EDM Extract - Laming and Armstrong

Straight Face Tweets

You would have had to have been living under a rock to miss the Logan street violence story during the week.

What was first a neighbourhood dispute between two families quickly escalated into gang warfare between Indigenous and Pacific Islander youths, all played out on Douglas Street, Woodridge. For four days small skirmishes broke out on a regular basis with the police doing a fine effort to calm things down and often got themselves right in the firing line of metal bars and fence palings to keep the two groups apart.

Cue the media frenzy with headlines implying ‘our suburban streets are at a flashpoint’ so we had live crosses from everyone to the local ABC radio reporter to Kochie and Mel on Sunrise. Some serious questions were raised as to whether the media was actually contributing to the conflict with their sensationalist reporting, but of course they were drowned out by the latest live cross to a police press conference or opinion pieces blaming it all on out of control ‘yoofs’ and social media.

One thing that certainly did not work to resolve things and take the heat out of the situation was this tweet from Federal Liberal MP, Andrew Laming:

Andrew Laming ‏@AndrewLamingMP

Mobs tearing up Logan tonight. Did any of them do a day's work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap?

9:06 PM - 14 Jan 13

Notwithstanding the fact an elected Member of Parliament should actually be showing some leadership in a situation like this rather than inflaming things even more, this man is the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Indigenous Health.

How on earth then, can someone who so readily employs massive generalisations and racial stereotypes about Indigenous people be responsible for promoting Indigenous health and holding the Government to account on Indigenous health issues?

It’s like a card-carrying member of the NRA being Shadow Minister for Gun Control. Or Pauline Hanson being Shadow Minister for Immigration. The mind truly boggles as to how the man still has that job.

But the funniest part of the whole saga was Laming’s ‘clarification’ the next day once he’d finished wiping the $hit from his fan and no doubt after a few calls from LNP HQ. Apparently what he really meant to convey was how unfortunate the situation was and he was merely raising concerns about training and employment prospects:

Andrew Laming ‏@AndrewLamingMP

To clarify: Working together to resolve these riots the priority. Training and a chance for jobs are key.

9:51 AM - 15 Jan 13

Being a tweet, it’s hard to tell if he said it with a straight face. But being a politician, I’m sure he did and he actually thought it would work.

Death Match Cometh

The other big story for the week so far (as mentioned last week) has been the impending Armstrong vs Oprah ‘no-holds-barred’ death match coming up later today and tomorrow our time. I say death match given the way it’s been promoted with the most unintentionally funny television promo I’ve ever seen. All deep voiceover and thunderous drum beats. I’m sure Saturday Night Live could not have done a better job of satirising it to be honest.

Anyway, the whole lead-up to the interview with the early announcement and selective leaks has been so blindingly obvious in its attempt to recuperate Armstrong’s image that it may actually work in reverse. The strategies and tactics are so transparent that Media Studies 101 students could easily rip it apart for what it is.

Alas, here and here are two of the best articles I’ve read on the whole sorry saga over the last week that really demonstrate how stage-managed the event has been.

The other topic of interest with this is the role the interview will play in heavily promoting Oprah’s fledging cable television network. The network has struggled big time since its launch and Oprah needs a big ‘catch’ and a big moment to try and gain some traction and put her name back up in lights once again. Even Oprah herself is spruiking the Armstrong interview as “big for my career”.

Anyway, just some points that are worth reading about before the interview is aired in a few hours time. Millions will be glued to their televisions and I’m sure it’ll be a ‘water cooler’ discussion for the days that follow.

Just remember though that Armstrong isn’t confessing because he feels guilty and is contrite and sorry for his actions. It’s because he got caught not just for cheating, but for lying to us all for nearly a decade about the cheating. And not just in the media and in interviews. But under oath during multiple legal proceedings and court cases.

And of course there’s millions of dollars at stake. Not the most altruistic of motives.

EDM.

