Mumbai madness

I've spent a lot of time following the media coverage of the appalling events in Mumbai, which I visited in 2005. Not only am I familiar with the location of most of the sites attacked I've had first hand experience of some of them. Like millions of Indians I've used the CST (formerly VT) railway station and, like many other tourists, I've eaten at Leopold's Cafe in Colaba, where apparently the first shots were fired.

My sympathies go out to the friends and families of all those killed or injured in the attacks.

Directors increase fees by up to 40% despite loss

Today I went to the AGM of the RAA (Royal Automobile Association of South Australia).

A major item on the agenda was a proposal to increase the remuneration available to the Directors by 40%, from a total of $250,000 to $350,000. This despite a loss of $2,000,000 in the last financial year (due mostly to poorly performing investments).

The explanatory note issued with the AGM papers (and available in the current SA Motor magazine at p8) states

Independent advice received by the RAA Board from Mercer Human Resource Consulting indicates that the level of remuneration paid to RAA Direcors is significantly less than the rate paid to directors of similar sized commercial organisations and public companies. There is no intention to change this margin, since it is recognised that serving on the RAA Board will always include an element of community service. However, it is clear that the cap on the total amount permitted by the RAA Rules for allocation to the Directors needs to be increased to provide flexibility to recognise the changing responsibility of Directors in a complex business environment, ensure we are able to attract and retain appropriate skills, and allow for inflationary movements over the coming years. This will ensure that RAA continue to be remunerated at a reasonable level whilst maintaining the discount well below the rate applied to directors of comparab le commercial organisations.

The Board considers that the proposed new maximum total amount of $350,000 will enable the RAA to continue to provide suitable recognition to Directors for their time and expertise.

The motion was carried, though only, as I recall, by 200-300 votes in a total of almost 7,000 cast (most of them by proxy).

I have no objection to large non-profit organisations like the RAA remunerating directors but my eyebrows, and those of many other members, were raised by the percentage increase sought and granted in the current environment. I can only hope that the Board exercises some restraint when it comes to determining just how much will be paid to whom.

For many, probably most, South Australians the RAA's core business is providing services to motorists, yet it derives a lot of its income from commercially oriented related activities such as insurance. I hope that this continues and that the insurance tail doesn't come to wag the service dog.

No more control orders for David Hicks

Following an online video request from David Hicks posted on the Get Up Australia website, the Australian Federal Police will not seek an extension of the control order on David Hicks. This is a welcome and overdue move.

News.com.au reports

Former attorney-general Philip Ruddock - the man many hold responsible for Mr Hicks' long incarceration at Guantanamo Bay - said he had no problem with the decision not to renew the control order.
"I'd have no problem with him living in my street," Mr Ruddock told Sky News.

I wonder how many of the others who were so strident in their insistence for the harsh control order imposed last year, eg Mr Rann, Mr Downer, now think likewise.

RTW08

I have been silent for some time as I have been travelling in the UK and USA. Here are some photos I took.







RTW= Round the World

Change in the air for Radio National?

Today Paul Collins on Crikey reports about changes proposed for ABC Radio National. Extract:

Several specialist programs are being taken off-air including the Religion Report, the Media Report and Radio Eye. The Reports are flagship programs that deal with issues central to current culture. Apparently they are being replaced by a movie show and something about the future. Specialist broadcasters will spend more time responding to opinionated bloggers rather than making programs. God help us!

Let's be clear what ABC Radio management is up to: it is a case of the bland leading the bland. Specialisation is out. Nowadays the belief is that any old (or, more likely, young) "interdisciplinary" journalist can deal with any topic. Well, I've been interviewed literally hundreds of times on ABC radio and TV. My experience is that while most journalists make a reasonable go of it, they just don't know the detail and often have to be led to the key questions.

An ABC spokeswoman has replied. Extract:

"A number of line-up changes are planned for ABC Radio National next year, these are currently being finalised and will be announced shortly. They do include a number of programs being moved, changed or ended.

