Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Joke's On Us

Yes folks, I’m afraid it is. While the scenes of our Leader of Opposition running from the Parliamentary Chamber yesterday were funny, the joke is on us. We, the electorate. The people. Those who the likes of Tony Abbott and his fellow runner Christopher Pyne are meant to serve. If you missed it, here’s some footage below.



Basically, Craig Thomson in his new role as an Independent, turned the tables on the Opposition and voted with it to deny a Government gag order. After talking ad nauseum for months about the Prime Minister accepting Thomson’s ‘tainted’ vote, Abbott couldn’t bear to be tainted himself and took off at a rate of knots to ensure it didn’t count. Cue the many twitter feeds that followed: “Tainted Vote” to the tune of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love.

Nah Seriously, unlike Pyne, Abbott didn’t make it to the door in time before they closed for voting and he had to slump back to his frontbench. No doubt upset that his regular fartlek training on his morning runs didn’t give him enough speed to get out of there in time. Or that the Benny Hill theme didn’t come over the loud speakers as he ran away. Abbott then tried to mount a defence and accused Thomson of a stunt. The words ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ come to mind.

The whole sorry affair really does reflect badly on the nature of our political discourse at the moment. After weeks of the Thomson saga dominating the news and views where no-one has come out of it looking any good, we get the PM-in-waiting running away from a vote. Running away from the Chamber. Isn’t that what we pay our politicians to do? To debate and to vote?

The way all this has gone down and the way it is all reported certainly adds to people switching off and being disengaged with what is going on. And conversely, it also creates more negativity around our politicians and our politics in general. It even prompted Independent Rob Oakeshott, who hasn’t always impressed either since the last election, to tell ABC TV:

‘‘If you listened to public policy discourse right now and nothing else, you would think that our parliament is worse than Papua New Guinea, our economy worse than Greece, our electricity system worse than North Korea’’.

I’m pretty sure millions of people in those countries would love to live in a country with our working economy, with our connected infrastructure and with our stable political system. But perspective is a rare commodity in this country right now and the negativity wins out every time, even in the face of actual facts and figures.

I’ve written before about our massive loss of perspective in terms of where we sit on so many things and against so many other countries. A perceived sense of ‘missing out’ on something, anything, everything has grown to become an even bigger sense of entitlement. Whinging has now become a national sport and the current politics and media coverage of it have a lot to do with that.

No matter what, Abbott is in quite a strong position to take over as PM when the next election takes place. The current Government has made plenty of mistakes but it also seems like it can’t take a trick and the electorate have simply ‘switched off’ to their message. There’s some good policy coming out from time to time, but their politics stinks and any good and constructive news gets mired down in that.

As I’ve said previously, our choice is a poisoned one. One party that is good on policy but bad on politics. Against another party that is good on politics but bad on policy. There’s no inspiration on either side for mine and I despair at what our democracy has become.

Yes, the money says Abbott will be our next PM. I assume he thinks that, his party thinks that and most of the country thinks that too. And they’re all probably right. But isn’t that even more of a reason to demand some higher standards. To demand something that is even in the ball park of being more statesmanlike and more prime ministerial? Because what we’re getting fed now and over the last two years is far, far from it.

So yes, I had to laugh at the antics of yesterday and the Olympic style sprints with Benny Hill tunes over the top. But in the end the jokes on us. And our acceptance of all these stunts and all the negativity are the punchline.

EDM.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Footy Fourth Estate

This post is going to be a whinge. Maybe even a rant. I’m not entirely sure, but I think a rant is a whole level above a whinge. Yep, let’s call it a rant then.

And the subject of my rant? Well, its footy journalism. AFL journalism to be precise. It’s a not profound subject matter then. No existential ponder on the really big things in life. But a rant with quite some justification nonetheless. By my reckoning anyway.

I’ll start with the nature of my rant then. Basically, there’s so many footy journalists (maybe reporters is a more apt description) out there that they all need to justify their existence by creating controversies and making everything out of absolutely nothing. All in the name of showing their editors that they have an important contribution to make and that a large ‘team’ of footy reporters is needed to cover such an intrinsically complex segment of the community. That’s sarcasm by the way.

Yes, there’s only so many football related stories every week aren’t there. What do we have? Results. Yes. Injuries. Yes. Team selection. Yes. Performance speculation. Yeah. There’s not a lot else that really matters therefore but there’s media space to be filled people and it will be filled no matter what. No matter if it’s silly and vexatious. No matter if it’s simply untrue. No matter if its mindbogglingly irrelevant.

This matter has particular resonance for me as I am a long suffering Melbourne Demons supporter. I’ve been waiting for a Premiership my whole life and it seems like I will now have to live through another ‘rebuild’ in our quest for success. With performances being so lowly, you have to expect the media coverage to focus on the bad and quite a bit of it is actually true and hits the nail right on the head. My own opinions on the Dees situation can be read in other recent posts but at least I talk from some knowledge and some relevance as a diehard fan.

