Starlings above Denmark

Media doom

Clay Shirky has a post up entitled Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable – he looks at the slow-motion destruction of the current media model and the uncertainty around what will replace it.

Print media does much of society’s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case. This coverage creates benefits even for people who aren’t newspaper readers, because the work of print journalists is used by everyone from politicians to district attorneys to talk radio hosts to bloggers. The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?

I don’t know. Nobody knows. We’re collectively living through 1500, when it’s easier to see what’s broken than what will replace it. The internet turns 40 this fall. Access by the general public is less than half that age. Web use, as a normal part of life for a majority of the developed world, is less than half that age. We just got here. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen.

I don’t think blogging can come close to replacing journalism (although when it comes to commentary and analysis I think the blogosphere has largely overtaken the MSM: Garth George, Trotter, Ralston et al didn’t set the bar terribly high.)

If I had to close my eyes and guess I’d pick that print journalism’s replacement will evolve from the Wiki model – although I can’t quite imagine how that will work. The Boston Review writes about the birth and evolution of Wikipedia and raised questions about the homogenity of the wiki authors:

Wikipedia’s potential lies in harnessing the “wisdom of crowds”; however, those crowds are only as wise as they are diverse. The individuals who compose the crowd need to bring different sets of expertise to the project. But in Wales’s own words, Wikipedians are “80 percent male, more than 65 percent single, more than 85 percent without children, around 70 percent under the age of 30.” This homogeneity, too, may explain the persistence of certain knowledge gaps.

Who are those people? What makes them so addicted to “wikicrack,” to spending countless hours improving the site, often doing mundane, repetitive tasks that they would never do for money?

Today I needed to look up an algorithm that found a spanning tree in a connected graph. And it’s in Wikipedia! And as always I wondered who on Earth took the time to write that article.

I’m always a bit bewildered when I read about Jimmy Wales and his devotion to Ayn Rand and Objectivism. Isn’t the idea of millions of anonymous users selflessly toiling away on a grand project the total opposite of what Objectivists believe?

 

 

Then there was the bad weather.

Paris is rather depressing at this time of year:

All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife — second class — and the hotel where Verlaine had died where I had a room on the top floor where I worked.

Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris as in Paris I could write about Michigan. I did not know it was too early for that because I did not know Paris well enough. But that was how it worked out eventually. Anyway we would go if my wife wanted to, and I finished the oysters and the wine and paid my score in the café and made it the shortest way back up the Montagne Ste. Geneviève through the rain, that was now only local weather and not something that changed your life, to the flat at the top of the hill.

“I think it would be wonderful, Tatie,” my wife said. She had a gently modeled face and her eyes and her smile lighted up at decisions as though they were rich presents. “When should we leave?”

“Whenever you want.”

“Oh, I want to right away. Didn’t you know?”

“Maybe it will be fine and clear when we come back. It can be very fine when it is clear and cold.”

“I’m sure it will be,” she said. “Weren’t you good to think of going, too.”

A Moveable Feast. Ernest Hemingway. Scribers, 1964

Hone Harawira is no Hemingway:

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira has reacted to an email criticising him for bunking off a work trip to visit Paris by lashing out at white people.

In an email exchange released to Radio New Zealand, Mr Harawira accusing “white motherf…ers” of “puritanical bullshit” for expecting him to follow the rules.

“White motherf***ers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullshit.”

Mr Harawira then went on to say how much time and energy he put into fighting for Maori and what a big role his wife Hilda played in that.

“And quite frankly I don’t give a shit what you or anyone else thinks about it. OK?”

Then he added a postscript saying he should feel free to go to the media.

“I answer to my people, not to them or to anybody else.”

Tim Selwyn made a sound point about this [MPs, travel and spouses, not white motherfuckers although Tim does have a lot to say about that too]:

But here again is the spouse factor and how it impacts on – rather than assists – the work of an MP. I very much doubt that Harawira would have gone off to Paris if he was unaccompanied by his wife. The pressure, the demands, their agenda must also be taken account of musn’t it?

Partners shouldn’t go along on business trips – that’s the lesson here. They are not more focussed on their parliamentary or governmental duties because of their partner’s presence – they are more distracted.

 

ACT leader rejects hypocrisy claims

ACT leader and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide, also known as 'Comrade Mowgli'.

ACT Party leader and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide is in hot water again as new allegations are made against the one time perk-buster. Critics and former party supporters accuse the Dancing with the Stars star of failing to live by the standards and ideals of his party, after it was revealed that when in Wellington the ACT Party MPs live in a commune in which they collectivise all property, work and income, make decisions through consensus and non-hierachical power structures and manufacture their own yogurt.