"These changes are in part a response to the move in ABC Radio National's audience growth, particularly online. This necessitates a shift in resources - in some cases from on air to online. There will be no job losses."

I shall wait to see what happens. I listen regularly to The Media Report (which is usually of very high quality) and occasionally to The Religion Report and Radio Eye (which often have items which interest me). I'm not necessarily averse to increasing online content (including transcripts) to supplement the material which goes to air: this is already happening with some programs eg Hindsight .

Crime in the neighborhood

Today was a public holiday here. Unfortunately its tranquility was disturbed by a stabbing near where I live and whose aftermath I witnessed.

Here is The Advertiser/ Adelaide Now report and accompanying photograph.

A bloodied man who staggered into a Norwood bottle shop after being stabbed eight times in the chest and stomach remains in hospital in a critical condition.

About 2.50pm today, the 34-year-old stumbled into the Norwood Hotel drive-through bottleshop – covered in blood and begging for help.

He was then rushed to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

More than a dozen police cars arrived at the scene within minutes. A Kensington Gardens man, 38, was arrested in relation to the alleged attack.

Police also spoke at length to two women before taking them away without arrest.

It is understood the two men were travelling together in a Mitsubishi Verada when they were involved in an argument.

The victim then got out of the car and began walking along The Parade. He was allegedly then repeatedly stabbed with a knife in a second altercation with the same man outside the Norwood Hotel.

Hotel management declined to comment this afternoon.

"We just came down here for a quiet coffee and didn't expect to see anything like this,'' bystander Jessica Matern said.

"It's pretty scary for something like this to happen in an area like this."

Detective Chief Inspector John Gerlach said police would continue to investigate the incident to determine the motive and if other people were involved.

"It's a very serious incident and would have been terrifying for the people involved," he said.

"At the moment I'm not sure how many individual persons were connected other than the four allegedly involved, if anyone else was involved it certainly is serious and would have been terrible."

The stabbing, which occurred in broad daylight on what should have been a sleepy public holiday, follows a shooting on Sunday morning in Gouger St.

In that attack, a man was wounded in the leg and a bystander injured by shattering glass.

The ABC reported the story more briefly though the 7pm TV News did lead with it.

Spot the differences

Two versions of the same story from The Advertiser 27 September 2008 print edition.

1. Page 20

Stopped at lights

Handbag snatched

A brazen thief snatched a women's handbag from a car while the driver was inside the vehicle and stopped at traffic lights at Mile End early yesterday.

The thief, one of about five men in a car which pulled alongside, opened the victim's car door to steal the handbag while she was waiting for lights to change at the intersection of Henley Beach and South roads about 6.10am.

The man got back into a blue Subaru WRX sedan and sped off towards the city. The woman was unhurt. The partial registration umber of the car was "AA62". Anybody who sees the car should contact BankSA Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

2. Page 39

Brazen handbag snatch

Police need help to find a brazen thief who snatched a woman's handbag from a car stopped at traffic lights at Mile End yesterday morning.

The man, one of about five in a car which pulled alongside the woman's car , stepped out and opened her car door to steal the handbag as she waited for lights to change at the intersection of Henley Beach and South roads about 6.10am.

Described as an Aborigine, wearing white gloves, he got back into a blue Subaru WRX sedan which sped off across Bakewell Bridge towards the city.

The woman, who was physically unhurt but shaken, noted the registration number of the car as "AA625K".


Note

• The 'Tiser's website Adelaide Now has subsequently reported that the Subaru has been found.

• The "Bakewell Bridge" mentioned in the p39 report no longer exists. It has been replaced by an underpass.

Watching from the sidelines

As the global financial crisis unravels or unfolds or whatever it is difficult for people like me, an interested though relatively uninformed bystander, to make a lot of sense of events. Perhaps even those who are presumed to know what is happening don't know all that much themselves. After all they've been the ones running the system which is now wobbling.