EDM Extract - Kicking Off 2013

Welcome to the first EDM Extract of 2013. As advised late last year, there's a few changes-a-foot at Nah Seriously and I plan to provide more regular posts but in a less comprehensive fashion.

For instance, I used to wait until some form of inspiration struck me down before jotting down my thoughts with it usually being something that got me riled up or annoyed before I'd contemplate posting. With a busy life outside Nah Seriously, these moments didn't come around as often as I liked last year so I'm trying to be more regular (insert toilet humour here) while also being a little more light-hearted and light-on in terms of content.

Well, that's the plan anyway. Let's see how we go. So herein is my first post for the year. The EDM Extract from the week that was.

================

First up we have the Tony Abbott / Peta Credlin puff piece from News Ltd papers last Sunday. For those that missed it, here it is, but the gist of it is really about an interview with Abbott's Chief of Staff, Credlin, in which she denies Abbott has a problem with women and he's really a raving mad feminist because he let her put her IVF drugs in his office fridge. Offered to burn her bra for her as well I heard.

As a bit of PR, it certainly worked with top billing in a number of Sunday News Ltd tabloids with accompanying photos and highlighted quotes. One thing that a lot of people wouldn't have known as they read the article over their weet bix and vegemite toast though, is that Credlin's husband, and a big player in her IVF quest you'd imagine, is Mr Brian Loughnane, Liberal Party Director and the man who will run Abbott's 2013 campaign for Prime Minister.

Yep, big news then and something that just demanded a two-page spread across a lot of our Sunday papers - people on Tony Abbott's payroll support him. Ground breaking stuff that. And not even the really important issue raised - the appalling lack of adequate fridge facilities in Parliament House.

Next it's the heat and all this bloody heat. The whole country has been smashed with a massive heatwave from Alice Springs to Tasmania to Weipa and even as I type there's little end in sight with Birdsville expected to hit the 50 degree mark over the next couple of days. Records have been tumbling on a daily basis both nationally and locally with the first eight days of 2013 making it into the Top 20 hottest days recorded in Australia in terms of average maximum temperature.

On Monday, the average maximum daily temperature record for Australia was broken at 40.33°C. The previous record, 40.17°C on 21 December 1972, had stood for 40 years. The average maximum daily temperature on Tuesday was a close third at 40.11°C. The number of consecutive days where the national average maximum daily temperature exceeded 39°C was also broken this week - seven days, almost doubling the previous record of four in 1973.

It's the late monsoon apparently as the cause as there's just no damn moisture in the air to bring some relief. I'd do a raindance but last time I did that roughly two years today it didn't stop for weeks.

And of course all that heat has brought us plenty of bushfires with hundreds raging across Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Now I don't mean to turn this into a Tony-fest but hey, his actions just damn well make it that. I'm referring of course to the issue of Abbott attending one of the bushfires near Nowra in southern NSW as a Rural Fire Volunteer and the controversy that followed.

Basically, Federal Minister Brendan O'Connor copped plenty for calling it a stunt on twitter and there's been calls for his resignation because of it. But I gotta say I agree. By all means Tony, fulfil your volunteer duties and strap on the fire boots and helmet. It is admirable that you remain a Rural Fire Volunteer being such a busy man and you cut short your holidays to help out. But the minute your staff (Credlin and Loughnane again) put out a media release asking news agencies to attend and interview you and film you while you sat in a truck, well then sir, it did become a 'stunt' and should be called as such.

Getting more local for you Queenslanders out there, we had the return of the Captain of Ship, Arts and IT Minister Ros Bates after two months sick leave followed by a few weeks annual leave. There had been some other leave taken earlier in the year which means the Minister has been on some form of leave for a quarter of her tenure as a Minister. All of which has occurred as controversy surrounds the appointment of her son by the suspended Transport and Main Roads Director-General, Michael Caltabiano, meaning she's been able to avoid any questioning in Parliament and by the media.