A big part of the footy press though can be relied upon to talk shite basically and run any and every story they can on the most minute of issues. And then claim they know all and are ‘on the inside’ just because some troll on twitter told them so. A fine example being just on the weekend when all of a sudden there were reports that the Melbourne Football Club Board were meeting to discuss Coach Neeld’s future. It was crap from the beginning but the story was reported as fact across all forms of the media and given a profile it did not deserve.

And then today, The Herald Sun runs a report that David King, ‘a respected commentator’, is scathing of Neeld’s appointment and called for the Dees to sack him after only eight games because ‘he had lost the players’. Not sure why or how the ‘respected’ tag came about, because King has a history of trying to create controversy and doesn’t have the best form in terms of predictions for the future. All last year he told anyone and everyone that Geelong couldn’t win the flag. Wow. I wonder how that turned out.

On the ‘he’s lost the players’ claim, as a Dees supporters I can say maybe that’s not a bad thing. The senior players at Melbourne have never been challenged before and some of our young high draft picks have never had to work hard for their position before. So to me it’s not a bad thing if some of them have their noses out of joint about being asked to work harder and perform better.

Mediocrity has been excepted for too long and only the ones that take it on the chin, knuckle down and work harder should remain. The ones that don’t, well, maybe it’s time they thought about doing something else. What I’m trying to say then is that Neeld should not be sacked for doing exactly what he was brought in to do. Restructure the place. Sweep a broom through the list. And institute a game plan that is required to play tough, hard finals-type football.

And it’s not just Melbourne either. I’m just raising these examples because they’re most prominent to me. This week has also seen a massive outpouring of derision against Josh Hunt of Geelong because he hesitated and didn’t crash headlong into a marking contest.

Ex-players in the media jumped on it straight away and he’s had to cop suggestions that he’s weak and feeble-minded because of it. Coming from some of those ex-players, it’s the height of hypocrisy. Matthew Lloyd, I’m looking at you.

Yes, footy journalists want more and more ‘controversy’ so they have more and more to report. But they don’t want to look at some of the more complex matters in the footy world or come up with anything new to get an exclusive or highlight something none of us already know. Instead, they trot out the easy stuff and give it to us ad nauseum day after day. A team suffers a 100 point loss so the coach must be sacked. A player baulked in a marking contest so he must be dropped. A club administrator doesn’t host a game show so he must be hiding from the media.

Would we get all this if we didn’t have ‘teams’ of footy reporters sitting around trying to find something to write about or something to film? I doubt it very much. Very, very much. So we get this situation where minor issues are turned into major ones and all manner of rumour, innuendo and just plain lies are reported on and presented as educated opinion or fact. And the phrase ‘a source close to’ should never be used anywhere. If someone won’t put their name to it then maybe it’s not worth reporting at all. Yes, even you Grant Thomas.

It’s not a great situation for us footy fans then is it. We get the sensationalism of the tabloid press and television or we get so-called ‘exclusives’ from the AFL themselves on their own website. I don’t know about you but I’m craving something different. Sometime new. Something real. But I reckon I’ve got as much chance of that happening as Aaron Davey winning the Brownlow. Yeah, not going to happen.

So herein ends my rant. It’s being brewing for quite some time and I must say I feel better already getting it off my chest. I just better get back to my life so it doesn’t look like I’m sitting around here trying to justify this blog’s existence.

EDM.

 

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

What's Next? Techno's Pedal To The Metal



During a rare bit of downtime over the weekend, I had cause to ponder the current rate of technological advance and what that means for the 5, 10, 20 years ahead. Pretty deep hey? Well, that's how I roll people.

It came about really after reading this article about teenage boys accessing porn on their smartphones. The article is typically sensationalised and is designed to scare the pants off every mother of a teenage son. Oops. Maybe that's the wrong turn of phrase for this subject.

Anyway, it did lead to me further contemplating the smartphone phenomemon and what my 3 year old son is likely to have by the time he hits his early teens. Now I say 'likely' in a very loose manner, because I've got absolutely no idea what sort of communication device will be around by then and the mind boogles at what will be accessible and allowable on them.

Personally, it's only 12 years ago that I was introduced to email while heading off on a two-year backpacking jaunt around Europe and the US. I couldn't believe what it allowed me to do in terms of contacting friends and family and being able to provide regular updates of my travels. The internet opened things up enormously as well as all sorts of information about flights, accommodation, tours and mustsees was a mere few search engines away.

When I got back to Australia, everyone seemed to have a mobile phone where before I left they were only for showoffs in suits. So I came back and was the only one without a mobile and was left using phone boxes to communicate and sort out meetups for nights out and a like. The inconvenience soon became apparent though so I anxiously entered a mobile phone shop and signed my life away.

Next came the emergence of the MP3 player and ipods, etc. As a music lover I'd lugged my 'Discman' all over the world and thought I was at the height of the technological cutting edge as I slipped through Asia and the Middle East. But this new device, an MPsomething, was half the size and stored thousands more songs. I was on to it in a flash and still marvel at how it does the things it does.