"Crisis" is often used loosely but the capital C version of the word does seem to apply at the moment as international financial leaders meet and try to cobble together a "solution". Almost everyone seems to agree that an important, probably essential, element of any solution (or whatever it's called) will be a government ie taxpayer funded bailout of the system. In other words the free market advocates whose voices have dominated economic and financial discourse for so long have been forced to admit (doubtess they'll put it differently) that they have been following false prophets (or gods).

Don Bradman centenary

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sir Donald Bradman , IMO the greatest cricketer ever.

I doubt whether many cricket followers would disagree with me, even though the Don did not play the shorter versions of the game.

There are tributes and assessments aplenty in the media, including from the Federal Parliament via Cricket Australia and, as you'd expect, a wide coverage on Cricinfo, including pieces by Suresh Menon and Gideon Haigh.

[Also posted at Nudges and Deflections ]

Back from leave...more transport problems

Adelaide Now/The Advertiser reports that a train was delayed for almost an hour because the driver missed a stop, while a tram (presumably one of the recently acquired ones) was delayed due to a malfunctioning door:

A Transadelaide train was stopped in the middle of a busy peakhour service because the driver missed a stop and the rules say he had to be relieved.

According to an explanation given to passengers on the Noarlunga line train stopped on the city side of the Emmerson station, regulations say the driver must not continue with the run after making such a mistake.

The train was stopped about 8.20am and did not resume until a relief driver took over about 9.10am.

Also this morning, a peak-hour tram into the city arrived 15 minutes late after problems with a door delayed the tram at a suburban stop.

PS Will try to post more frequently from now on.

Restrictive work practices in health

Mike Steketee in today's Australian analyses succinctly one of the major weaknesses of our health system:

In the days before labour market deregulation, unions would go on strike over a shearer being asked to pick up a fleece or a plumber asked to disconnect a piece of wiring. These days it is the Australian Medical Association that defends with religious fervour the exclusive right of doctors to issue prescriptions and to make or at least supervise any number of procedures that a junior nurse can perform. Even in remote areas where there seldom is a doctor in sight, woe betide any other health professional who suggests taking over some of their duties.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon wants to do something about a situation that discriminates not only against highly qualified nurses but also other allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, psychologists, dieticians, podiatrists and diabetes educators. It could be one of the most significant of the many health reforms on her plate, if she can carry it off.

Australia's health system compares favourably with that in many other countries but this is an area in which we are way behind the rest of the world. Greater workforce flexibility in health would increase efficiency and reduce costs in a sector of the economy that is looming increasingly large as medical technology advances and the population ages.

But Roxon has a fight on her hands. The AMA always has been a strong union but these days it arguably is the most powerful in the country. Most unions have suffered from a sharp decline in members, and from laws that greatly restrict their activities, including under a Labor government. But the AMA, representing a respected profession and with a tradition of articulate and very tough leaders, continues to fiercely defend the interests of its members.

In 2006, the Productivity Commission laid out in stark terms the case for reforming work practices in the health sector. It heard that the inability of physiotherapists to directly refer patients for diagnostic imaging cost taxpayers $1 million a year in 9500 hours of unnecessary GP consultations.

That is just one small example in one area of health. Physiotherapists and other allied health professionals cannot refer patients directly to specialists under Medicare: they have to go through a GP.

In the US, not generally held up as an example of world's best practice in health policy, podiatrists perform 80 per cent of foot surgery. In Australia, most of this work is carried out by orthopedic surgeons specialising in foot and ankle surgery. Although there are podiatric surgeons in Australia, they are not recognised as medical practioners, which means they cannot operate in public hospitals. Those who supply services to them, such as anaesthetists, pathologists and radiologists, cannot claim Medicare rebates for their services.