Hide and co-ACT MP Sir Roger Douglas have defended their alternative lifestyle explaining that they are still committed to ACT Party principles of liberty, independence, climate change denial and smaller government but, according to an ACT press release: ‘on a day to day basis [they] reject the sick materialist society that surrounds us and live for things like egalitarianism, love and our Mother the Earth.’

The ACT Party commune is known as ‘Ixtlan’ and can be found near the end of Holloway Road in Wellington’s Aro Valley; there is a small weatherboard house painted in ACT Party yellow surrounded by caravans, tepees and a Mongolian style yurt known as ‘the Mothership’. Although the commune rejects the ‘fascist, reactionary’ notion of private property it is understood that Rodney Hide favors the yurt, preferring it to his Parliamentary offices at Bowen House. The supercity plans for Auckland and the framework for ACT’s Climate Review Panel were all drawn up inside ‘the Mothership’ which is decorated with Tibetan prayer flags and posters of Kahlil Gibran and Ho Chi Minh and scented with sandalwood incense.

It is also where Hide conducts caucus meetings in which the ACT MPs are ’skyclad’, they begin with a brief ritual to Gaia and then discuss plans to reduce corporate and investment taxes and close down the Commerce Commission; they end with sessions of Marxist-Leninist self-criticism and a rousing chorus of The Internationale.

Hide confirmed that the Ixtlan commune does not practise free love, although the subject was discussed. ‘Many of us feel that we should share our bodies as freely as we share our possessions,’ Hide said ‘However one MP objected to the idea and it was rejected on that basis. I will respect the privacy of that ACT MP and not reveal her name or speculate that her very unenlightened, controlling and deeply uncool reaction will impact on her place on the party list.’

The ACT MPs do collectivize their income and former supporters of the party have raised questions about the judgement of the MPs and their committment to the ideals of liberalism.

‘Between us we earn almost a million dollars a year,’ Hide said, defending the practise that defies every principle his party stands for. ‘Of course that’s obscene and we only really need a tiny fraction of that to live comfortably so we donate the rest to charities we consider worthy.’

Sources within ACT have confirmed that the two main recipients of Hide’s generosity are the ultra-left Shining Path insurgents in Peru and the Maoist Naxalite guerillas in West Bengal.

It is the policy of the ACT Party to oppose Communism and promote the free market,’ Hide told the DimPost when confronted with the charity receipts. ‘As ACT leader I support those goals, but as private individuals John, David, Heather, Sir Roger and I will do anything to help our brave comrades  in their struggle to destroy the corrupt bourgeois democracies of Peru and India and put an end to the sick, rotten free market system that enslaves men’s souls the world over. Death to capitalism and the counter-revolutionary running dog John Key!’

Hide later requested that his vow to kill Key not be quoted as he felt it would be taken out of context and did not reflect the close working relationship he enjoyed with the Prime Minister.

On a clear day you can see the class struggle

From Stuff:

A Kiwi multi-millionaire is to invite high-paying guests on to his Never Never Land-style farm to hear how he would rule New Zealand.

Richlister Alan Gibbs will host former National Party leader Don Brash and ACT founder Sir Roger Douglas to discuss what they would do as “New Zealand’s dictator for a year”.

If guests at the champagne lunch aren’t interested in politics they can wander among the farm’s priceless giant sculptures and African wildlife. Gibbs, 70, has lavished some of his $450m fortune on The Farm, a 404-hectare sculpture park at Kaipara Harbour.

Visitors to the event, in February, will pay a “standard” or “premium donation” – the latter includes a ride in Gibb’s invention, Aquada, an amphibious car.

The outdoor gallery boasts 22 sculptures by internationally renowned artists as well as giraffes, zebras, water buffalo and yaks.

I’m no genius, but I’m confident that if Brash or Douglas were dictator for a year they’d lower taxes for the rich: after all, they invest their money so much more efficiently than the government.

Pravda watch

A couple of days ago I had a rant about the Herald’s political coverage:

It’s ironic that it was the Herald that lead the campaign against Labour’s EFA on the grounds that it would have a chilling effect on free speech: now it reads like an edition of the People’s Daily under Mao . . .  It’s only a matter of time before [John] Armstrong is reporting that Key’s blessing ends droughts and increases crop yields.

Here’s Garth George with today’s encomium titled (I am not making this up) We should all salute our wonderful PM:

Mr Key is an avid fan of the All Blacks, a frequent attendee at their games and a regular, potently encouraging presence in their dressing room.

This is a political stratagem of astounding brilliance. For if the All Blacks win the World Cup on October 20, 2011, New Zealanders will be in such a state of euphoria that National will stroll over the line in early in November.

Potently encouraging?

