with Mr Downer and Senator Hill as "important talks" his visit to Adelaide doesn't rate on the "What the Secretary has been saying" section of the Defense Department website http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/secdef.html . The only reference there to a town hall is a transcript of a "Town Hall Meeting" at MacDill Airforce Base on 11 October this year http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2005/sp20051011-secdef1981.html in which Mr R describes himself as a "broken down ex-cabinet officer".