While I'm not for a second claiming any bogus-ness in relation to her fall and ill health, it's certainly nice leave if you can get it. No-one else would get two months sick leave before they'd been in a job a year so the eye-raising and tut tuts are a little justified. And before you think that's it, came the news that Caltabiano himself will have earned $130,000 while suspended from duties awaiting investigation by the Parliamentary Ethics Committee. Garden leave is the new black apparently. Only in Queensland they say.

And finally came the news that Lance Armstong is due to go on Oprah Winfrey next week. No other news about the interview just yet but it's hard to see Armstrong actually admitting too much with all sorts of legal questions remaining and sponsors threatening to sue. But then again, the man has never done things by the book so it will be interesting to see what comes out of it and whether a mea culpa is coming our way.

Who knows, but I'll leave you with a tweet from Fairfax Sports Writer Richard Hinds that sums it all up for mine.

Richard Hinds ‏@rdhinds

Oprah asks "tough" question. Lance confesses. Lance cries. Oprah forgives. Audience goes nuts. "Yellow jerseys under your seats!"

6:54 PM - 9 Jan 13

Til next time,

EDM.

EDM's Holiday Reading Once Again

Well, it's that time of the year again. Where I bid farewell for the year and provide some holiday reading for you all.

I can announce that 2013 will be bringing some changes to Nah Seriously, some of which have occurred already regarding formatting and the like. The plan though is to narrow down my subject matter a bit more into current affairs / politics and maybe even create another blog for some of my sporting writing. I'll do some thinking over the break anyway and come up with an appropriately cunning plan.

A strange old year 2012 has been on so many fronts though. I'm a little tired and jaded from the experience to be honest with so much frustrating me and causing angst. I've certainly noticed that I'm more and more switching off the mainstream media as my source of news and opinion and I'm thinking that's only going to become more prominent in 2013. Twitter has certainly added to that movement as I've been able to access more independent news sources such as New Matilda, The Global Mail and The Conversation.

Anyway, traditionally I provide a list of articles/stories for your holiday reading that I've put together throughout the year. However, this year is different and the below list is merely articles/stories from the last few weeks and even days. They should be quite topical then so here's hoping they engage you and provoke some thoughts/feelings as you too stop living life to a timetable and enjoy a break from the normal day-to-day.

So first up we have Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and the now infamous Fox News US Election moments "that will live forever".

One for the music fans and those who enjoy writing about music is this guy who must have spent an inordinate amount of time compiling the 500 worst reviews in Rolling Stone magazine.

In line with my recent post on the AFL Draft being a lottery and putting too much pressure on 17 year old kids, comes this republishing of an article by The Age's Emma Quayle on the very first AFL Draft held in 1986.

Another one from The Age is this article from Martin Flanagan that sheds some light on the experience of a grandfather of a premature birth. Flanagan is more known for his football writing but I must say I'm reading more and more of his other writing, including this one about Gough Whitlam and this one about Christopher Hitchens.

Getting political now, there's this piece in The Atlantic on the confusion and complexity of what is currently happening in Egypt. And domestically there's this blog post on the Ashby conspiracy if you don't mind a few choice words and colourful language.

There's plenty of other political articles and posts I could list here but given the year we've had both nationally and in Queensland I think we could all do with a bit of a cold shower and a nice lie-down.

Moving on to the media then, I've got Ben Eltham's take on 2012 in New Matilda here and this study of the bias of carbon price reporting from The Conversation here.

It's probably too late already but here's a great piece in The Sydney Morning Herald on the materialism of Xmas and our 'trashing of the planet for a talking piggy bank'. Very thought provoking.

And a change of pace comes from here then and a little op-ed from John Birmingham about his daughter's primary school upon her graduation to high school. One for some my family members who are teachers and hopefully enjoying a long break after a long year.

So there it is my friends. EDM's Holiday Reading for Xmas 2012.