Radiographers cannot do the work of radiologists, even though the shortage of radiologists in hospitals creates problems when rapid results are needed, for instance in emergency departments. Only sonologists can prepare formal reports on ultrasound examinations, even though they often simply repeat the interpretation by sonographers. And so on.

Of course, the doctors have a justification for such restrictions. As AMA president Rosanna Capolingua argued at the National Press Club yesterday, "GPs are the pivotal gatekeepers: the people who select the services that each patient requires to get the best health outcome possible, in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

"Without appropriate medical diagnoses and supervision, patients' problems won't be dealt with properly in the first instance. Missed diagnosis, false reassurance, misdiagnosis, delay in care, all cost dollars and time and human expense." In short, see your GP or die.

Other countries, the Productivity Commission, and most Australian health experts - at least those outside the AMA - think that is a little extreme. Nurse practitioners and other allied health professionals working independently of doctors play significant roles in countries such as the US, Canada, Britain and South Korea.

The Howard government introduced Medicare rebates for practice nurses but they are not the same as nurse practitioners: they have fewer qualifications and can work only under the supervision of doctors, who are the ones who claim the payments from the Government.

Australia has just 300 of the more highly educated nurse practitioners and they are severely restricted in what they can do. Those limitations are all the harder to justify in rural and remote areas where it is hard to find a GP, let alone specialist doctors.

The Productivity Commission concluded that extending Medicare services to allied health professionals "would improve patients' access to quality care, enhance the convenience of care (and) lead to a more efficient use of the mix of skills in the workforce without compromising safety and quality".

This would mean Medicare funding a wider range of services but, to the extent that they substituted for those provided by doctors, it would save money. A study in Denmark of nurse practitioners working with elderly patients in the community found there were extensive savings.

The Productivity Commission recommended an independent committee look at the range of services covered under Medicare, together with referral and prescribing rights. Roxon announced something similar last week, despite the strident opposition of the AMA. A 13-member reference group will report by the middle of next year on, among other things, ways of "addressing the growing need for access to other health professionals".

It is yet another item on the list of Rudd reviews. If the results are not compromised out of existence, they have the potential to significantly improve the health system.

Public transport makeover promised for Adelaide

In his budget South Australia's Treasurer Kevin Foley has promised a radical overhaul of Adelaide's rail/ tram/ light rail transport system .

The Advertiser/ Adelaide Now reports:

The state's ailing public transport system has received a $2 billion injection described as the "single biggest commitment to public transport in the state's history" by Treasurer Kevin Foley. The centrepiece of the massive announcement is an extension of the Glenelg-city tramline to West Lakes, Port Adelaide and Semaphore at a cost of $162 million.

Over the next four years, $648.4 million will be spent on the first leg of the extension, the purchase of new light rail vehicles and buses, electrification of the rail network and a new ticketing system.

Speculation has been rife the Government would extend the tramline following the recently announced upgrade of AAMI Stadium.

Work will begin "immediately" on the first leg of the extension, to the Entertainment Centre, and trams are expected to be running on the new line by 2010.

A park-and-ride facility will be set up at the centre where western suburbs commuters can park their cars for a fee and commute by tram to the city.


To address capacity issues on the already overcrowded tram service, the Government has committed to buying or leasing six new or second-hand trams "immediately".

A further 15 hybrid tram-trains and 50 new electric trains will be bought and 58 diesel trains will be refurbished and converted to electric over the same period.

Mr Foley described the transport budget as a "blueprint for redeveloping our transport network that will help provide a framework for the future development of our city and state".

In the northern and southern suburbs, rail was the focus.

Electrification of the Noarlunga and Outer Harbour lines will begin at a total cost of $292 million and the start of concrete re-sleepering of the Gawler line will cost $116 million.

On the roads, an extra 80 buses will be added to the fleet over the next four years at a cost of $64.4 million.

This is in addition to the 133 replacement buses to be purchased under and $102.2 million program.