DimPost Profile: John Key

It is a typical Saturday morning in Wellington for John Key; like most former merchant bankers who have been elected head of government he wears casual high-threadcount slacks with a shirt that flatters his waist and accentuates his dreamy brown eyes. It is a year to the day since he won the election and we are in the Prime Minister’s office on the ninth floor of the Beehive; Key has redecorated to suit his own modest tastes – I complement him on the larger-than-life size portrait depicting Key and his wife Bronagh as Zeus and Leda. ‘Thanks,’ he replies. ‘Just don’t tell the Chief Censor.’

We laugh and John Key sits on the edge of his desk like a man with a commanding lead in the polls and with a graceful gesture he motions for me to take a seat in his jacuzzi. I do – the temperature is perfect – and the interview begins:

DimPost: You have very soft skin for a man – how do you account for that?

Key: Okay, firstly thank you; secondly I exfoliate. It’s not something I make a big deal out of but as Prime Minister it’s something that I do.

DimPost: We’ll come back to that because our polling has thrown up a lot of interesting data around your skin care regime -  but I want to turn briefly to the Treasury projections about superannuation costs. In light of the figures do you think it was wise to suspend payments into the Cullen fund?

Key: As we’ve said repeatedly it just doesn’t make sense to borrow money to invest. You wouldn’t run your household budget that way . . .

DimPost: But a nation state is totally different from . . .

Key: Let me finish – I will answer that point.

DimPost: The merchant banks you worked at never worried about . . .

Key: Let me get back to that point. I will answer that. But to go back to the beginning there are a few things you have to bear in mind with the Treasury estimates is that the growth calculations are always – oh my God that feels good.

DimPost: Just keep talking and try to relax.

Key: Oh that really hits the spot. What was I saying?

DimPost: Treasury estimates. God, you’re so tense!

Key: I know. I spend half my life on planes.

DimPost: You’re really tight through these rotator cuff muscles – you should swim every day. Five minutes of back stroke.

Key: Bronagh says the same thing. Theres never enough time . . .

DimPost: How does that feel in there?

Key: [Expletive]

DimPost: Sorry.

Key: No don’t stop. It’s good.

DimPost: This shirt is really getting in my way, I can’t reach . . .

Key: I could take it off . . .

DimPost: Only if you want to . . .

Key: I . . . I guess it would be okay, if it would make things easier . . .

DimPost: I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable . . .

Key: I want to take it off. Really.

DimPost: Let me help you with that.

Key: Okey-dokey.

Later.

DimPost:  Tell me about your tatoo.

Key: Nobody’s supposed to see that.

DimPost: You should have thought about that earlier.

Key: It’s complicated – you don’t want to hear that old story.

DimPost: I do! I do! I want to know everything about you!

Key: Sh. Did you hear a sound?

DimPost: What?

Key: Shhhh.

[Silence on tape.]

DimPost: These old caves are spooky. I wish we’d stayed up in the office.

Key: This is more private. Besides, I rather like it. The dark . . . the silence. Helen told me these caverns extend for miles but I’ve never taken the time to explore. [Laughs] Apparently Mike Moore would disappear down here for weeks – they had to send the army down with dogs and climbing gear to find him.

DimPost: Oh I don’t believe that – you’re teasing me!

Key: That’s what Helen told me.

DimPost: You think I’ll put anything you say in my profile.

Key: Don’t say that! I would never lie to you! Never!

[Silence]

DimPost: This drink is delicious.

Key: Thank you. Bronagh invented it. She calls it ichor, after Hippocrates.

Dimpost: She sounds like a remarkable woman.

Key: She is. Do you know what Goethe said about marriage? He said: ‘The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.’

DimPost: That’s beautiful. I feel the same way about my own wife.

Key: I’ll drink to that. To marriage.

DimPost: To marriage. This really is delicious. What’s in it?

Key: Just some Cointreau mixed with a low-grade SSRI I synthesise myself. It isn’t illegal – at least not until Jim Anderton finds out about it.

DimPost: Ha ha.

Key: I want to get back to the Treasury forecast.

DimPost: Go on.

Key: Our focus will be on growing the economy. Obviously the forecasts are something we take seriously but if we have higher economic growth than the current models then the situation is a lot less grim.

DimPost: The growth estimates seem very generous to me. Besides . . . [I picked up a pillow and bashed him playfully in the head] I want to hear about your tatoo.

Key: [Groans] I thought we already talked about that.

DimPost: We started to but you changed the subject.

Key: Well I don’t want to talk about it. I think it looks dumb.

DimPost: On the contrary it’s quite charming. What’s that writing? Is it Sanskrit?

Key: Pali. I had this done in Lhasa. It was a kind of . . . initiation ceremony.