I'll be back in 2013 I can assure you but I must say I'm looking forward to a break myself and a bit of a rejig of things here on Nah Seriously in the new year.

Til then my friends,

EDM.

Not Even A Week In Politics

Politics. It has no relation to morals, as Machiavelli once said. Ain’t that the truth.

So this week, and its only Wednesday mind you, we’ve already seen a tsunami (always wanted to say that) of ‘politics’, politicking and political scandal. And that’s not even with Parliament sitting in either Canberra or Brisbane. Both have wrapped up for the year but that hasn’t ended anything.

Number 1 would have to be the Slipper/Ashby affair. No-one has come out of it smelling roses including the likes of former Howard Minister Mal Brough and current Queensland Minister Mark McArdle. But in the end you’d have to say Ashby lost the battle but he did win the war.

As Margot Saville points out here, Justice Rares found the sexual harassment complaint was always vexatious and was made with the sole purpose of discrediting Slipper and bringing him down. “For the predominant purpose of causing a significant public, reputation and political damage to Mr Slipper” in his own words. It certainly achieved that.

But now Ashby’s reputation is also in tatters given his patsy role and he’s been handed a hefty court costs bill. Brough and McArdle have been outed as the brains behind it as well which is quite Machiavellian given Brough has been preselected by the LNP to take on Slipper at the next election. With a choice of those two, expect a massive increase in the amount of donkey votes in the seat of Fisher.

The Government itself does have some ammunition to fire back at the Opposition over the whole sorry ordeal but it’s got to be careful given it appointed Slipper to be Speaker of House in the first place and backed him in numerous motions in Parliament. Its settlement deal with Ashby of $50,000 might also be a source of some embarrassment.

Moving on, next we have Premier Newman’s backflip on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Now I’m all for the backflip as it will mean life will get just a little bit easier for thousands of Queenslanders living with a disability and their families and carers.

But what a backflip its been. In July, the Premier said categorically that Queensland could not afford the scheme until at least 2014 and he revelled in the faux stoush with the Prime Minister at COAG. And he continued to claim that Queensland just couldn’t afford to contribute to the NDIS and called for the Commonwealth to fund it entirely. He even alluded to it having the potential to make Queensland the “Spain of Australia”.

Come early December though, after a few months of horrendous media coverage as his Government lurched from one crisis to another, all of a sudden the Premier could find some money and Queensland will now contribute nearly $900 million over four years to roll out the NDIS in this State.

So not just a backflip, but a close to $1 billion backflip. And if that sort of money can be found so easily in the face of just a few months of bad polling, imagine what else is sitting under the couch cushions waiting to be retrieved. Me thinks the budget situation and the hysterical talk of ‘debt’ might be a little overstated. But hey, that’s just me.

And finally, we have the Abbott Slush Fund affair. Now many of you probably haven’t heard of this one as it’s struggled to get any traction in the mainstream media. Basically, former Fairfax journalist Margo Kingston nearly spat out her tea when watching Tony Abbott calling for the Prime Minister to come clean on the AWU slush fund issue because she remembers Abbott having some very serious questions raised about his very own involvement in a slush fund controversy.

Margo duly set about writing an article about it all before having all sorts of troubles getting anyone in the mainstream media to publish it. Along came Independent Australia and New Matilda who duly published and now there’s quite a campaign running asking the Australian Electoral Commission why it dropped an early 2000s investigation into Abbott’s conduct around the Australian’s for Honest Politics Slush Fund established to pursue Pauline Hanson for electoral fraud. You know, the case that put her in jail and all that.

The whole saga is better outlined by others here and here. Perhaps though it’s actually a case of some ‘good’ in politics as opposed to the two other examples above. Not from any politician or political party themselves, but from real people and citizen journalists who are working tirelessly to uncover an important issue that goes right to the character of our alternative Prime Minister.

But as I said, its only Wednesday. Who knows what else ‘politics’ will bring us before the week is out.

EDM.