A long-awaited replacement for the more than 20-year-old Crouzet ticketing system has been promised with a commitment of $29 million to begin purchasing new machines.

For a map of the proposed changes see here.

Notwithstanding a question or two about details (eg how will standard gauge trams run on the broad gauge Port Adelaide rail track?) I'm obviously in favour of the proposals and look forward to seeing them implemented within Mr Foley's timeframe.

Number 157

Alan Bond is no 157 on the BRW Rich List:

Former billionaire Alan Bond is back in the money, placing 157th on a list of richest Australians with a relatively small but still respectable estimated wealth of $265 million.

Bond, who hit rock bottom in 1992, earns his spot on the 2008 BRW Rich 200 list mainly through interests such as holdings in Madagascar Oil and Lesotho Diamond Corporation.

The former media proprietor last made the list in 1989, after peaking in 1987 at fourth spot with $400 million.

His return to the 200 comes eight years after he was released from jail and coincides with the Packer family losing its spot atop Australia's annual rich list for the first time in 20 years.

Such is life in modern Australia.

Accuracy of ABC radio current affairs programs confirmed

From today's Agesupport,p perhaps even vindication, for the ABC's claims to be an accurate source of information:

The ABC's flagship radio current affairs programs — often the source of tension and controversy in the Howard years — have won overwhelming endorsement from a landmark report by an external expert.

An audit of AM, PM and The World Today found they were almost 96% accurate.

ABC managing director Mark Scott said the report supported the ABC's goal of continually improving editorial standards. He emphasised the report was not initiated at the behest of Mr Howard's government.

The review, by an expert who reported to the ABC's director of editorial policies, Paul Chadwick, found 95.3% of items sampled from the three programs were either wholly or substantially accurate for plain facts and were 97.3% accurate on the context of the facts.

Denis Muller, an independent media research specialist and a former associate editor of The Age, devised a method to review a sample of 150 current affairs items from last October.

Drawing on 12 experienced journalists whose names were not given in the 48-page report, the audit compared the 150 current affairs items with the originals of documents used for the items. Dr Muller put items in four categories: wholly accurate, substantially accurate, immaterially inaccurate or materially inaccurate.

"There is a very high standard of accuracy in the material broadcast by AM, The World Today and PM," he concluded.

Inaccuracies stemmed less from recklessness or incompetence than from deadline pressure and "the competitiveness that drives journalists to make the most — sometimes too much — out of their material".

In an appendix to the report, the head of the ABC's news division, John Cameron, contested the findings of inaccuracy in some instances, saying the journalists' news-gathering inquiries had found information that clarified or superseded the original documents.

The review comes against a backdrop of 11 years of tension and sometimes open hostility between the ABC and Mr Howard's government.

Former communications minister Richard Alston complained unrelentingly about the Iraq war coverage in 2003 by the morning radio current affairs program AM, exhausting all the ABC's internal complaints mechanisms and, unhappy with the ABC's overall exoneration of the program, appealed to the Australian Broadcasting Authority with only marginal success.

Mr Howard appointed three noted public critics of the ABC to its board, anthropologist Ron Brunton, News Limited columnist Janet Albrechtsen and historian Keith Windschuttle.

After Mr Scott began as managing director in mid-2006, he moved swiftly to lower the temperature of government-ABC relations, making his first major speech at the Sydney Institute, which is headed by long-time critic of the ABC Gerard Henderson, and in late 2006 appointed respected former journalist and lawyer Paul Chadwick as the first director of editorial policies.

Mr Scott said yesterday he was not providing specific briefings to the Rudd Labor Government on the continuing reviews of programs, policies and procedures.

"We are doing this ourselves as part of our self-regulation, and making the results available to all online.

"The ABC holds itself to the highest editorial standards of independence, fairness, accuracy and impartiality under the framework of our editorial policies," he said.