DimPost: Is it Buddhist?

Key: Hardly. Have you heard of the Dugpas?

DimPost: The black magicians of Tibet?

Key: Black magicians? [Laughs] That’s a simplistic way to put it. Anyhoo, the woman who gave me the tatoo was a Dugpa. I worked for her at Merrill Lynch.

DimPost: Merrill’s has a branch in Lhasa? Wait – didn’t the Dugpa vow to unmake the universe?

Key: [Sad and distracted] We vowed to do a lot of things.

DimPost: None of this makes any sense. There haven’t been Dugpas in Tibet since the fourteenth century!

Key: Was it that long ago? One loses track.

DimPost: But that would mean . . .

He pressed his finger against my lips.

Key: Hush. I’ve said too much already.

I felt my eyelids grow heavy; the ichor and the rigours of the evening conspired to send me to a blissful sleep. ‘Perhaps you’ll tell me about the Dugpas and the Treasury forecast some other time?’ I murmured. John leaned forwards and brushed a strand of hair from my face, his eyes distant, his expression opaque. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

I regained conciousness days later on an unmanned fishing ship drifting outside New Zealand’s territorial waters. Clearly the next year will show whether or not John Key is capable of meeting the challenges facing him.

Film Review o’ the day

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury . .

The AVClub examines What?, Roman Polanski’s unsuccessful 1972 sex comedy:

Even in the Wild West world of ’70s cinema, What? is profoundly fucked-up. Polanski pops up in his free-associative bacchanal as an irritable young man known only as “Mosquito.” Why Mosquito? “They call me Mosquito because I sting with my big stinger,” Polanski helpfully says. Then he shows off the stinger in question—a harpoon. “I am not a boob man like those Americans. It’s usually ass that turns me on,” he continues. Suddenly it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to see Polanski solely as an artist, and not as a man currently in jail for having drugged and sodomized a 13-year-old. There is some creepy juju at work here.

Roger Ebert fleshes things out:

Miss Rome loses most of her clothes soon after arriving at the villa, and spends half an hour wearing the above-mentioned table napkin around her neck before stealing the tops of Hugh Griffith’s pajamas. Hugh Griffith is provided with dialog like “Who is that girl wearing my pajama tops?” Another of the residents of the villa paints Miss Rome’s left leg blue. There are a lot of shots of her walking around in pajama tops with a blue leg.

Even though Chinatown is in my list of top 5 favorite movies ever (2001, Dr Strangelove, Citizen Kane, Breathless) I’m bewildered by all the celebrities defending Polanski; I wonder if this is down to his Oscar for The Pianist and if he’d been caught shortly after his run of skeezy soft-core movies like Bitter Moon and The Ninth Gate there’d be a lot less sympathy.

Scrolling through his filmography on his wiki page I’m thinking Frantic was a pretty cool film that I haven’t seen in a really long time. Anyone know if it’s dated well?

(There’s a trailer for What? on Youtube – it looks like Benny Hill meets Sade’s Les Infortunes de la Vertu. Not safe for work, unless you work in the District Attorney’s office in LA County.)

Rhapsody in Blue

During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form: that of a giant Slor!

The Herald’s fawn-a-thon continues with a profile of Judith Collins. The Police and Corrections Minister was on Q & A yesterday discussing the new laws around asset confiscation, suspension of the right to silence and expanded search and surveillance powers for an extraordinary range of government departments: Collins seemed awfully vague about the new legislation and I was left with the impression she didn’t know much about any of it (possibly because it was drafted under the previous government)  – even though it’s been red-flagged by numerous civil-rights groups, the privacy commissioner and her own Attorney General Chris Finlayson.

Naturally none of this troubles the sunny obsequiousness of the Herald article, although I love these faux-objective grace-notes:

The Corrections portfolio has been a graveyard for many a minister, and at some point Ms Collins will have to start taking responsibility for its problems if she cannot solve them.

Well, duh. There’s a quid-pro-pro here obviously: most of Collins’ policies are leaked exclusively to the Herald so there’s probably a reciprocal relationship between the newspaper’s gallery office and the Minister and her notoriously crafty press secretary. But still  . . .

Pay out more rope

Stuff reports:

The Government is poised to implement a key election pledge requiring parents on the domestic purposes benefit to find work or training once their youngest child turns six.

Naturally Labour is horrified and is taking the bait. Greedy National Party! You already have a 25-30 point lead in the polls!

Last time I checked the average amount of time a solo mum spent on the DPB was around three years, so before there’s a huge debate about the ethics of this policy, ‘beneficiary bashing’, what solo mums should do in the holidays and so on I’d be interested to hear how many people it would actually affect and how much money it’s supposed to save.