So what now? Well, I've got an iPhone that does all of those things and is neatly packaged into a device that fits easily in my front pocket. I can make and receive phone calls. I can email anyone around the world. I can access the internet quickly and smartly. I can store thousands of songs and listen to them at any time. And with wi-fi, bluetooth, iCloud and a like, I can do all of these things while driving a car or sitting on a train.

I only just got my new phone a few weeks ago as well so there's probably hundreds of other things I can do that I don't even know about. Geez, when will I find the time?

But I digress. The reason for this little personal story is really to highlight how much technology has changed in the 10-12 years since my travels and what can be achieved on the current devices that we all have. Given where we've come from in that time period, it's hard to imagine where we'll be in another 10-12 years when the likes of my son will be demanding the latest one of those and the most up-to-date of that.

I mean, what on earth will we, and he, be able to do on a smart device by then. They probably won't even be 'smart' devices anymore anyway. They'll be ...uummm....well.....that's my point isn't it? I just can't fathom how much further technology will have advanced in 3-5 years let alone 2025 and beyond.

I guess this subject matter has always fascinated me. As a keen student of history, I marvelled at what the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Chinese were able to discover and invent hundreds of years ago without all the knowledge and science we have.

For western civilisation anyway, you can surely blame the Dark Ages for putting a kybosh on those advances for a few hundred years before the Enlightenment came around. And it seems we've been trying to make up for those lost years ever since. We've gone from believing the earth was flat to actually putting someone on the moon a mere few hundred years later.

That's some rate of technological advance my friends. And with a massive foot on the accelerator pedal as well. The speed toward the next big discovery and the next big invention is just plain phenomenal. One catalyst event after another.

So what are our kids in store for? And their kids after? Yes, my mind truly boogles with an imagination that only goes so far. Science fiction is fast becoming science fact-ion.

And all this from a media story about one of the oldest things ever - teenage boys trying to access porn. I'm quite the lateral thinker aren't I?

EDM.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Hello, Anybody There?

16 April since I last posted? Really? It's been that bloody long?

Geez, humble apologies to you all then. My regular readers and all. You've no doubt been coming back here on a regular basis over the ensuing weeks and been waiting anxiously for a new post to be uploaded with baited breath and all that. Well, haven't you?

Nah Seriously (always wanted to say that), EDM has been very neglectful of late and I apologise wholeheartedly. I do have a few excuses but nonetheless I probably should have provided 2-3 updates at least in that time. Alas, I'm here now and punching out some musings once again.

My main excuse then would just have to be about focus. As you all know, my previous life as a daddy care provider while living up the coast provided all sorts of inspiration for musings while also giving me some time to focus on writing and to contemplate and collect my thoughts.

When I say time, I don't mean the actual clicking clock type of time though. Daddy day care is bloody hard work and the only sort of time like that was during the son's middle of the day sleep. And sometimes even not then.

No, what I mean is that life was pretty darn simple up there and I knew I had just a few things to accomplish on a weekly basis. Making sure the son didn't fill his pants was one of them. But another was to punch out at least two blog posts a week.

Life back here in Brissy town is quite different though. Mainly because it is 'real' life. Filled with a job and a mortgage and a commute and this bill and that bill, etc etc. Obviously we had some of those issues while we lived up the coast but they just didn't seem to matter as much and certainly didn't tie us down to the same extent.

I guess a full-time job does that to you. The every minute of every day just highlights why you have to have a job in the first place and therefore you feel a lot more 'tied' to it and the mortage and the bills, etc etc.

So yes, my lack of regular posting of late is pretty much due to being overwhelmed by all that and just trying to get through the day to day since our return. Not that my life is terrible or anything. Just that it's taking a while to get back into the swing of things again and getting used to the rat race and all that it brings.

Some of you might be saying 'rat race in Brisbane?' Well yes, it is. Certainly not by Sydney or London or New York standards. But it still has its major traffic issues with so much construction going on and there's still the commute, the daycare pickup/dropoff, the get-to-the-shops-for-dinner type stuff that goes with life in any big(ish) city.

The end result of all this has been both a lack of effort and a lack of inspiration for writing. One comes home (do I sound like the Queen?) and does the night routine with the son and dinner and co and both the effort and the inspiration to jot down some stuff just isn't there. Some of it is pure laziness I admit. But some of it is also a lack of focus that everyday life seems to have taken away from me since we returned to the big smoke.

But that's all going to change from now on. The focus is back and hopefully the effort. I'm most happiest when I'm writing and pondering and researching so I just need to get back into it for my own sake as anything. But of course for all your sakes as well (sarcasm fully intended).

So herein lies my comeback post for all things Nah Seriously and a real commitment to get back on the horse. I won't make any promises however, especially with a very big week ahead, but I certainly intend to get my writing boots back on and start cracking the proverbial whip.

Come for the ride then my friends. We've had a short layover and a rest, but the journey ahead continues.

Til next time then,

EDM.