Disasters

Life goes on here with, now that the mainstream media news focus has moved back to local matters, apparently little concern about the devastating effects of cyclone Nargis in Myanmar/ Burma. While the more recent earthquake in China is still attracting some attention (some very graphic video footage of scenes in Sichuan may have helped) the effects and consequences of both are almost imposssible to grasp.

The /Myanmar Burmese government hasn't helped with its reluctance to allow relatively free access to international aid agencies, many of whom have the expertise, if not the resources, to alleviate the situation. We hear little about the negotiations which are no doubt taking place to try and remove a few impediments. This semi-secrecy as exemplified by the circumspection of the CEO of Australian Red Cross on today's RN Breakfast contributes to the news dim out which may in turn dissuade people here and in other affluent countries from donating to relief efforts.

I admit that I've sat on my hands for several days but I've now made a donation to a relief organisation in the hope that my small contribution will show that I cannot stand aside in the face of so much palpable suffering, even if this is exacerbated by government inertia, stubbornness or whatever.

I encourage everyone else who is able to make a contribution to relief agencies to do so.

More allegations of corruption and intimidation

"Standover" is the page one headline on Miles Kemp's report in today's Advertiser

ADELAIDE'S crime gangs are using personal information leaked from the public service to harass people involved in court trials and their families.Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Tony Harrison said it had been difficult to prosecute gang members because victims, witnesses or their family members had been the subject of intimidation or threats of violence.
Mr Harrison, who recently briefed MPs on the issue, said the gangs avoided prosecution by using tactics that included:
A CODE of silence among members;
INTIMIDATION and violence;
INSULATION of principal players in a crime;
CORRUPTION of the justicesystem;
EXPLOITATION of the operations of the justice system.
Notes from the briefing have been obtained by The Advertiser.
Mr Harrison said the corruption referred to were instances where department records had been accessed.
He said gangs in the past had gained access to personal records of people kept by government department databases through an intermediary person who may have been a friend or relative.

.....

Mr Harrison said police needed measures contained in the anti-gang Bill passed last night by the Upper House of Parliament, which would provide greater protection for people prosecuting serious organised crime, for example, "avoiding the stalking or intimidating of judicial officers or witnesses involved in prosecuting serious organised crime".
Mr Harrison said it was now "very, very difficult" to take gang extortion matters to trial because of intimidation.
"Invariably, somebody receives a threat . . . and invariably they decide not to proceed," he said.
Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Isobel Redmond said the Opposition was strongly supportive of the Bill, which she said would make threats or reprisals against those involved in criminal investigations and proceedings punishable by up to seven years' jail.
But she said Mr Harrison's comments also showed the need for an independent commission against corruption in South Australia.
A spokesman for Attorney-General Michael Atkinson said the issues raised by Mr Harrison were being dealt with by legislation that had passed through parliament, was going through parliament, or being developed as part of the Government's criminal justice reforms.

For more on the legislation which has just been passed see here and here.

The shootings in the city at the weekend and other events indicate that matters are getting out of hand so I intend to refrain from comment for the time being to give the laws a chance to take effect, though IMO there are some interesting comments on the ABC News story (the second of the two links above).

Another term for the doublespeak lexicon?

On yesterday's ABC TV Insiders Treasurer Wayne Swan gave a very broad definition of "working families":

BARRIE CASSIDY: You make constant references to working families, that they have to be protected, but what are couples without kids supposed to think, what about singles, pensioners, the unemployed? You never say you're setting out to protect them?

WAYNE SWAN: We certainly do. We not only protect them, we support them. When I talk about low and middle income families, I talk about people across the...

BARRIE CASSIDY: No you don't, you talk about working families.

WAYNE SWAN: I talk about pensioners as well, I talk about singles on low incomes, they're all part of the Australian family, Barrie.

BARRIE CASSIDY: So who's not? Who do you exclude? Who are you not setting out to protect?

WAYNE SWAN: I'm not setting out to exclude anyone. When I'm talking about people on modest incomes, low incomes, modest incomes, I'm talking about all people in the community, but the people out there that are doing it really tough at moment are those people who are trying to raise a few children, I'm not saying someone on a low income or pension income isn't doing it tough, but we do have to make sure that those people that are raising the next generation of young Australians can get by, so that in the future our economy is not only economically healthy, but socially healthy.

In The Age (via the Oz's Cut & Paste) Michelle Grattan explains:

If you feel like throwing a heavy object at the TV every time Kevin Rudd intones about working families - because you're not part of one - take heart. Like much else in politics, things are not as they seem. A working family apparently does not actually have to work or, indeed, be a family in the conventional sense.

A talkback caller on Friday got Kevin to explain. The questioner was worried about singles and the elderly, who were apparently not in the favoured working families circle.

Here is the definitive explanation. Excuse the Kevinese. "Well, 'families' we use in just a very broad sense. I mean, if you're a single person who is a pensioner or a self-funded retiree, or someone who is being provided care by a carer, everyone is part of a broader family. So, when we say 'working families', we're not talking about some nuclear family of Mum, Dad and two kids; it's people who are out there in a set of family relationships either under one roof or beyond one roof, who are under financial pressure. And that means our senior Australians as well."

There you have it. "Working families" is a political frame more than an objective reality.

One advantage of talking about working families compared with, say, middle Australia is that it taps into a policy area of Labor's natural advantage ... If that's the political rationale for the endless repetition of working families, the downside is that inevitably some of those who are obviously not families nor working will say, "What about us?" Hence the stretch to put them inside the tent.

As George Orwell said years ago about this kind of language, it aims to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Ever felt like this?

Great piece by Garrison Keillor on Salon.com about the perils of passing through modern airport security (with some asides on other matters).

While he's perhaps best known for his folksy style Keillor often writes with a pithy acerbity which adds bite to his trenchant comments. Example:

[W]hen I went through airport security in Minneapolis on Monday, it was an object lesson in something -- a line of a hundred people twisted around in the cattle chute, 16 men and women in the white TSA shirts with the epaulets, an obese young woman shouting at us to take our laptop computers out of our cases in a voice she learned from a prison camp movie; one metal detector in operation, two closed, and the guardian of this narrow gate was a man who carefully read each boarding pass as if proofreading it for misspellings, though it had already been checked by his colleague at the head of the line.

.....

The line inched along, four supervisors stood watching blankly, the fat lady barked, the gentleman operating the scanner was very jittery about shaving kits and computer batteries and needed to have every other bag checked, and in the lifetime it took to go through, you started to sympathize with all the Republicans who've complained about government inefficiency over the years, except it is a Republican administration that runs this operation, but never mind. Details, details.

I wanted to tell the shirts not to treat us with such extravagant contempt, but you should be careful about mouthing off to people who have the power to detain you and order a body search.

And also it seemed to me that I was the only one in line who was grinding my teeth. Everyone else was quite chipper, as if they were heading off on the class trip to Excelsior Amusement Park. So if I had spoken up and the shirts had thrown me to the ground and Maced me and stuffed me into a holding cell to await arraignment under the Patriot Act, I doubted that anyone would've come to my defense. They would've figured I must have had a shoe bomb on me or something.

I wish that I could express myself half as well as Mr Keillor.

Update 2 May

Two articles from today's Australian discuss, apparently unwittingly and without matching the elegance of his prose, some of the issues explored by Garrison Keillor.

Steve Creedy writes of the pressure to cut long airport queues for quarantine inspections, while Natalie O'Brien and Peter Wilson draw attention to other deficiencies which they perceive in the security measures in place at Australian airports, notably Brisbane and Perth.

Worst of the worst? Not according to the prosecution

The mainstream Australian media, including The Age, the ABC and News.com.au report that Colonel Moe Davis, the former chief prosecutor of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, has said that David Hicks should never haver been charged with terrorism offences.

Extract from News.com.au:

Australian man David Hicks should never have been charged with terror offences, according to Guantanamo Bay's former chief prosecutor.Colonel Moe Davis, who oversaw the prosecution of Hicks, quit the war court last year.He testified overnight that evidence for the war crimes tribunals was obtained through prisoner abuse, and political appointees and higher-ranking officers pushed prosecutors to file charges before trial rules were even written.

Col Davis was giving evidence at a pre-trial hearing for Osama bin Laden's driver, Yemeni prisoner Salim Hamdan, in a courtroom at the remote Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.

Since the US began sending foreign captives to Guantanamo in 2002, only one case has been resolved - that of Hicks. Hicks avoided trial by pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism and served a nine-month sentence as part of a plea negotiated by a Pentagon appointee without the chief prosecutor's involvement.

Col Davis testified that he "inherited" the Hicks case from a previous prosecutor and would not otherwise have charged him because he wanted to focus on cases serious enough to merit 20 years in prison and the Hicks case did not meet that test. He said a supposedly impartial legal adviser demanded prosecutors pursue cases where the defendant "had blood on his hands" because those would excite the public more than mundane cases against document forgers and al-Qaeda facilitators.

While he was chief prosecutor, Col Davis appeared to be a stickler for the rules. He was a vocal critic of Hicks's defence team and criticised his military lawyer, Major Michael Mori.Col Davis threatened to charge him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with using contemptuous language towards the president, vice-president, and secretary of defence.Col Davis said Maj Mori was not playing by the rules and criticised his regular trips to Australia. He said he would not tolerate such behaviour from his own prosecutors.

“Certainly, in the US it would not be tolerated having a US marine in uniform actively inserting himself into the political process. It is very disappointing,” he said in May last year. “He doesn't seem to be held to the same standards as his brother officers.”

In an interview with ABC TV's Lateline program in March last year, Col Davis insisted the tribunal process was free from political influence and was evasive on whether abusive interrogation techniques were used on prisoners. In today's testimony, Col Davis said pressure was ramped up after "high-value" prisoners with alleged ties to the September 11 plot were moved to Guantanamo from secret CIA custody shortly before the 2006 US congressional elections and amid US presidential campaigns.

"There was that consistent theme that if we didn't get this thing rolling before the election it was going to implode," he told the court."Once you got the victim families energised and the cases rolling, whoever won the White House would have difficulty stopping the proceeding."

Anzac Day

Yesterday was Anzac Day. As usual it was commemorated throughout the Antipodes and at Gallipoli with services, marches etc.

For the first time there was also a ceremony at Villers Bretonneux in France, the scene of a major battle in WW1 involving Australian troops around Anzac Day in 1918.

Apart from its own merits the French commemoration may in future become a handy replacement for the Gallipoli one should circumstances in Turkey change. This seems unlikely at the moment, but that part of the world remains volatile.

Enough of that for now. I was impressed to see the turnout and demeanour of the diplomats at the Wellington (NZ) ceremony which was telecast on Sky News. The wreath layers included the Iranian ambassador, which surprised me, given the picture of Iran which is usually painted in our media.

A couple of stories worth a look:

Ashley Porter in The Independent Weekly on Bob Quinn, Port Adelaide footballer, second AIF member (2/43 Battalion) and Military Medal winner.

David Tiley in Barista on several forgotten, and one remembered, if for other things, Aboriginal servicemen and women from WW2:
Can you guess who this might be?

She joined the army after her two brothers were taken prisoner in Singapore. Her training in typing and shorthand, partly in a post-war rehab scheme, left her working again as a domestic servant, but ultimately helped her as an activist.

She wrote a few lines which stand both as accusation for the present mess, and as true words about the way we should see April 25th -

“To our father’s fathers
The pain, the sorrow;
To our children’s children
The glad tomorrow.”

To find out read the entire post, which also has a good photo.